In “You’re the Only Friend I Need”, Heredia shows how Noel and (especially) Fabio are othered gender-wise by both their male and female peers. Throughout the story, the two friends are thoroughly ignored by the boys of their school. Outside of the bounds of this story’s timeline, it is implied that Noel and Fabio were long ago abandoned by the other boys because of “the secret that everyone knows, but no one braves themselves to say” (p. 35). They possess mannerisms which position them as “less than” their male peers, because of how societally, AMAB people who adopt femininity are not just seen as vaguely strange, but also are looked down upon for “giving up” masculine power which is supposed to be coveted by all members of society.
Fabio ends up getting into a fist-fight with a popular girl after she calls him an offensive term because of his femininity, which Heredia describes as “unapologetic and exuberant.” It is important to note how this resistance on his part is positioned within the story. This reaction is not seen as Fabio reclaiming some level of masculine violence, but on the contrary, cements that Fabio is less than a “proper” boy is supposed to be. It’s implied that his male peers wouldn’t even have deigned to fight a girl, because doing so would be construed as putting themselves on an equal playing field as her. “After Fabio’s fight, there was no question,” Heredia writes. “Fabio was a girl-fighting maricon, and Noel, by association, was maricon adjacent, far too close to be considered straight” (p. 36). Even in fighting, which is typically considered a very cis-het male pursuit, Fabio’s context has doomed him to not-quite-boyhood, not-quite-girlhood.
When Noel decides to wear a less stereotypically-feminine outfit when going to the party with Fabio and Ren, Fabio is again quick to lash out, especially after Noel describes his decision as wanting “to look more cool than girly” (p. 39). This, again, is an understandable reaction after Fabio has spent his entire adolescence being scorned by almost everyone he knows for expressing any amount of femininity. A bit earlier in the story, when Ren is putting on makeup, Fabio is described as looking “as if he’s found a pearl after searching long and hopelessly in the dark,” and is lost for words. Finally, someone Fabio looks up to is offering a path which doesn’t acquiesce to the default ideal of what someone like him should want to be. However, his walls immediately spring back up when Noel expresses less comfort in himself looking girly and says it’s uncool, which once again places Fabio’s desires at the bottom of the familiar societal hierarchy. He had been vulnerable enough to take the leap into presenting fully feminine, which Heredia established that he tries to do only when he feels safe, and is met with his best friend unexpectedly orienting himself with masculine ideals after all. No wonder Fabio’s so defensive – it takes so little for his true self to be denigrated, explicitly by the gender-conforming boys and girls around him, and even implicitly, when Noel unthinkingly expresses that girliness can’t be cool, and that coolness is what they should strive toward.
I really enjoyed reading this take on Fabio. I think when I first read the piece, I saw Fabio as more of the outgoing and stereotypical gay flamboyant type (the stereotype that society tends to put on gay people- which is, yes, problematic), however it did not sit right with me because of the author and the context of the story. I appreciate the nuance presented here in how even his attempts at stereotypical masculinity fall short and the emphasis on when he is comfortable does he outwardly display his femininity. This post made me have more empathy towards Fabio, because I saw it more from Noel’s point of view: his friend criticizing his attempt at exploring his identity, but I think that the criticism more displayed his insecurities and need for validation.
I really appreciated your focus on this aspect of Fabio’s character as, like another commenter pointed out, it can be easy to read feminine queer men as stereotypes and nothing more. You mention the isolation that Fabio and Noel experience as a result of their gender-nonconformity, and I wonder your perspective on how the violence of being ignored influences the way the characters navigate the new world they step into. What does it mean for Fabio to take the soft violence he has suffered and turn it back upon its perpetrators in the tangible?