Could he really be homophobic?

[Ikrugar]

So I recently entered college and have entered a course where 80% of the people are male and from what i have heard some can be quite homophobic. On the same college I am already out to some people from other courses that tend to be more "open minded".

So I have made very few friends, in fact i only feel confortable talking to 2 guys that I have met, one of them is constantly (and I mean constantly) saying gay jokes and how disgusting the things "they" do are, the other one is more silent about the subject. Due to the akwardness of being with the first guy I started to avoid him and try to talk to other people (reason why I started talking to the second one), and with this second guy i actually feel more confortable although i don't quite understand his view of the subject (taking into account most of the guys are homophobic I am trying to "select" the ones that aren't). Once i showed him a website which had a photo of a guy wearing a shirt saying "Guys can get married too, get over it." (I did not know this photo was on the website), he saw this photo and stood there staring at it for quite a bit compared to the time he used to observe the other ones.

In another ocasion the subject came of one of our classmates having a date and I jokingly said that the guy had gone on a date with another guy. From this when he saw said guy he asked him immediatly how the date went (implying that he was on a date with another guy) and after a while said that they should shut up because it was getting "akward", then he procceded to board the same subject again two more times like he was trying to say "Look at me I don't like gay people.".

He is also very helpfull and doesn't seem to feel akward at all when I do things that could be declared "coming on to him" to other guys.

In the end I am confused about how homophobic he might actually be or not, he boarded the subject in a way that seemed far too "defensive" and honestly I can't understand if he could be trusted when boarding these subjects.

Btw this is my first post here and sorry for its size :P.

[Ianthe]

Hello! Welcome!

I have read much longer posts on here, don't worry. You very cleverly used paragraph breaks to break up the text.

Anyway, the easiest way to find out is probably to come out to him. Of course, that's a little risky.

[Ikrugar]

Well taking into account that he isn't very social i guess the risk of him spreading it could be lower. He also seems to have far more female friends than male friends so that could actually work in favour of acceptance :P.

[BudderMC]

I think what you're doing now seems to be a good plan. Maybe keep subtly broaching the topic with him over time, just to better establish where he stands on it.

Other than that, you said you only got here recently. Give it some time! You shouldn't be talking to this guy because he is/isn't homophobic (IMO anyway), talk to him if you want to make a friend and he seems like a cool guy. More often than not, homophobic friends will change to an accepting view of homosexuality once they realize they know a gay person (and a relatively 'normal' one at that).

Basically, I guess I'm saying don't write off everyone who seems remotely homophobic just because of that. I know it's difficult, and I'm not telling you to go make friends with all of them either, but just be friends with whoever naturally 'clicks' with you. The real friends are the ones who will stay once they know you're gay.

i would do the whole "my cousin just came out, what do you think about that?" type of question (doesn't have to be true). see how he responds. my guess is he's gay but still in the closet so you may just have to ask him out. make it casual, coffee or lunch or something that two straight guys might do. then, on said date, you can feel him out on the subject and take it from there.

[Ikrugar]

I also stopped talking with that first guy because he has many views of life that are far too different from mine for us to actually get along (I know that contact with people with different views from us enrichens us, but he got on my nerve far too many times), while with the second one I kinda felt that it could work (due to eye contact and proximity) and so I tried to meet him and we actually get along quite well.