Another bromance or (!)

Off the bat, I don't like the word "bromance" but it's a lot easier than coming up with a 20-word phrase.

I'm no stranger to sharing close physical and/or emotional relationships with my guy friends--most of which I'd be DTF if they were into guys. For a mostly gay (and thirsty) guy, my bromances have always unquestionably been just bromances. I've never really dealt with the "wait, does he maybe like me" crap, until now. What makes this situation different falls down to consistency and lack of definition.

Soo I'm seeking some advice. Fair warning.. This is gonna be loooooong. :sleep:

I met this guy at a bday party last December. I'll just call him Ben.

I was on the front porch, smoking a cig, getting ready to leave when I see him walk up. He's attractive so I decide.. okay, I'm not leaving. We both say hi and exchange names. Long story short, we go from being complete strangers to being buddies through the course of the party. We were around each other for the rest of the night. As the party died down, I see a cat dart into a bedroom. Ben likes cats, so I call him over. Cat is on a bed, so we both lay down on it, and pet the fuck out of the poor thing. Our hands keep touching, he kinda leans on me and we stay like that for a bit. He has to leave, so I offer him a ride back to his place. He accepts, I drop him off, and get his number. He messages me back the next morning.

I go out of town for a month for Christmas (he texts me "Merry Christmas!") but when I'm back I invite him over to one of my house parties. He comes, we spend a good amount of time together.. but I need to be a good host and make social rounds. From here on, he comes over every weekend either for a party or just to watch a movie with me. This goes on until the end of January, just a normal new friendship.

We start getting closer in February. At this point, my housemates/friends are asking, some even assume, if we are dating. They tell me that "he obviously likes you." Apparently they picked up on him "following" me around places. They also point out that "he is here just for you, not the party." I decide that I'll test the waters.

He comes over for another party (a bday I think). We both get pretty drunk and end up squished next to each other on a sofa. I put my hand on his knee, and work my way up to his thighs making circular motions. He doesn't budge an inch.. till he leaves for the bathroom.. comes back to the exact same spot.. and lets me continue the thigh-circles (is there a cuter term?). Blacked out after that, but nothing happened.

Next weekend we see each other on Valentine's Day. Originally he invited me to his place for his mate's bday party, but that was cancelled. He texts me "well since the bday party is done, do u just want to see a movie?" I say "yes, drinks at my place after." Movie happens. There's some knee touching, but nothing notable. We split a 1/5th of Whisky at home in half an hour, pop a movie on my projector, and huddle up under the same blanket. Eventually we're both laying down on the sofa, and start full on cuddling. I have my hand on his butt, he has his hand on my thighs. I get a little adventuresome and roam around, stopping when I think I feel :***:. We both chill out, and fall asleep. When I wake up I think "okay, drunk cuddling happens." We both get out of bed, smoke a morning cig, and then get back in bed and do the same thing.

Next weekend, mostly the same happens. Halfway thru a movie, he decides to put a pillow on my lap and puts his head on it. I pet his hair for a while and give him a little kiss on his temple. He falls asleep like this and kinda rolls of the pillow.

For the most part, we keep this cuddling/sleepover thing going on every weekend.

Mid-March I ask him out to a sushi dinner and wine at my place after. I don't call it a date. I pick him up at work, and apparently he told his coworkers about dinner. They all called it a date, which he said "no" to them. He looks at me, kinda grinning, and says "well, actually, I guess it is." We continue being touchy with each other, but again nothing too noteworthy. If it wasn't for his "I guess it is" comment, I wouldn't even be talking about this dinner.

He continues coming over every weekend.

April is kind of a crazy month for my house. We have a birthday party the first week of April, and my birthday party the following week. During both parties, my roommate was out of town so I had free-reign over his bed. I get super blacked out at both parties, and both times wake up in bed next to Ben. I never make it a point to ask him to sleep with me, so the assumption is that he followed me to bed because he wanted to. Since then he always plays this "bring me a blanket" game. He asks for one, I give him one, and he walks around with it awkwardly until I say something like "just sleep there" or "we can sleep here."

Weekend after this, we make plans to go to a mutual friends bday party. He tells me he's excited because I finally get to meet more of his friends (only met his apartment mate at this point). The first thing they say is "oh, we've heard a lot about you." We both get drunkkkk and he comes home with me. In the morning he looks a little concerned and kinda says "I wasn't planning on going home with you..." Apparently he was blacked out. I told him not to worry, nothing happened. His reply "oh, I'm a little disappointed then."

This past week (16th-now), we've seriously upped how much time we spend with each other. He was at my place Friday and Saturday, then I drove down and slept at his place Saturday and stayed most of Sunday. On Saturday, I actually had to drop off his pack at work.. he came outside to meet me and said "you know I love you right?" I was taken aback at how seriously he said it, and jokingly said "oh yeah, I know!" Later that night, I fell asleep outside, he woke me up and told me to go to his room. Sunday morning we chilled, but then he started talking about really personal things.. then about how he's sooo good at basketball. He also talked and how he "can be a player" and his wingmanned for his friends when he felt they "needed to hooked up." He never talked about his own hooking up, though.. never once called any chick hot or anything. We chilled for the rest of the day, until I had to leave. Usually we just do a broshake, but this time he seemed set on giving me a hug (like looking into my eyes, asking for one). We had a nice hug.

4/20 was interesting. I had plans with all my friends for the entire day. I told him I would smoke with him after work.. I meet him at a viewpoint. He's with his friends. We smoke a bit. Then his friends start leaving, and he lingers around me.. he ends up coming along with me for the whole day. We of course end up my sofa and watch some anime show.. the whole time I feel like he's awkwardly trying to be close.. He sleeps over.

