When Alexa came out, one of her straight friends flew across the country to visit. The friend's first question: do you think I'm hot in a gay way?
"If I thought you were hot in a gay way, you would not be my friend," Alexa told her.
That moment, recounted on this week's episode of Booked & Busy, lands on the single most universal fear of coming out: that your straight friends will think you have a crush on them. Phoenix puts it plainly: "That's your biggest fear when you're coming out is like your straight friends thinking you have a crush on them."
Alexa lost friends over it. "I had so many of my straight friends thought I had a crush on them and I was like, this isn't about you."
The problem with making someone else's coming out about you
Ponton brought her core friend group onto the podcast for Pride Month, and the conversation pivoted fast from book chat to the mechanics of coming out. For Alexa, the experience was defined less by family rejection and more by friends who centered themselves in her story.
She came out to close friends first, then started dating a woman. When the out-of-town friend arrived and learned Alexa had a girlfriend, the questions started. "She's like, 'Well, do you think I'm hot like in a gay way?' And I was like, 'No.'"
The subtext: if you were attractive to me, I would have told you by now. Or not been your friend in the first place.
Alexa is not alone. The group nods in recognition. It is apparently so common that Phoenix names it as the default anxiety before anyone even knows you are queer.
Her hometown friends sent a group text asking "what the fuck is this"
Alexa's coming-out method varied by recipient. She called her mother and delivered thirty facts about her girlfriend in one breath, then hung up. She never told her father directly. She mailed him a shirt that said "my daughter's gay" and let him figure it out.
Her sister was supportive. Her hometown friends in Florida were not. She sent the news in a group chat. They replied: "What the fuck is this?"
She is no longer friends with most of them.
BookTok makes it harder to have your own opinion
Before Pride talk, the group debated whether BookTok is dead. Phoenix does not watch BookTok at all. Her reasoning: other people's opinions ruin books.
"BookTok for me is really discouraging," she says. "I would be so consumed with all of the opinions I had circulating that I wouldn't be able to actually have a singular experience reading the book."
Alexa agrees. She read A Court of Thorns and Roses after everyone told her she would love it. "The whole book I was just thinking like I should love this, I should love this, I should love this, and like I didn't love it that much."
Phoenix thinks the problem is structural. When everyone online is losing their mind over Colleen Hoover, and you pick up the book and feel nothing, the conclusion is not that the book is bad. The conclusion is that reading is not for you.
"You might not like the books that BookTok likes," Phoenix says. She gravitates toward long, winding sentences that mirror her own thoughts. Demon Copperhead. The Martyr. Not romance with a lot of dialogue.
The friend group ranks book adaptations, deletes Off Campus immediately
Ponton forces the group to play bracket: eliminate book adaptations one by one until only the best remains. Off Campus, Twilight, Divergent, Harry Potter, Hunger Games.
Off Campus goes first. They all just finished it. The verdict: reality TV in book form, watchable but not defensible against Harry Potter.
Twilight goes next. Alexa and Phoenix have never made it past twenty minutes. "No one's talking to one another like that," Alexa says. Ponton, who rewatches it annually, concedes it gets cringier every year. Robert Pattinson is embarrassed by it. They all know.
The final battle is Hunger Games versus Harry Potter. Ponton fights for Potter. "Harry Potter is the foundation of imagination."
The rest vote Hunger Games. "Hunger Games took that and beat it," someone says.
Ponton loses. Hunger Games wins.
If your family is homophobic, do not come out until you are safe
The group closes with advice for anyone in the process of coming out. Alexa: experiment, do not label yourself if you do not want to, try something twice before deciding you hate it. She thought she was asexual after one bad experience with a woman. She tried again. She was not asexual.
But the most urgent advice comes at the end: "If you don't feel safe coming out in your situation, don't do it until you're moved out and you're safe."
Tell a friend you trust. Do not tell a family that will hurt you.
And when you do come out, brace yourself for the straight friend who will ask if you think she is hot.