Hey guys, I am 19 years old and came out a little over a month ago to my close friends, my parents, and brother. I knew I was interested in men when I developed strong feelings for my best friend. I have a very strong feeling that this friend is interested in me as well, but I believe he is a closeted bisexual. Our friendship has gotten alot stronger, and I don't want to confess my feelings for him and end up screwing everything up. He means alot to me, and even if he didn't return the feelings I want him to always be in my life. A little background on our friendship - we met in elementary school, and have been inseperable since. Throughout the years, we became closer, and I developed feelings for hm, stronger than a friend level. We hung out on a daily basis, and texted pretty regularly when we could not hang out. Now he has an overly possessive girlfriend, who controls him in ways unimagineable, so we don't see eachother as much anymore. What makes me think he is bisexual - He loves to flaunt his body, especially around other hot guys. (an example is when playing beer pong with another guy, they both take their shirts off and hang all over eachother and seems to enjoy it) When we talk to eachother one on one, he listens very hard to what I am saying and looks deep into my eyes, and always is smiling. Even after coming out to him, he is cool with sharing a bed with me. I could go on and on with little things, but the biggest thing is what happened just a couple days ago- we were drinking a little bit, and we somehow got onto the conversation of how much love we have for eachother. I told him that he is my best friend and I love him more than anyone, and he said that he loves me too. He also said that he has trouble expressing his feelings. And one last thing - A little over a year ago, as my feelings for him deepened, I began to get more affectionate to him, i.e. hugging him more often. He didn't say anything at first, but after a while he blew up at me saying why do you want to hug me all the time ? So since then I haven't tried that again haha. But the other night, we hugged numerous times, and not a fast hug, but a drawn out, tight hug that lasted a lot more than the quick 3 second hug. I just don't know if I am reading too much into these things or if I am actually right. I don't want to tell him and ruin anything. Please help!! Does it seem like he could be interested in me? Any straight guy would be freaked out if their best friend came out to them, right? All he did was grin from ear to ear and immediately want to tell his girlfriend. I am so confused, I have a very strong instinct that I am right about this, but there is so much on the line... Do you guys have any advice or more signs that I should look for? Thank you so much for taking the time to read this!
Hello there Well, this is not a guy speaking, but it seems to me that your friend must have noticed you have feelings for him. And it doesn't seem freaked out by it - on the contrary, it seems like he could be a bit interested in you as well. I'd say, tell him how you're feeling. You said you're afraid of screwing things up, but your friend does love you, and he has told you so. Even if these feelings aren't mutual, I don't think he would react badly. Just my two cents, though. :rolle: The best of luck
First, welcome to EC! I hope you stick around and milk this site for all its wisdom. Now in response to your post. The way I see it there are two possibilities. One, you tell him you love him and he tells you he loves you back and you guys kiss and love each other forever. The second and more probable possibility, you tell him you're in love and he reminds you that he is straight and doesn't have those kind of feelings for you. Then your friendship becomes beyond the word awkward or, in the worst case, inexistent. I don't know your friend though. Maybe he would just tell you he doesn't feel that way and be unaffected by it. I guess that could happen but why bother if he might not reciprocate. You need to think about what's more important to you. Having him as a friend the same way you do now or confessing your love for him? Unless he tells you he is anything then straight, then you should do nothing. You need to work on getting over him because there is really no way of knowing his sexuality without him telling you. As for how to get over him, I don't know. Please get back to me when you've cracked that puzzle. I'm sorry if I'm coming across as mean but I'm just trying to be honest with you.