Now through this all, I've tried to convince myself this is justa bromance. But because of my friends, how often this happens, and the fact that we've never acknowledged "we're just friends" I am a little confused. All of my straight bro friends have said something along the lines of "oh, I don't care you're gay it doesn't change this" while Ben just kind of.. seems okay with everything happening and never makes that "no homo" type comment.

- This guy is pretty good looking and gets a decent amount of attention from chicks at my parties. He's never pursued any of them (over 4 months). There are a few girls (2-3) that always gravitate towards him. I always swoop in and say "oh let's do something else." He always leaves.

- Never talks about love interests. Hides his phone screen from me (lol). He's made the occasional tits/ass comment, but honestly I've made more.

- He literally follows me around. If we're in the same room but apart, he will almost always be looking at me. If I leave him in another room, he finds me. If he's with his friends, he leaves them.

- He bumps/brushes into me all the time. I'm not complaining at all, but it is unnecessary. Also I've noticed he avoids physical contact with other people (his friends, my friends, strangers).

- He is very sociable, but still seems... shy or timid... when it comes to some things.

- He is not down for drunk sex/hookups.

- He knows I'm not straight, he asked the second time we hung out. I didn't ask him back.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I just wanted to see what people think is going on here? I feel that I could be downplaying what's happening. Maybe he's been interested in me (100% out) but thrown off by how little I've done? I'm respectful with getting touchy with my guy friends, and maintain the "if they do it, I can do it" rule. He hasn't flat out said he wants more, so I assume he does not.

 

Well, see the thing is..

I've shared all of this stuff (minus the consistency) with a lot of my good buddies. Some of my 100% straight friends actually kiss each other on the lips to show their brofection. So from a "friend's perspective" nothing really jumps out to me as "he likes you." Not even the "I love you" comment counts (in my books) because he just kind of said it, we weren't being intimate with each other.

On the other side, all of my experiences with interested gay men have been VERY forward. Ranging from the dick picks on ******, to having my face sucked off without warning after a movie date, to guys continually messaging me on Facebook even though I never respond. I've never gone through a nice and natural potential romance with anybody.

Maybe I am being too rational about this. Well, he'll be here this weekend so I'll step up my game and see what happens.

 

He definitely does now. I thought he knew from the beginning, but apparently (?) not.

The second time we hung out, he flat-out asked me. I was questioning (still am) whether or not I'm only gay, so my response was (not word for word) "I like people for who they are, but yes I like guys." I blacked out after, and don't remember what else I/he said. But, basically, I was under the impression he knew I liked guys.

Go forward like 1-2 months, we're both playing XBL together (from our own homes) with some of his IRL friends in party chat and I mistakenly make a comment about Thad from BMS being hot. He quickly says "wait, I didn't know you were gay." My friends have told me that's BS; he was "covering" that he knew because we were in chat with his IRL friends. I don't really care to get all psycho-analytical, because at the end of the day most of what's happened between him and I started after this.

Me being gay was actually brought up again during a little smoke sesh in my room. Me and him were toking with 5 of my friends. Girl friend makes a comment about how could he not know I like dudes. His response was "so? I have a lot of gay friends." Closet-case response? Idk. If I legit forgot someone was gay, I'd say I forgot... but who even forgets that?

God, sometimes I do feel like we are in an unspoken relationship. I have a lot of bromances, but nobody has ever slept next to me every weekend.. or said "I love you" so awkwardly. We don't even pay each other back for stuff anymore.

 

I was thinking about this (duh), and wonder if his shyness could have to do with sexy-time roles. I'm pretty sure he's never been w/ a guy. I'm also sure he doesn't want :***: up his :***: (ideal for me). No need to reciprocate for me. But I doubt he knows how to ask about that gracefully.

He doesn't do the sharing a bed thing with his friends. He keeps physical space between other people (friends, strangers) but it seems like he's always bumping me around. I was thinking that could be a dominance thing (ha).

My other bromances? Occasional bed sharing, cuddling, saying "I love you," face holding. I've given one of my straight buddies a handjob after he failed to get w/ the chick he was into, we were both pretty drunk but not blacked. No sexual attraction between either of us, actually made us closer as friends.

So.. yeah.. I think you can see why I'm not sure if this dude likes me.

Yikes.. a lot of my closest friends use to be guys I crushed on. Come over to the Western US!

I like him sexually, yeah. But I like him for who he is first and foremost. I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life with him. I don't really like to fantasize about my future.. But, I definitely see there's a lot of potential.

I am pretty sure he's not 100% straight. He's never made any attempt to say as much!

I agree on the reliance thing, though. Him dropping an "I love you" proved to me that I'm actually someone he cares about, and he's not just using me to get into parties or for attention.

Well the confusing thing rn is that we haven't defined anything. Until he said "I love you," I wasn't sure if he actually cared for me.. So you (and everybody else) are prob right, we need to talk. Lol.

:eusa_danc Apparently I might be too shy as well.

We're the same age bro. Haha

Yeeeeah see that's why I want to take things slowly. Natural relationships are rare as hell today.. if anything the lack of random labels has helped what have develop.

 

Thanks!

Yup, I agree with you. I'm not gonna try and plant a kiss. But I will start being a little flirtier and a little touchier besides just sharing a bed and brushing by him.

I am very conscious of our tendency to look into things too far.. Buuut I've also done "crazier" things with my guy friends like NSA kissing/handjobs.. I'm about as emotionally attached to those guys as the girls I've messed around with (under the pretense that I'm genuinely curious). As in.. Nothing changed. So I know I'm pretty good at separating genuine interest from drunk experimenting or sexual neediness.

I think at the end of the day, I do love this guy. At the same time I've never been one to romantically love someone who doesn't feel the same way back. If he doesn't love me that way, oh well.. I still love him as a friend.