All the Good Men Are Gay

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"All the good ones are either married or gay."

A woman looking for Mr. Right eventually finds a great guy with all the right things she's looking for - but it turns out he's homosexual, leading to the dismissive statement about straight men. This is loaded with the Unfortunate Implications that only (and all) gay men possess the qualities - tenderness, consideration, etc. - women want and heterosexual men are pretty much primitive cavemen or perverted Jerkasses who don't know how to act in public and treat other people.

Ironically, there is no shortage of gay men saying the reverse: that all the good men are taken or straight, admiring the stereotypical positive traits of straight men (masculine mannerisms, straightforward with emotions, laid back attitude, etc.). There's some Truth in Television here though; given human nature, healthy relationships are a seller's market - the most desired goods are either "previously purchased" or otherwise "unavailable for sale"—on both sides.

Compare to Incompatible Orientation, where she may still love him despite his orientation. Also compare Sorry, I'm Gay where he may actually be straight and still trying to ward off her advances. The Fag Hag is this trope turned Up to Eleven and happens if the woman in question eventually gives up on straight men and prefers the company of gay men, even though she knows she will never get any of them. This may be the attitude the Last Het Romance of a gay man takes after he outs himself.

Examples of All the Good Men Are Gay include:

Advertising

  • Happens in this ad by an insurance company; not only the good men, but all men in the world are gay.

Film

  • In the movie P.S. I Love You, Lisa Kudrow's character repeatedly asks out guys by asking them first if they are single, then asking if they're gay.
  • Happens—oh so much—in Love and Other Disasters.
  • Zack and Miri Make a Porno—Miri's high school crush returns to their small town for a high school reunion. Well...he brought his boyfriend.
  • In a rare gender swap of this, the main character of Chasing Amy finally finds the perfect girl for himself: she's smart, funny, attractive, witty, creative, and talented. But she's a lesbian.
  • Played for laughs in In and Out, where after Emily (played by Joan Cusack) finds out her fiancee is actually gay, she hits on another man, who also is gay. The result is a bit of a Heroic BSOD and the Crowning Moment of Funny in the movie.
  • In Clueless, the female main character falls for an attractive male classmate, who turns out to be gay.
  • Comes up in the Alex Rider movie -- Jack, the American housekeeper, mentions that "the problem with this country is that all the good-looking men are either gay or married."
  • Happens in many a Lifetime Movie of the Week film.

Live-Action TV

Every time I meet a man, he's either gay or a bear.

"Every time I met a man, he's either married, gay, or getting eaten by a giant octopus."

"Every time I meet a guy, he's either gay or Batman...sometimes both!"

  • Frasier episode "Out With Dad". Martin pretends to be gay, to fend off the advances of an older woman. When asked by her daughter, she sighs, "Opera queen" in a tone that clearly states they're quite common. Subverted when Martin's gay act makes him a perfect target for the daughter's uncle.
    • It must be noted that Martin only goes along with her when she assumes he's gay when he stumbles over why he can't date her.
  • Doctor Who, 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' gives us this exchange, after Donna notices some 1920s-style Ho Yay.

Donna: 'All the decent men are on the other bus.'
The Tenth Doctor: 'Or Time Lords.' (Make of that what you will.)

  • In one episode of The War at Home, Kenny complimented on Hillary, Larry's sister and eventually spent a lot of time with her. Hillary proposed Kenny to be her boyfriend by kissing him, but Kenny avoid himself from the kiss because he's got a crush on Larry (hence he's gay). But then he's Flying Under the Gaydar, so he had to lie that he doesn't want to be her boyfriend because he wants to treat her like a sister.
  • On Eureka, after discovering that her New Old Flame is actually a Ridiculously Human Robot, Jo complains that all the good ones are "either married, gay, or robots".
  • Subverted by the Modern Family third-season episode "Treehouse". After inverting Sorry, I'm Gay when Cameron wins a bet with Mitchell and their likewise-gay friend Longinus by getting a woman at the bar to give him her phone number (funnier still when you keep in mind that Eric Stonestreet is straight in real life), Cameron winds up getting close enough to her to not want to let her know until Mitchell shames him into doing it. But when he does, after hiding any evidence of Mitchell or Lily from their apartment before she comes over, it turns out that she knew all along; she just wanted to have a gay male friend because it would be cool. He then rebukes her for viewing him through a tropish lens (perhaps angry that his portrayal didn't fool her), and then just as Mitchell returns the episode subverts its own subversion: she makes the angry, hurt speech you'd expect if the show had simply played the trope (ahem) straight.

