Hello! This is the first time i have ever posted on here. but i have an dilemma, so im not out to any of my friends yet. However, one of my friends who i have known for just over a year has always been outwardly homophobic. However over the last few months i have noticed that he has stopped using terms like fag, and queer in an offensive way and has completely stopped with all homophobic behavior. Then a couple of weeks ago we were hanging out, just the two of us and he began to ask me questions like if i ever planned on having kids, i told him that i i absolutely wanted kids. But then he began asking me if i was open to adopting kids and me knowing that im gay and will never have kids told him that i would never have kids of my own and would adopt all of my kids. Then he immediately began asking me whether i thought that if someone were gay if they could still be "manly" if they could still like football and sports and things like that. At this point I started freaking out in my head wondering whether or not he was questioning me or not. Then thinking about it later i realized that he may be questioning himself, and/or may be gay himself. So my question is not whether you think he is gay or not, because i could go on forever analyzing his every move trying to figure out whether he is or not. But my question is what do you think my best way to proceed from here would be, should i the next time we are hanging out alone bring up a LGBT related topic and see how he responds, should i come out to him (Idk if im ready for that yet), or should i ask him about it? Or maybe just see if he brings something this up again? Just a disclaimer, he is one of my roommates and when i first met him i had the biggest crush on him, so this could be me looking for something that isnt there and only noticing things that would suggest he is questioning. Any advice would be great!
my two cents would actually first off hi welcome! i think hes either doubting himself or questioning you, there could also be a chance that maybe hes trying to better himself, but thats not very likely. but if i had to pick one, id say he was doubting himself and maybe trying to see how accepting you are on all the gay topics of discussion.
Hey, and welcome to EC! Wow. So if he's asking questions specifically like "if someone is gay could they still be manly" then... my guess is either he's straight and onto you (which is very possible, most people who swear that no one can tell are actually a lot more obvious than they realize) or maybe he's sensed that you might be supportive about LGBT issues, whether or not you're gay, and is, in fact, trying to come out, or at least be open about his questioning, to you. So... I think you could probably tapdance around the subject some more and see what sort of responses you get and then maybe take the bull by the horns and either come out to him, or ask him directly where he is. One thing that might work is to bring up the Kinsey scale and ask him where he sees himself on it... that's a fairly nonthreatening way to give someone the opportunity to hint at something while still giving themselves cover... i.e., someone can say "Oh, I'm a Kinsey 2" and thereby let it be known they aren't 100% straight, while still maintaining a strong heterosexual grounding. ...And in that regard, one of my friends jokes that whenever anyone who gives you any reason to question their straightness gives you a Kinsey score, you always add 2 to whatever they say
I agree with Chip. You should bring up some possibly intimate LGBT topics and see how he responds. Then, if you want, you could come out to him. Or, you could ask him if he's gay. But if you want to hint that you are gay, without actually coming out, you could express a more personal opinion about these LGBT topics. Hope this helped. ;-)
I've tried this before and it honestly didn't turn out too well, but I think that's probably an isolated case. I think this is an extremely clever way of bringing it up, actually.
Well, I've had few friends ask me the same question, and they were homophobic guys, but they were straight. They were actually just wanting to know "can they be..and still be..?" or "does all gay dudes...?" kind of stuff, for example, "do all gay guys wear crazy clothes?", and the reason they wondered about that is because there was another homosexual guy who dressed mostly like LadyGaGa-ish(it was awesome by the way). All in all, your friend could just be trying to know you better and he want to let you know he's a true friend when you are ready to tell him. OR maybe he is gay, but that is for your gaydar to figure out x) and if you do think he is, don't try to feel him uncomfortable, make him feel at home.