I typically don't post this stuff but lately, I've just been feeling very lost in this whole mess.
I'm openly gay and 24, and feel like I should have a better handle on the whole "fell in love with a straight friend" ordeal. But, I haven't.
I met this guy through work last year. We work at a small station in the mall selling stuff. He came to help us out with it. Anyway, when I first met him, I'll call him Dan, he was one of those guys you are like, "oh, he's okay looking" and that's about it. Never said much else. Anyway, he left to go back to his store across town and that was that. Well, as it turned out a co-worker, call him Jason, of his there who I use to work with informed him that I thought he was hot and wanted to "jump his bones." Dan and I never talked and, despite me having a problem with the Jason saying anything like that, I wasn't too stressed. Then, in January, they announced they were transferring that Jason and Dan to my store, Jason to be my new manager.
Things didn't go very well.
Jason typically just liked to joke around with my sexuality and when Dan came, I was actually totally turned off by him. He was rough, unkept. He was completeing his fourth year in community college, smoked weed, dipped around in pills, and drank alot. I was in my junior year at a four-year college, pretty academically sound, involved in organizations, and planning on graduate school. I drank and stuff, but didn't do drugs. (Let me say that I actually have no problem with drug usage, I just mention it to give context and pattern). Anyway, Dan and I worked a lot together and talked alot. He was in a six year relationship with his girlfriend, who had no idea he smoked weed now, smoked cigarettes, and also didn't know that two years prior he was doing a lot of ectasy. She's either naive or he's just a good liar. Anyway, despite this, we started becoming close. He knew full well I was gay, and obvoiusly from Jason's jokes, new I had thought him good-looking, although now that I saw him everyday that wasn't the case.
But see, the more I worked with him the more I fell for him. He was charming and charasmatic. He seemed always concerned about me, what was happening, and he seemed to geniunely be respectful of where I was in life and would ask me questions to see how he could break from his rut and do something. One time, in something I now see as a massive mistake, I helped him write a paper which turned into me wirting the paper for him. Anyway, from our interaction, he and I began swapping pills and I began drinking more to deal with my depression in falling for him. At first, I thought it was an innocent crush. But then he started calling me every other night, and we'd talk about stupid shit for like 2 hours at a time and I loved it. It was just nice to have someone new to talk to and he and I were so different, yet the same, and it was exciting. One night, he called and we talked, then I said I had to go to bed and he called back five minutes later saying, "Someone's not in bed." Other times we'd be on the phone and he'd start saying, "My girlfriend says that to me" or when I told him talking with him never got boring he said, "My girlfriend said the same exact thing about our relationship."
A few times, we went for drinks afterwork and he'd try to pay. AFterward, he'd be like I had alot of fun tonight, etc. etc. He would always say he didn't make friends quick or easy, didn't want to, but he felt like I was some childhood friend and that we had a connection.
Naturally, his former pal and both our manager, Jason, was getting pissed and began making jokes about him and I being gay. In fact, Dan actually played along sometimes, blowing me kisses and touching me, holding my hand. But then it escalated to him and I "flirting" at work, making dirty jokes. One night he was rubbing his pec that was sore and I came back from lunch and was like, what are you doing and he goes, "I want to squirt you in the face." Other times he'd just touch me and I'd roll my eyes and he'd jokingly say, "You know you like it" and stuff. This, while we're talking a lot outside of work. That went on for maybe a month or two. Then, things got conflictous at work. Jason was getting buddy buddy with another co-associate and Dan and I were feeling a bit attacked. Then Dan noticed that Jason and this guy were seriously questioning his sexuality and I apologized. Now, by this point, I'm a wreck. I realize I'm in love with this guy and want so badly to be with him, but also realize that I can't pinpoint why exactly. Anyway, things naturally start getting tense between Dan and me as I find it harder and harder to control my feelings. I'm overreacting to things, getting jealous over times he hangs out with Jason and them, feeling that he's being a hypocrite and saying it's "me and him" against them and then hanging out with them.