Hey man! First of all welcome to EC! Now having been in a pretty similar situation myself I feel like I can offer a bit of advice, and that is that you should give it some time. I know you've probably already thought about this, but you are pretty young. This guy's probably the first guy you've ever had a real emotional attachment to, right? And you should maybe give him a little more credit. He's not just some 'straight guy' - he's your best mate. That should transcend sexuality. I've shared beds with dudes that I'm friends with - all straight - and it meant nothing. If you think he would be comfortable with it, tell him. Just say that you are beginning to develop feelings for him and it's making you uncomfortable. Direct the focus away from him. My other advice would be to get out there. Spend a little time apart. If you focus all your attention on this guy who may or may not be gay, you're hardly opening yourself up for new things, hey? All the best man! Josh
Notice that no one so far said to look for more signs. That's because you need to deal with it somehow rather than simply going on looking for signs, guessing, hoping...because in that case you can never move on. I'd say tell him. But, there are ways you could do it in a non-threatening way, with the focus entirely on you. One thought: when you have one of your conversations, tell him that you'd really like to have a boyfriend, but you are having a hard time meeting gay guys that interest you, heck, even your best friend (him!) is the perfect candidate but he's straight so you're even out of luck there (with a little smirk).
Hi,my advice would be to respect him as a very good friend,friends like him are hard to find. Whatever you suspect him to be,you should take his word and if he says hes straight then you have to treat him as such. Olides84 has some good advice,telling him in a non threatening way also gives him an opening to say he may be interested because he is bi,but dont get your hopes up or push the issue.As you should know,coming out of the closet is something you can only do when you are ready. Dont put your life on hold,waiting for something that may never happen. PS:- just realised your new,wecome to EC.
My personal take is that he's totally cool with you being gay. He perhaps subliminally picks up on your interest in him, and likes it. (It's nice to be wanted, even if you don't want that person back.) But I don't get much sense that he's interested in guys in general, or you in specific. There are three paths to take here. None of them are ideal, but if one was, you probably would've figured it out on your own. Best suggestion at the top, worst one at the bottom. 1. Ask. Do your best to do so impassively. Don't say "You're totally bi - look at the way you do such-and-such!" Say something more along the lines of "I can't say I've got much in the way of gaydar, but every once in a while, things you do or say sort of set me wondering." 2. Go fishing. As csm suggested, talk about how you've had issues finding a guy. Talk about how you don't know anybody else who's interested in guys, and so they can't commiserate with you. That'll be an opening for him to tell you you're wrong if you in fact are. 3. Don't talk - act. Next time you give him a hug, make it last longer. Next time you share a bed, cuddle up with him. Make a blatant pass at him. This is most likely to get you laid, but it's also most likely to end the friendship. Lex
I had a situation kind of similar to yours. When I came out to one of my best friends, he immediately asked if I liked him (I said no). He gave me a really long and tight hug that day (though you could understand that, given the situation). The next day he told me he thought he'd make a good bisexual, and two days later he told me about how he had kissed a gay friend of his because he kept asking him to. Then, the day after, he told me lots of things about his penis :eek:... Once he wrote his name with flowers on my car's trunk :icon_eek:. We have slept right next to each other. He usually sits closer to me than I'd feel comfortable if we weren't such good friends, with our legs and shoulders touching. He looks at me really hard when I'm telling him something. Yesterday I asked him how he had felt when I told him I was gay, and he told me the only fear he'd had was that I might like him, because then he wouldn't have known how to treat me and things would have gotten really awkward between us. What I'm getting at is what others have said: I wouldn't keep looking for signs. Telling him might not be a bad idea if you really feel it's unbearable to keep feeling this way, but I think if you do, you should follow olides84's advice and make it non-threatening, and not expect him to reciprocate. It sucks, but happy touchy eye-staring flower-writing friends sometimes just happen to be straight... (I could be wrong, though... You know your friend better than any of us could, and you know better how he might react after learning you like him whether he does or doesn't like you back... Just keep in mind that sometimes feelings make us see things in a slightly distorted way)
in regards to you thinking he might like guys the way he 'flaunts' his body around other guys, i tyhink we should all know that straight guys are very homo-erotic. that doesnt make them gay, it just means they like to joke with each other. like was stated, the chances of him liking you back are slim, and thats the harsh reality of it.
