Straight, attached best friend knows I'm gay. Should I tell him I love him?

Hi everyone. I know that this is a fairly familiar story, but most seem to be about someone that the writer hopes/suspects feels the same way. I know that this guy doesn't.

Two months ago, I told my best friend that I was attracted to men. He took it brilliantly well, and has been more supportive than I could ever have expected. It possibly helps that his dad's best friends are a gay couple (which I guess is a weird thing to run in the family), and I have generally had the impression since then he's quite enjoying having a gay friend.

When I first spoke to him about this, I said that over the course of the conversation it must have occurred to him that I thought of him a bit differently to how he thought of me. He shrugged in a non-judgmental way, but didn't say anything. I slightly dodged the question that I had myself brought up, and said (truthfully) that I didn't want to sleep with him. I was at an earlier stage at coming out to myself then, and had already told him that I hadn't been able to persuade myself I actually wanted sex with men, just that I was attracted to them.

What I didn't say was that I am always thinking of him, to the point that there have been days when I have specifically proof-read all my outgoing emails to check that I haven't Freudian slipped his name in. Or that I had visualised physical intimacy between us, just not anything that would require either of us to take our underwear off. Or that I measure how good a day is by whether I think our relationship has improved that day. I could go on for a long time.

I am completely certain that he is straight. I am also completely certain that he is deeply in love with his girlfriend, who he definitely wants to marry. He is prone to waxing lyrical about her, even more so when drunk. For my part, I really like her too, and have never been jealous of her (they were going out when I met them), although weirdly I have been jealous of other girls that he's had things for in the past. I told him I wanted him to tell his girlfriend, and apparently her first reaction was one of excitement at the thought of gay men she knew and could set me up with.

Even when I was less sure that he was entirely straight, I actively hoped that he was. I prioritised his happiness over mine, and if my feelings for him were requited, then that was going to mean a lot of suffering and unhappiness for a lot of people. He would be far better off as a straight man in a straight relationship with her than he would be with me. Plus I couldn't do that to her.

My problem now is that I want to come out properly. One of the biggest reasons not to is that I know that people at work (where we met) are going to ask about us. It's been a couple of years since people started using the word "bromance" about us, and there is a long-running joke about him and me being an item. (The next time I saw him after coming out, I did make the joke of "Look, I know it's not every day your boyfriend tells you he's gay...")

I just need to give some thought to how to answer those questions in a way that is at least truthful enough for me to be comfortable saying, and that doesn't (a) make me look ridiculous, and (b) doesn't embarrass him and his girlfriend. And I think that before I answer any questions on that, I first need to discuss my feelings with him.

Do I tell him? I don't have any experience of this from either side, and don't know if, even if he knows I'm gay, the added weight of my love for him will just be a bit too weird and uncomfortable for him or his girlfriend. The alternative is I just lie to everyone at work, which I suppose isn't impossible, but might be a bit unconvincing.

One last anecdote. About a year ago he said he wished he was gay. His reasoning was that in the past he had always had difficulty telling whether girls were into him or not, whereas he "could always tell what men were thinking". The fact that he hadn't realised I was gay or that I had been in love with him for about six months despite seeing me basically every day of that time possibly calls his premise into question.

Thanks for any advice.

 

TLDR (Too long, didn't read): Supportive friend knows I'm gay. Definitely isn't interested in me and I'm not seeking to change that. I want to come out but we've been close enough for a long time that people will definitely ask about us. I can't give even a half honest answer to that without talking to him first, but don't know if it'll be weird from his side to have a friend with feelings for him. Don't know if it's better to get these things out into the open or just not.

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply to both this and my other post - I do appreciate it.

You're probably right that there's essentially nothing to be gained from talking about this. My motivation for talking to him was basically just that I really don't like keeping secrets, especially from him, plus I was on a bit of a high from how well coming out to him went, and hoped that he would be similarly cool with everything else I had to say to him.

Plus keeping my feelings from him may involve some unconvincing bending of the truth to others, and I don't know to what extent he may have already guessed. Okay, I won't bring it up. If someone else does, I'll just try and find something appropriate to say at the time.

Thanks.