Anyway, in the interest of disclousre I came to him and told him I had feelings for him, that I was finding it hard to deal with, and that I could understand if he didnt' want to be friends, but I had to get this out so he could see where I was coming from. He said he was flattered and that we were friends and that didn't change. Then, he smirked and was like, "Wow, I have a secret admirer" to which he noticed I didn't laugh.
It kind of exploded one night at a going away party when he basically ditched me to go hang out with them and then met me up at the party. I was so furious and pissed about a lot of things. I just felt things had changed since I told him, and he assured me that nothing had and he wanted to be friends.
So, after this, he goes on this whole 'working out, stop smoking" thing and I am just feeling like shit and like I'm left behind and I just dind't know what to do. He kept saying he wanted a friendship and at work, we made it work for the most part. But he kept poking and pinching and tickling me. He would smile and still say, "you know you like it" and shit. Even people in other stores around would remark how when we worked we looked so "into each other." But again, he has a girlfriend for six years and shit so I didn't know what to do and now, he knows I like him and is still doing it.
Finally, this all exploded to and I told him I couldn't take being his friend, him knowing I like him, and then him st ill leading me on. He got offended and said he had no idea he was doing that and that he was just trying to joke around with me and be goofy. Jason, now fully invovled, tried to mitigate the situation but things just go worse. Dan and I couldn't seem to work it out, though he told me he found it depressing and sad that we were having so many issues. I told him I'm not entirely comfortable being in such drama with such a new friend in the first place. Things just kind of fell apart after that as he strated getting close again with Jason and sort of pushing me away, all the while he kept saying he wanted to be friends and stuff. One night, when I just didn't have anything to say anymore, we got in a horrible fight in the middle of the mall with him telling me "he's not gay and that i expect too much from him" and me saying, "how could you not have known that your actions were doing this and how I would take them." He stormed off, saying he didn't care and shit, and I just stood there like an ass.
Finally, Jason got transferred and Dan and I just were not clicking. We would fight in emails, at work, never getting anywhere. He kept saying he was sorry it came out like this, that he never wanted it to be this way, that I was so cool and that it hurt him so much that he hurt me like this (this was a drunk email). We stopped working together for a bit, then did, then didn't. He basically said he wasn't avoding me, but yet he was and later admitted he was. Then, I'm wondering if he's still gay, bisexual, or whatever. If he had feelings for me, wanted me, etc. Or maybe that he is gay and fucking other guys and not wanting to tell me. Just, generally, confused out of my mind.
So, about a month ago, we're working and we're talking about how straight guys do judge guys. I agreed. He told me he tends to just ask himself ie he thinks that guy could "pull girls." I asked jokinglyif he thought I could pull girls if I was straight. He sort of laughed and didn't say anything. Then I kept pressing, now kind of annoyed cuz he wouldn't asnwer. Then he goes, No, because I don't think you're attractive. I sort of was taken back by this and I go, "well, I guess that solves the whole gay thing..." and he nods and was like, "Yeha, I guess. This is wierd." Then I go, because if you were gay, you wouldn't be interested." And he just sort of shrugged and I just kept repeating this and he was like, "I guess, because I don't think your'e attractive." Later on he was like, "you wouldn't be my type" and I said, "You're straight, you have type in men?" And he was ilke, "yeah, that was wierd way of putting it, I don't know." The entire conversation actually came up because he was complaining about how he gets hit on by gay guys alot in the mall and he doesn't know why. Anyway, at this point, I'm just broken and he's like, "i didn't think you'd respond like this." And I mean this with no ego, none, I'm not a bad looking guy. I don't run around thinking I'm hot, actually my friends say I need to have more confidence in my looks and found it ridiculous that I even bought into this for a second. One of my friends felt that he just said this to push me away or, cover for his own feelings. This is also the same day though that he told me he was getting kind of tired of having his sexuality question and that if he "was, don't you think I would've told you?" ANd I sort of nodded but thought to myself, "no."
