In love with straight? friend

I started to hang out with this guy 5 years ago. Now I’m 41, he is 37. He was a friend of my friends and I'd met him before, but never really paid much attention to him. One night, however, I noticed that when we were with these common friends at a bar, he would not get away from me and listen to all I was saying very attentively, even though it wasn’t all that interesting (or so I thought, but he wouldn’t go), we discovered that we both were swimmers and had many other things in common. That was the first time that I got a vibe from him, but I just said to myself: it cannot be…Then, I don’t remember how he got my number, but I started to go out with him, first with other people, but later on just the two of us. I have to say that I didn’t put effort into this, as I was only slightly attracted to him, and it was all him making the calls and so on to go with me in the beginning. Since then we go out together every single weekend to this day, as I say most of the time just the two of us, first for drinks in bars and lounges and then to clubs to dance. We built a pretty deep connection, that now I know from my side is love, but from his side I just cannot figure out. There are mixed signs all over the place and he is driving me so crazy that I don’t know if I can take this any longer…

There are nights when he “accidentally” touches me all the time, presses his body against mine in clubs, brushes his arm against mine to make skin to skin contact. He gets very jealous if I pretend to flirt with a girl…there are tons of details that I could tell, even though I know that when one has a crush on someone, fantasies fly. However, I have to say that it is not all in my head. Other people that see us often are so sure that we are a couple (because we are always together going out, because of body language or whatever) that he has been referred to as “my partner” (and not jokingly), and I had to jump in and correct that he's just my friend. I've even been asked if he was my brother or something.

As I say, he's 37, pretty cute (he looks like the guy in Coldplay) and fit and gets hit on by girls ALL the time; however not once in all these years I've seen him chasing any. I wouldn’t say he’s shy; in fact I think he’s pretty self confident, talkative and outgoing, even more than I am. I don’t think I´m that bad either, and get also the girl’s attention quite a bit (not as much as he does, though), even in their 20’s. We are both swimmers and have the swimmers built, skinny but muscular. We are from the same town (where we live) and we both have similar jobs. We also have very similar background and education. The main difference is that I lived abroad for 10 years (came back 8 years ago) and he has never really left this place, only months at a time, never loosing his job and connections here. I'm not out, but I don’t really make an effort in hiding either. Most people cannot guess that I am gay, but some can, as I've been told on occasion. I guess I’m not obvious, but I’m not all that masculine and I don’t think it would come as a surprise to anyone that knows me well. I never talk about girls and stuff. I’m only out to 3 or 4 friends that don’t live here. What I am certain is that no straight guy would go out alone with me for years to clubs and drinking and such and not have a clue, even if we were strictly just friends.

Now, this is what drives me crazy. When we bump into other guys he knows, all he talks about is how hot this girl is, looks at those boobs, etc. He says that he likes this or that club because of how hot the girls are there (but then I think he looks more at me...). Some periods of time during the past, he used to call this other guy (much younger, 0% gay) from work to join us along later at night, and when this other guy comes he transforms himself into this macho guy, and the hot girls-boobs-fuckable stuff becomes the one subject of conversation all night long, pretty much. Its so over the top, that I get annoyed, leave, and then he gets upset; but only once in these years he’s stopped calling me, for two weekends, once I left visibly mad, but then came crawling back, stopped calling the other guy, treated me extra well and got very close to me again. I was trying to come out to him as bisexual once and he cut the subject sharply saying he never gets aroused by other men.

However, 2 months ago, something happened that changed all this, and also made me realize how much in love I am with him. We went to this lounge with two floors that we like, and as soon as we entered, he got visibly altered and dragged me downstairs. He said that he had seen a girl he didn’t want to say hi and talk to. Then he admitted, but gave me no more details, that he had hooked up with her a few months back for a one-night stand. That totally killed me. It must have been when I was out of town (I go for 2 months or so every year), or I don’t know when, because I have never, ever, seen him chasing any girl. Neither he has ever told me of any such thing happening. I could control myself, even though I was dying inside. After that, he was supernice to me, but things are never the same, at least from my side. What should I do? Should I put distance, tell him what I feel? I have no clue how he is going to react… I fear that I will not find anyone that I can fall in love with anymore. I fell deeply in love 3 times in the past and never ended up good. Now I thought I was more mature to handle this, but apparently I’m not…

 

Thanks for your replies!
I am now to the point where I cannot take this situation anymore. I think I have taken the wrong approach or maybe simply there is nothing I can do to change things.
After I found out about that hookup, I realized that I had to do something, so I started to get drunk when we go out and dedicate my attention to other people. I flirted with girls (there are no boys to flirt with apparently here, that’s why I’m trapped in this whole situation) and made him upset on purpose. There is this girl that he really sees as danger and he tries to move me away from her and talk me out of speaking to her (“you know, she may get the wrong idea”). I also let him know that I have fun without him, joined a hiking club, see other people, etc, and that there are other girls interested on me, which is true. I feel horrible about myself for doing all that, mostly because I’ve never done anything that lead him to believe that I was straight, but I just wanted to provoke a reaction from him.
Because I´m an idiot and I saw that he felt bad, I went to his place to see some new pictures he had bought and just be nice and reassure him, and that got things back to normal. Then the same thing starts over again, the touchy-touchy stuff, just me and him the whole night long, talking, dancing together, laughing, blah blah blah, but nothing else.
Until last night, when the girl from the hookup showed up again. He didn’t want to talk to her (he told me so) and so we moved to some other club. She followed, got a hold of him when I was chatting with someone else and after about an hour, she got him to go with her. I stayed standing there closely all the time to see whether he chose her or me. As they were talking for about half hour, they gradually approached me to the point that they were just in front (I was not introduced and I didn’t say a word, just stand there) and I could hear that he was trying to get rid of her. But she wouldn’t let go, finally he turned his back on me and after a while he went with her. I felt like throwing up.
So, he might be straight after all, and I have been blind and crazy all these years, which may very well be true. I really don’t know how to end this gratefully, because we are truly friends, but I just cannot take it anymore. What should I do, how can savage the friendship while not being hurt? I guess there is no way…