Every year, there is someone whom the gay question dogs persistently, and for 2008, that person is apparently Chace Crawford, or as we prefer to call him, Nate Archibald, sensitive anti-hero of Gossip Girl, the Greatest Show Ever. Many things have fueled this rumor: Chace's girlish good looks; the photos of him, early in his career, wearing chaps; his preference for Merlot over a more masculine beverage. But foremost is his friendship with a certain member of N'Sync. Now, we've been as happy as anyone to speculate. But it's time we address something about this rumor that's struck us as fundamentally off from the beginning.

It would be one thing if the N'Sync member Chace was palling around with was Lance Bass, who came out via People and a book named Out of Sync, and if it were a member of the Backstreet Boys, we might suggest he wants it that way. But it's not. It's JC Chasez, with whom Chace shares a manager. And! "For the record, we’re both straight,” Chasez declared to KISS-FM today. "We're not dating. The only time people usually see us together is in some type of photograph, so they just assume that it’s like that." Fine, but we think he's missing an important point. What this rumor is really about is not Nate's confusion about his sexuality, it is about America's confusion over members of N'Sync. We know it's been a long time since we've thought about N'Sync, so to refresh your memories, we have provided the below photos.

JC Chasez Is Not Dating Chace Crawford [Us]