Anyway, we stopped working again for a month until recently when we were forced to work the same exact event of setting up a station -- the event where we first met exactly a year go. How poetic. Anyway, we got to talking and he was saying he can see where we bot hfucked up and stuff. And I agreed. So now, he's all about being friends again and wants things to "move slowly." The original idea he said, "was to build things up at work and work on a working relationship and then see if something could happen outside of work." And he means this in terms of friendship, but it just sounds so...odd.
So tonight, the first day we talke,d he's txt messaging me and having a conversation all night and was all about how he's there for me and he's glad we finally got to talk about this again and how the past month he was trying to give me space since I'm the one who walked away (which is true, I requested not to work with him).
So, now it's 3am and I can't sleep and I'm still sexually attracted to him, I am still in love with him, but I'm so angry and hateful towards him. I know he treated me badly, but I want to hang on just in case he is gay. Then, part of me is like what if he's already gay, cheating on his girlfriend cuz he lies to her about other stuff, and just doesn't want to let me in anymore. But then why want to be friends with me at all then if that's the case? Another part of me thinks he has feelings for me but is having a hard time reconciling them with his current situation.
I don't know what to do guys. I know I must sound so pathetic and weak while writing this but I just didn't have the energy to make myself sound otherwise. This situation has been going on for a year now and while I've gone back to therapy and it's helping, I just feel so helpless and alone and angry that I can't have him. But I find myself not pursuing other guys, sexually he's all I think about. I mean, I'm just so lost on this.
I don't know what to do. I mean, I've even told him I thought he was gay, theh eh ad feelings nad coudln't confront them, or that he didn't want me to know for whatever reasons b/c he didn't want to hurt me or reject me. To those he said he was straight. He always said he's straight.
I just don't buy it. The way he treats me is so confusing and so mixed and in one way reads "he has feelings for you" and at other times just reads "he's an aboslutely dick to you."
Any advice guys? Please. Just writing this down made me have to put it all together and I just feel so stupid.
I'm openly gay and 24, and feel like I should have a better handle on the whole "fell in love with a straight friend" ordeal. But, I haven't.
I met this guy through work last year. We work at a small station in the mall selling stuff. He came to help us out with it. Anyway, when I first met him, I'll call him Dan, he was one of those guys you are like, "oh, he's okay looking" and that's about it. Never said much else. Anyway, he left to go back to his store across town and that was that. Well, as it turned out a co-worker, call him Jason, of his there who I use to work with informed him that I thought he was hot and wanted to "jump his bones." Dan and I never talked and, despite me having a problem with the Jason saying anything like that, I wasn't too stressed. Then, in January, they announced they were transferring that Jason and Dan to my store, Jason to be my new manager.
Things didn't go very well.
Jason typically just liked to joke around with my sexuality and when Dan came, I was actually totally turned off by him. He was rough, unkept. He was completeing his fourth year in community college, smoked weed, dipped around in pills, and drank alot. I was in my junior year at a four-year college, pretty academically sound, involved in organizations, and planning on graduate school. I drank and stuff, but didn't do drugs. (Let me say that I actually have no problem with drug usage, I just mention it to give context and pattern). Anyway, Dan and I worked a lot together and talked alot. He was in a six year relationship with his girlfriend, who had no idea he smoked weed now, smoked cigarettes, and also didn't know that two years prior he was doing a lot of ectasy. She's either naive or he's just a good liar. Anyway, despite this, we started becoming close. He knew full well I was gay, and obvoiusly from Jason's jokes, new I had thought him good-looking, although now that I saw him everyday that wasn't the case.
