Look, not all gay men walk fast, but enough do that it has briskly become a stereotype that we gays are quick to claim.
“A couple months ago, I was shopping with my girlies, and one of them commented, ‘Slow down—you started walking a lot faster after you came out,’” one Reddit user said recently.
“It comes with the card,” another replied.
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Those comments came in a recent r/askgaybros discussion about why the heteros walk so much slower than their homosexual counterparts.
“Every straight person does tell me I walk fast as sh*t, [as] if I got somewhere to be [and] I’m trying to get there, lol,” a Reddit user wrote.
“Same,” another person said. “The sooner I’m there, the sooner I can be done.”
As commenters chatted about walking “at a gay pace,” one said that he was on strike at the moment and that he was constantly lapping his fellow picketers. Another said that he hosted straight friends in his overseas city “kept losing them, like, three blocks behind” as they toured around. (“Ya gotta love ’em,” he added. “They’re like adorable sloths.”)
The Reddit users on that thread also offered theories, many of which were cheeky, about why the straights walk slower, and we’re recapping those hypotheses below (with responses edited for brevity and readability).
Genetic differences
“Straight people have a mutation in a specific gene, and the mutation affects their walking speed and their fashion sense.”
“It can’t be only one gene, because I walk fast and my fashion sense is completely nonexistent.”
“Must be a heterozygote then.”
Years not spent in the closet
“Gays walk fast because we spent time in the closet, and now we’re trying to catch up on lost time.”
“It’s because they’ve never experienced the kind of dread that comes from walking home from school while a gay middle school kid whose closet door is glass. Going into hyperspace along a poorly traveled route was the best defense I had—learned that really quickly.”
A lack of agenda
“Don’t listen to all of these liars. The real reason that straight people walk so slowly is because they are not part of our agenda. You must walk fast when you are trying to take over the world… Be gay, do crime, overthrow the government, and walk fast.”
“Also, I have places to be, and my time is valuable. I can’t gain societal approval by being a ridiculous overachiever if I don’t value my time.”
Less of a sex life
“Straight people don’t have six Grindr hookups scheduled on a single day.”
Less leg muscle
“They don’t spend as much time on leg day, if at all, compared to the gays. We’re literally built for speed.”
Fewer bops
“If you really want to know the actual answer, it’s because straight people do not have ‘A Thousand Miles’ by Vanessa Carlton playing on repeat in their head 24/7/365… After all, I’m makin’ my way downtown walkin’ fast, faces pass, and I’m homebound!”
“I just hear a RuPaul runway remix in my head, and some Charlie XCX song, too.”
“Trixie Mattel said it’s because we have the song ‘Womanizer’ in our heads playing on replay.”
“I walk to the beats per minute of ‘Toxic.’ Constantly.”
Related*
30 tweets about gays and walking fast that are categorically true
It’s a scientific fact that gay people walk faster than straight people… OK, OK, maybe it’s not a scientific fact, but it’s definitely a #fact.