Music

  • Described in the spoof country song, "All the Men I've Loved are Either Married, Gay or Dead".
  • The Weezer song "Pink Triangle" is about a man who finds his dream woman, only to discover that she's a lesbian.
  • The Robbie Williams song "Supreme" includes the line "And all the best women are married, and all the handsome men are gay."

Theatre

  • In the one-act play This Phone Will Explode At The Tone, the following exchange occurs:

Woman 2: All the guys who aren't scum are married, or gay, or -
Woman 1: Becoming priests.

Video Games

Web Comics

Girl 1: I can't believe he's gay! Not That There's Anything Wrong with That. I'm just upset that I can't ask him out.
Girl 2: Don't you already have a boyfriend?
Girl 1: Of course I do. He's right here.
Boyfriend: I am less than happy right now.

  • Fletcher of Nothing Nice to Say actively attacks this trope in one strip, when a woman at a bar utters it practically word for word. His response? "You mean, why are the only guys you find non-threatening the ones with no possible ulterior motives to sleep with you? Yeah, the mind boggles." Fletcher is, perhaps rather obviously, far from the best example to the contrary of this trope...
  • Played with in Girls Only, where at a school with over 400 girls and 32 men, they only think that the men are all gay. It turns out, they're actually straight, they just like to pretend so that their fanservice they deal out allows them to be given better treatment.
  • Played with in Shortpacked. Amber's mom comes to visit, and is initially unimpressed with her boyfriend Mike. She would rather her daughter pursue her gay friend Ethan ("I hear they can fix these people in camps"). When one of Amber's other co-workers runs past screaming in terror because two beautiful women want to have sex with him,[1] Amber's mom asks if there are any straight people in this town. Amber says it's just her and Mike, to which her mom replies "No wonder."

Web Original

Western Animation

  • Happens twice on Futurama:
    • The gang is at a club, and Bender's built in gaydar shoots down the girls' hopes when they see good looking men. ...Or he's getting interference from a gay weather balloon.
    • A Gym Bunny comes along and tries to wrest Leela away from Fry, but when Fry just gives up because he reckons it's already half-hopeless between him and Leela anyway, the other guy reveals he's a professional beach bully; a guy like Fry ponies up a couple hundred bucks, the muscular guy comes along and starts hitting on the nerd's girlfriend, then backs down when the nerd stands up to him in a staged fight, and the bully leaves with the girlfriend duly impressed. Leela decides she really does prefer the bully, and guess what: He's gay.
  • A lampshading occurs at one point in The Simpsons when the recently-widowed Ned Flanders begins dating again, and his date comments that she's so glad that he's the way he is and not gay.
    • Another one had a waitress lament that "All the good men are either gay or have no face!" It Makes Sense in Context. (Granted, she was saying this about a paroled criminal and Sideshow Bob, so she's not exactly the best judge of character).
  • Inverted in The Critic. Everyone assumes Jay is gay, despite his insistence he's not. Love interest Alice tells her ex-husband (who is hitting on her) that Jay is not gay, then sings to Jay later:

Alice: (singing) Jay, I'm glad you're not gay. / I may show you why someday. (kisses Jay)
Jay: Yay!

Real Life

  • As a matter of cultural opinion, Japanese women have the lowest average opinion of the romantic ability of their own country's male population, compared to women from any other country who have rated their own men. Japan is also a country where women (of all ages and social backgrounds) are far more likely to be fans of the Boys Love, and these relationships are usually portrayed with far more frank romance than Japanese straight relationships. So, as a female Japanese culture-wide attitude, All The Good Men Are Gay. Or are from Korean soap operas.
  1. ↑ It Makes Sense in Context - he's a recovering sex addict
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