You missed out on a chance there.  She would probably have told you that there's two kinds of gay men.  The 'manly' gays, and the more gentle feminine type.  It's quite reasonable to divide them roughly in your head into 'providers', the ones who go out to work, and the housewife types.

It's the same with the lesbians.  There's the 'butch' type , who probably should have been a boy, who drives trucks or mends cars for her living.  And there's the little dolly bird 'lipstick lesbians' who probably spend more time looking in the mirror than they should.  In between there's the ones who just quietly get on with it and you'd probably never guess.

Both types can be good company for a straight male as long as you know the score and don't get confused between friendship and anything more intimate.

As a writer you are writing about people, who are infinitely more complex than mere stereotypes.  People only spend a small fraction of their time making love, so the storyline should be about something else in their lives..

There's a popular conception that lesbians hate men.  In my experience most of them don't. They're just wired differently and find other women attractive.  And even then it's usually one particular type which appeals to them, just as we males have our favourites.  The truly indiscriminate are far more rare than gossip suggests.

Therefore writing about people who are different from yourself isn't such a problem.  95% of the time they have far more in common with you than you might think if you fall into the trap of just playing with the stereotypes.

People are people.  The only ones I truly fall out with are the blatant manipulators, who understand some other people only too well and use it selfishly.

Gyppo

I understand all that, it was the mechanics themselves that were more mysteriously conjured that intrigued me. There does seem to be a bit of a difference when there are so many options for this or that, or not options for the other things.