This is my first post, and I have been reading all of these threads relating to my dilemma, but just want to get feedback and advice on the subject. I'm sure it will be similar feedback to others on the site, but if it's directed at me, maybe I'll really take it into account more seriously. THE BACKSTORY So I'm a 22 years old closeted gay, and having confusing thoughts about my best friend. I've known him since 9th grade (so 8 years now), and I've liked him for almost that entire time, off and on. In High School, I really started understanding that I was gay (or I thought Bi at the time) and it was a very depressing, and confusing time for me. I came out to a couple of my girl friends, (saying I was Bi) and was telling them how I was having feelings for my best friend. He hadn't had a girlfriend and didn't really talk about girls around me, so I had hopes that he would also be gay/bi. My girl friends were talking me through it and in 10th grade, I finally decided to write him a letter, saying that I was bi, since I couldn't do it in person. I gave it to him, and there really wasn't a response. Since I was obviously hoping he was gay/bi too I was looking for an immediate answer, and not giving him time to process it. A few days passed, it was awkward. After a week or 2 ( I can't remember) of him sort of avoiding me, I bailed on what I said and told him I was just confused and didn't really mean that I was bi. It was still awkward for a few months after that, but we became good friends again over summer. The rest of high school was fine, I didn't really have those feelings for him again. I still didn't know what he thought about the whole bi thing, since he didn't really talk about it at all... but I was still curious about what he had to say. Once college came, I moved away about 2 hours, but we still kept in contact and he'd visit every once in a while. Again no feelings really, maybe every once in a while, but nothing drastic like high school. College was the first time he really was talking about girls, then our sophomore year, he got a girlfriend. We kind of grew apart, since he had someone else to talk to now, but we still kept in contact. THE PROBLEM NOW He and his girlfriend had been going out for 2 years and it looked serious, I thought they were going to get married, but she unexpectedly broke up with him about a month ago. He came up here a week after it happened to get away. It was very weird with him up here though because he was being rather close to me and then that's when it started happening. I started having feelings for him again. I knew he wasn't gay though so I shrugged it off. I figured (and still assume) that it was just because his girlfriend wasn't there and he "needed" to be close to something. The feelings I had weren't powerful, but were there. He came up this last weekend too with a few guy friends, but now he was being very touchy. For example, he was on the couch with me and I was just sitting there. He then suddenly started to lay on my shoulder, like chicks do to their boyfriends. I thought he was joking around but he kept doing it, getting more and more comfortable on me. He'd even get up, get a drink, come back, and lay back down on me. The other guys there were making some gay remarks but that didn't faze him. After a while of him doing this I put my arm around him with my hand on his chest, and left it there for a minute or two. I then thought "WTF am I doing?!?!" so I took my hand off. After a few more minutes he got up and sat there. We all then left to go to a bar and met up with a girl he knew from our hometown. I figured he called her up maybe as a rebound or something. Everyone went out to the dance floor after a few drinks; I stayed with him and the girl while the other guys tried finding girls to dance with. I was expecting him to dance with her, but he was sort of dancing with me... Maybe it was just because I was staying by him but I felt like he was. He wasn't AS touchy the rest of the weekend, but it just really confused me. As soon as they all left, the feelings hit me hard. Then the next day I was thinking "I should of talked with him about it." but, I didn't. MY PLAN NOW I was going to have a talk with him, come home for the weekend and meet up. I texted him that I wanted to talk, and he said I could call him, but I said I wanted to do it face to face. That won't happen anytime soon though since I found out he's going out of state for a month for a job. I have to wait a month, but this will give me time to think about what I want to do and say. I want to say a few points, the main being that I want closure from high school. I really don;t want to bring up the "I love you" thing, because for all I know he may have believed me when I said I was joking about being bi, and this will be another shock. I doubt it though, now that we've known each other this long. Still I want to update it to say that I'm actually gay and just see how he feels about it, see if anything comes from it. Now that we are older, I think it will go over better. After that, I don't know what else to bring up. I'm not being hopeful that anything will happen with him, but I'm hoping this will maybe stop the feelings if I hear exactly how he feels about the whole Gay thing. It would kill me if I lost him, so I don't want to bombard him with too much info. ADVICE? -What else should I bring up? I don't know how to bring up the touching without him drawing suspicion that I have feelings for him. -Should I actually call or facechat? Since were far away and he will have time to think about it or should I just wait?
I honestly feel like Facechat or Skype...something of that sort would be good in this situation. That way if he doesn't take it too well, he can have some time to think about it over the month he is gone. On the other hand, being friends for so long, it might make him happy that you decided to actually be up front with him about it. Who know, maybe he reacted with these touchy feelings with you because he recalled what you told him in high school. But I wouldn't assume that off the back. I've had some straight friends do some pretty gay things with me, but it's just because they are confident in their sexuality...at least I think haha. I probably wouldn't bring up the touching until you see how he reacts about you being gay, you never know how much of a difference it could make. Good luck though, let me know how it goes ^_^
Thanks for the feedback! I know nothing will come out of it, relationship-wise, but its hard to force your brain to think that! Especially having strong feelings for the person, but I'm hoping coming out again will help alleviate the feelings. I'll see if he can skype or something but if not, maybe I'll just call him. I'm starting to freak out a bit though and almost want to just write an email so that I say everything as perfectly as I can and say something like "When you're ready or if you want to talk about it, call me and we can go over it more." I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! So many choices!:lol:
So, If anyone was wondering, I decided to wait until he came back to tell him, and I'm actually surprised I did. He came and visited with a few friends and all they talked about were women and dumb "would you rather?" questions. I couldn't relate to anything they were talking about and would just be quiet. They all could tell something was up but I didn't say anything; I couldn't "come out" face-to-face. I ended up sending him an email after he left, and he was completely ok with it. He said that we both have grown since high school and that he didn't react very well before and was sorry. It didn't matter what I was, I would always be his friend. I didn't bring up the touchiness with him (I made a different forum for that) because i figured that would be too much. Thank you whoever read this and thanks HeyBeard for the advice!
