I really like my best friend

This is probably an issue a lot of people face but I'd like to get it off my chest anyway. I really like one of my best friends. When we first met we were compatible instantly. He was also a lot nicer to me than many of the people I knew. We became good friends very quickly, and after about 4 months of knowing him I started to like him. It wasn't really a physical lust, more an emotional one. Eventually I came out to him as bisexual, and he excepted it easily, he also asked right after I told him about my sexuality if there were any guys I was interested in. I didn't want to lie to him so I told him the truth, that I was interested in him. He let me down saying "I'm not a homosexual", however we became much closer afterwards. Before we were pretty, I guess affectionate, with each other, but after I told him I liked him we became even more affectionate. He'd let me rest my head on his lap, sometimes we'd hold hands, we've even cuddled a few times, and more recently I accidentally called him babe and he called me bae in return and it's stuck. When we went to college we didn't really talk until winter break. We went out bowling and while I was sitting next to him he put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him, the same thing happened a few weeks ago. After that we remained in contact constantly. We'd be in skype chats and he'd occasionally wink at me, make suggestive remarks, even blow kisses at me from time to time, and refer to me as bae as I mentioned earlier. I've tried to move past my feelings for him but he acts in a way that always makes me wonder if I have a chance of dating him. We are very comfortable with each other, we do care about each other a lot, we are constantly getting each other gifts, and hell he even got me a job working with him. It's possible that he is curious and my feelings give him a convenient way to test his limits, but he may also actually like me back but not feel free to. His family is religious, he isn't however, and from what I have gathered they are a tad conservative. My last option is that he is just joking, which I wouldn't mind if I knew for sure he was joking. As conflicted as I am about this I'll take being his friend, as I would hate to lose him. He's a great friend despite all this and I wouldn't trade that for anything

 

Well he acts the same around me in private and in public, albiet a little more toned down. As for women he fancies, now that I think about it, he's never mentioned any women he's liked or even attracted to, and he never seems to check out other women. Odd I never seemed to notice that until now. Thanks for the advice, I'll put do what I can with it. In all honesty a real talk about it with him is probably a bit overdue.

 

I guess this is a situation report. My friend and I have been hanging out quite often as of late. We do spend basically everyday together because of work but that's work. Anyway we've been spending a couple of our days off together. So a few days ago we were hanging out watching movies together. And as a joke I challenged him to the pocky game, which if you don't know what that is, essentially you take the pocky (a cookie of sorts that is like a small stick) and two people eat either end until someone pulls away or the pocky is eaten. To my surprise he actually decided to go along with it, and I remember he blushed pretty hard when we started. Long story short we essentially kissed. Now I must admit to being utterly confused about what the two of us are. You don't do that with someone you aren't attracted to, and usually not with a friend, mostly because of mutual unspoken boundaries. Although retrospectively I don't think we ever did have boundaries, since our entire relationship seems to have broken which ever ones may have even existed in the first place. I legitimately wonder what is going on in his head sometimes.

 

Well it wasn't for more than ten seconds. And as for both of us being the "ultimate tease for each other" I seriously wonder about that. It's a somewhat comedic situation. Hell someone could probably make a decent rom com about this.

 

Afterward everything was normal. Almost as if this was an everyday occurrence. Oddly enough no one was awkward about it. All that was going through my head was "holy hell we're actually doing this, I am not going to lose this game cos I don't lose, and oh my god he's adorable."

 

I may actually write this into a script. This is good material. I am 63% sure some of our friends may have a betting pool going on whether or not we actually become a couple. And if they do I want in. I could use the cash.

 

Our hands were steadying us. We were sitting on the edge of his couch so we needed to anchor ourselves a little. There was it.

 

Another quick sit-rep for anyone who may still wish to know. We both went to a convention in matching costumes and I jokingly referred to the convention as a nerd prom. He then leaned over to me and said "does that make me your date?" At which point I got very flustered and weakly told him to shut up as he giggled. Then my friend and I spent a weekend at a mutual friend's lake house. Due to the lack of space and the two of us being the only ones comfortable enough with each other to do so, we shared a bed. The first night there he initiated two separate cuddling sessions. Made me the little spoon. I still prefer to be the big spoon. Regardless,he held me pretty damn close to him, put his head in between my neck and shoulder, and either he had a fever or he was blushing up a storm because he was giving off quite a lot of heat. I've noticed that he is always the one to initiate the physical intimacy, I'm always too scared of taking it too far to try, most I do is flirt a lot. We also ended up playing footsie (I think is the term) at one point, we kept rubbing our feet together and basically trying to get the most amount of contact between us possible with our feet. Kind of weird now that I see it typed out... Also we played that pocky game again. Though our lips didn't touch this time because I was in a hurry to go back to watching Moonraker with my friends while he finished playing his card dueling game with our other friends. Sorry but James Bond is more fun than putting myself through more possibly pointless flirting. We had a good time, and I remember sometimes he'd fall asleep first and I'd think "oh crap, he's even more adorable asleep" and I'd have an urge to kiss him and then cuddle him as he slept. He was so close yet I wouldn't do anything for fear of crossing a line, it's fairly aggravating somethimes, not be able to express my affections as much as I want to. I wish there was an easy to deal with this, I hate it but at the same time I like it because of how close we are that we can do this. I don't know what to make of us anymore.

 

Another small sit-rep. I had a quick chat with my friend about our relationship. We had been playing a game earlier and before we bid each other goodnight I asked him why he treated me like his boyfriend. He seemed to be honestly confused as to what I meant, so I listed some of the things he's done i.e. Cuddling, sitting on my lap, etc. Either way he said he treated me that way because he saw me as a kind of "platonic soulmate", his words. I'm not sure if I completely buy that, it's been about four years that I've known him and over the past three years of my liking him and him knowing for about that long, he's only got more and more affectionate, physically and otherwise. I guess if I stick it out long enough who knows what might happen, heheh. Well I still need to have an actual talk with him about this. I also kissed him a few days ago, for real this time, though it was on the cheek. He was teasing me a bit whilst we were bowling, so I opted to shut him up by kissing him. Guaranteed at least 5 minutes of quiet. So I grabbed him a kissed him on the cheek in a rather over the top fashion. After I released him we both looked at each other and then started to laugh for a bit and then things continued as they had before. Earlier that day I had also sat on his lap because he was sitting where I had been earlier, so I sat on him out of protest, however he then put his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him and didn't let go until I reminded him that it was my turn to bowl. Afterwards I sat down and then after he had taken his turn to bowl he sat down on my lap and then I put my arms around him as he had done to me earlier.

 

I've considered that, but there never is anyone around for me to attempt that. The only time that option is viable is when we are apart, so there would be no way to gauge the reaction properly.