But see, the more I worked with him the more I fell for him. He was charming and charasmatic. He seemed always concerned about me, what was happening, and he seemed to geniunely be respectful of where I was in life and would ask me questions to see how he could break from his rut and do something. One time, in something I now see as a massive mistake, I helped him write a paper which turned into me wirting the paper for him. Anyway, from our interaction, he and I began swapping pills and I began drinking more to deal with my depression in falling for him. At first, I thought it was an innocent crush. But then he started calling me every other night, and we'd talk about stupid shit for like 2 hours at a time and I loved it. It was just nice to have someone new to talk to and he and I were so different, yet the same, and it was exciting. One night, he called and we talked, then I said I had to go to bed and he called back five minutes later saying, "Someone's not in bed." Other times we'd be on the phone and he'd start saying, "My girlfriend says that to me" or when I told him talking with him never got boring he said, "My girlfriend said the same exact thing about our relationship."
A few times, we went for drinks afterwork and he'd try to pay. AFterward, he'd be like I had alot of fun tonight, etc. etc. He would always say he didn't make friends quick or easy, didn't want to, but he felt like I was some childhood friend and that we had a connection.
Naturally, his former pal and both our manager, Jason, was getting pissed and began making jokes about him and I being gay. In fact, Dan actually played along sometimes, blowing me kisses and touching me, holding my hand. But then it escalated to him and I "flirting" at work, making dirty jokes. One night he was rubbing his pec that was sore and I came back from lunch and was like, what are you doing and he goes, "I want to squirt you in the face." Other times he'd just touch me and I'd roll my eyes and he'd jokingly say, "You know you like it" and stuff. This, while we're talking a lot outside of work. That went on for maybe a month or two. Then, things got conflictous at work. Jason was getting buddy buddy with another co-associate and Dan and I were feeling a bit attacked. Then Dan noticed that Jason and this guy were seriously questioning his sexuality and I apologized. Now, by this point, I'm a wreck. I realize I'm in love with this guy and want so badly to be with him, but also realize that I can't pinpoint why exactly. Anyway, things naturally start getting tense between Dan and me as I find it harder and harder to control my feelings. I'm overreacting to things, getting jealous over times he hangs out with Jason and them, feeling that he's being a hypocrite and saying it's "me and him" against them and then hanging out with them.
Anyway, in the interest of disclousre I came to him and told him I had feelings for him, that I was finding it hard to deal with, and that I could understand if he didnt' want to be friends, but I had to get this out so he could see where I was coming from. He said he was flattered and that we were friends and that didn't change. Then, he smirked and was like, "Wow, I have a secret admirer" to which he noticed I didn't laugh.
It kind of exploded one night at a going away party when he basically ditched me to go hang out with them and then met me up at the party. I was so furious and pissed about a lot of things. I just felt things had changed since I told him, and he assured me that nothing had and he wanted to be friends.
So, after this, he goes on this whole 'working out, stop smoking" thing and I am just feeling like shit and like I'm left behind and I just dind't know what to do. He kept saying he wanted a friendship and at work, we made it work for the most part. But he kept poking and pinching and tickling me. He would smile and still say, "you know you like it" and shit. Even people in other stores around would remark how when we worked we looked so "into each other." But again, he has a girlfriend for six years and shit so I didn't know what to do and now, he knows I like him and is still doing it.
Finally, this all exploded to and I told him I couldn't take being his friend, him knowing I like him, and then him st ill leading me on. He got offended and said he had no idea he was doing that and that he was just trying to joke around with me and be goofy. Jason, now fully invovled, tried to mitigate the situation but things just go worse. Dan and I couldn't seem to work it out, though he told me he found it depressing and sad that we were having so many issues. I told him I'm not entirely comfortable being in such drama with such a new friend in the first place. Things just kind of fell apart after that as he strated getting close again with Jason and sort of pushing me away, all the while he kept saying he wanted to be friends and stuff. One night, when I just didn't have anything to say anymore, we got in a horrible fight in the middle of the mall with him telling me "he's not gay and that i expect too much from him" and me saying, "how could you not have known that your actions were doing this and how I would take them." He stormed off, saying he didn't care and shit, and I just stood there like an ass.
