Ok, I have this friend I've known since kindergarten. He is the same age as me, 20. He is totally sweet, kind, loving and sensitive, tall, slim and very attractive. My gaydar tells me he is gay but he told me last summer when I asked him that he is not gay, he just lacks self confidence with girls. He's never had a girl friend and he never talks about them like most str8t guys do. He did go out on a date with one or two girls but it was never more than one date and he had an excuse why it would not work. The past several months, he has become much more gay in his looks and behavior. He really is much more into dressing nicely, wears very nice fitted cloths from J Crew, American Eagle, etc. I have to say they fit him really nice and show off his well shaped back side and package really well. He wears nice button down shirts, his hair is short and neat as a pin. He even sits very feminine with his legs crossed like a girl and if you saw him on the street your gaydar alarm would be going off full blast. He is also such a sweet and gentle person, loves to give people hugs and loves 80's music. NPR and cats. He has other friends who are gay like me. But he won't come out and admit he is gay. And he seems to just not have any interest in girls at all. He says he does not need a girl friend and they are too much work and expensive is his most current excuse for having no interest in girls. I'm afraid to ask him again if he is gay after last summer when I asked him and he flatly denied it. But since then his looks and mannerisms have just become so much more stereotypical gay. I just don't know what to do. I really would love to help him come out but I don't know how to. Any ideas?
Do you like him as more than a friend? If so, maybe sharing your feelings would help. Or, you could just say you're concerned for him and want him to be happy. But don't push him too hard. You can't make a person come out unless they have come out to themselves. It's possible he's straight but not very sexual or interested in relationships, maybe asexual.
I'm in a committed relationship with my bf but I do find my friend very attractive. He has all the classic looks and mannerisms of a gay man and he would be a great catch for the right guy. Just would love to see him enjoy life more and enjoy how nice sex is with a partner.
If you are not interested in him I would just say to drop it. Your job as a friend is not to push him onto a path but be there to support the one he chooses. If he his gay, he will come out when he is good and ready and I think he knows that you would support him. Continuing to ask him wouldn't do anything except bother him. Let him be and support the decisions he is making. After all, maybe he isn't gay?
You've done what you can. If he is gay, you've shown him you'd be supportive. Now, all you can do is show him how awesome it is to be gay, out and proud. Lex
I was in your friend's position. My gay friend had a feeling I was bi even though I was deeply in the closet for a long time. He didn't say a word to me about it until I came out to him, and ever since then he's been a really, really good friend to me as I've navigated the coming-out process. I don't know what I would have done if he'd asked me about it while I was still in the closet, but I'm glad he didn't.
Wow. Admittedly I don't have much advice to add other than what has been said here, but your friend sounds so similar to me that I had to chime in. While I can't say what his orientation is, I will say that I was in much the same boat as he; the dead-end dates, questionable assertions about why I wasn't particularly interested in dating women, absence of straight-guy talk, wondering whether I was asexual, maintaining a clean appearance, cats and NPR (lol). From my own experience, what I can say is that people develop at their own pace. I was over 30 before I started to find myself, and it has taken about a year to fully embrace who and what I am. As little as a year ago I was asked point blank whether I was straight, and I replied yes, not because I was trying to hide, but because I just didn't know. While I don't mean to insult you or anyone in their 20's, speaking for myself, at that time I found my best friends knew me better than I knew myself. What you see in him may indeed be real, but if it is, he is obviously not ready for it yet. If he does prove to be gay, what he will need is a close and steadfast friend. Don't worry so much about pushing him one way or another, as he will pick up on it and it may even stunt his ability to find himself, or worse, drive him away. As his friend, just make sure that you are the first person he will think of to talk to if he does eventually need to come out. It is hard to do alone. Should it come to that, he will need you.
Thanks guys, really some good advice. I know he does not like change in his life, I think that comes from when his parents went through a really bad divorce when he was only 8 years old. He likes to hold onto the past and perhaps hold onto the concept of being str8t. Besides, if he does come out, he knows his mom will have a lot of issues with it. And I don't think he wants to deal with that right now.
