sivvy

i'm endlessly fascinated by the way both these men are so overwhelmingly repressed yet it plays out in such different ways for each of them

to me wilson is someone who is repressed in such a way that he's constantly fighting his feelings for house/attraction to men in general - while house's brand of repression has resulted in house burying his feelings so deep he isn't even aware of them

so when people mistake them for a couple (and when wilson catches house jerking off) wilson gets flustered and nervous bc deep down he doesn't feel secure in his straight man status.

house is chill and makes gay jokes and doesn't mind pretending they're a couple because, unlike wilson, he has successfully convinced himself he's a straight man

in fact, at this point i very much see house's gay jokes as his own way of continually proving to himself that he's straight

"see? look how comfortable i am with my straightness! i make gay jokes every day. i don't care if people think my best friend and i are a couple. i can talk about men being hot. i'm just that secure."

(there's also the fact that wilson is obsessed with being "normal" and house actively tries to be as edgy as possible - but still, the frequency with which house's brain seems to instantly, specifically go to gay jokes in a given situation is...sure something. and there's a whole other conversation to be had about the way comphet has affected them differently in the sense that wilson still clings to the Straight Man American Dream concept whereas house let go of that a long time ago. but that's another post).

anyway, i feel like another reason house is able to be more comfortable than wilson is - despite the repression and in his own weird way - house sort of has acknowledged his attraction to men?

the thing is, he's done it in such a way that he can logic his way out of admitting he's queer. of course he admired other guys' asses in the locker room in school - all guys do that, right? yeah he's thought about sex with nearly every single coworker regardless of gender - but hey, all that says about him is that he's a perv. maybe he looks at the man sometimes when he watches porn - whatever, he was looking at the woman too and that's all that matters. he's enjoying the thought of wilson in a porno because it's funny and it's embarrassing to wilson that's it there's no other reason he's so enraptured by that film (stop thinking about it)

tl;dr:

wilson's repression is more active and his attraction to men lies just below the surface of his subconscious - deep down he's insecure in his straight man status, which is why he gets so flustered every time somebody mistakes him and house for a couple