Finally, Jason got transferred and Dan and I just were not clicking. We would fight in emails, at work, never getting anywhere. He kept saying he was sorry it came out like this, that he never wanted it to be this way, that I was so cool and that it hurt him so much that he hurt me like this (this was a drunk email). We stopped working together for a bit, then did, then didn't. He basically said he wasn't avoding me, but yet he was and later admitted he was. Then, I'm wondering if he's still gay, bisexual, or whatever. If he had feelings for me, wanted me, etc. Or maybe that he is gay and fucking other guys and not wanting to tell me. Just, generally, confused out of my mind.
So, about a month ago, we're working and we're talking about how straight guys do judge guys. I agreed. He told me he tends to just ask himself ie he thinks that guy could "pull girls." I asked jokinglyif he thought I could pull girls if I was straight. He sort of laughed and didn't say anything. Then I kept pressing, now kind of annoyed cuz he wouldn't asnwer. Then he goes, No, because I don't think you're attractive. I sort of was taken back by this and I go, "well, I guess that solves the whole gay thing..." and he nods and was like, "Yeha, I guess. This is wierd." Then I go, because if you were gay, you wouldn't be interested." And he just sort of shrugged and I just kept repeating this and he was like, "I guess, because I don't think your'e attractive." Later on he was like, "you wouldn't be my type" and I said, "You're straight, you have type in men?" And he was ilke, "yeah, that was wierd way of putting it, I don't know." The entire conversation actually came up because he was complaining about how he gets hit on by gay guys alot in the mall and he doesn't know why. Anyway, at this point, I'm just broken and he's like, "i didn't think you'd respond like this." And I mean this with no ego, none, I'm not a bad looking guy. I don't run around thinking I'm hot, actually my friends say I need to have more confidence in my looks and found it ridiculous that I even bought into this for a second. One of my friends felt that he just said this to push me away or, cover for his own feelings. This is also the same day though that he told me he was getting kind of tired of having his sexuality question and that if he "was, don't you think I would've told you?" ANd I sort of nodded but thought to myself, "no."
Anyway, we stopped working again for a month until recently when we were forced to work the same exact event of setting up a station -- the event where we first met exactly a year go. How poetic. Anyway, we got to talking and he was saying he can see where we bot hfucked up and stuff. And I agreed. So now, he's all about being friends again and wants things to "move slowly." The original idea he said, "was to build things up at work and work on a working relationship and then see if something could happen outside of work." And he means this in terms of friendship, but it just sounds so...odd.
So tonight, the first day we talke,d he's txt messaging me and having a conversation all night and was all about how he's there for me and he's glad we finally got to talk about this again and how the past month he was trying to give me space since I'm the one who walked away (which is true, I requested not to work with him).
So, now it's 3am and I can't sleep and I'm still sexually attracted to him, I am still in love with him, but I'm so angry and hateful towards him. I know he treated me badly, but I want to hang on just in case he is gay. Then, part of me is like what if he's already gay, cheating on his girlfriend cuz he lies to her about other stuff, and just doesn't want to let me in anymore. But then why want to be friends with me at all then if that's the case? Another part of me thinks he has feelings for me but is having a hard time reconciling them with his current situation.
I don't know what to do guys. I know I must sound so pathetic and weak while writing this but I just didn't have the energy to make myself sound otherwise. This situation has been going on for a year now and while I've gone back to therapy and it's helping, I just feel so helpless and alone and angry that I can't have him. But I find myself not pursuing other guys, sexually he's all I think about. I mean, I'm just so lost on this.
I don't know what to do. I mean, I've even told him I thought he was gay, theh eh ad feelings nad coudln't confront them, or that he didn't want me to know for whatever reasons b/c he didn't want to hurt me or reject me. To those he said he was straight. He always said he's straight.
I just don't buy it. The way he treats me is so confusing and so mixed and in one way reads "he has feelings for you" and at other times just reads "he's an aboslutely dick to you."
Any advice guys? Please. Just writing this down made me have to put it all together and I just feel so stupid.
