Straight Friend Crossed a Line

[gaydude45]

I once had a friend who exhibited an element of homosexual curiosity. He persistently brought up sex to "get [me] excited", despite my constant and ashamed protests. He would get drunk and take his shirt off to show me his muscular body. But I saw that I had to play a weird little game; it couldn't be explicitly gay, I suppose. When I confronted him on this he flat out denied it, and proclaimed unblemished heterosexuality. But the games continued, and the sexual tension between us became so ripe that it heavily contributed to what ultimately ended our friendship. Tragic. He was my friend, my brother by choice, as it were. I loved him, very much, as my friend and brother. Why would he do that? Is so much of a coward that he couldn't come to me with forthright direction and admit his latent physical feelings? I might have otherwise reciprocated, but I was never going to proceed based on a premise of dishonesty and pretense. Thoughts, anyone?

 

[Sagittarius84]

So the most comforting thing to do would be to reaffirm your observation of him being too cowardly to be honest with whatever underlying homoerotic feelings he had for you, or men in general.
But honestly, I've observed amongst exclusively heterosexual men and women whom happen to be aesthetic or self obsessed, an indulgence and assumption of attraction from everyone. I hear this amongst out lesbian and bi women all the time, straight hot women, indulging in or inciting the sexual attraction they have no intention of ever reciprocating, looking instead just to confirm their own egos. Even here in LPSG, there are large contingents of purportedly straight men that happily indulge in the admiration of their bodies from gay men.....
I see this dynamic play out a lot in male/female friendships; especially when the male gets a gf and the females command of his attention is mitigated. She'll often outwardly appear and act as sexually attracted all of a sudden to redirect his attention her way only to stifle any chance of a hook up should she succeed.
The validation some people get out of opportunities that are offered to them, is often desirous enough to court them with no intention of fulfillment, simply looking to bask in the attention.

 

[gaydude45]

So the most comforting thing to do would be to reaffirm your observation of him being too cowardly to be honest with whatever underlying homoerotic feelings he had for you, or men in general.
But honestly, I've observed amongst exclusively heterosexual men and women whom happen to be aesthetic or self obsessed, an indulgence and assumption of attraction from everyone. I hear this amongst out lesbian and bi women all the time, straight hot women, indulging in or inciting the sexual attraction they have no intention of ever reciprocating, looking instead just to confirm their own egos. Even here in LPSG, there are large contingents of purportedly straight men that happily indulge in the admiration of their bodies from gay men.....
I see this dynamic play out a lot in male/female friendships; especially when the male gets a gf and the females command of his attention is mitigated. She'll often outwardly appear and act as sexually attracted all of a sudden to redirect his attention her way only to stifle any chance of a hook up should she succeed.
The validation some people get out of opportunities that are offered to them, is often desirous enough to court them with no intention of fulfillment, simply looking to bask in the attention.

This counter-argument carries great weight, and has the added virtue of being true. He absolutely did this; I can recall the many instances of him relishing in his self-conceited masculinity coupled with his being a braggart over his sexual prowess. But he was still unhappy, and resented how much I was when I found someone to share life with, without all the backbiting and polemics of heterosexuality as he experienced for himself. In the midst of this self-congratulatory basking in the heat of his effervescent musk, he wished to exploit my inevitable attraction to him to its greatest possible extent. But alas, it was in subterfuge and prevarication. I was unwilling to play party to someone's malcontented existential crisis. Life is complicated enough.

 

[notthatguy]

Doesn’t sound like he is that straight…

 

[gaydude45]

Doesn’t sound like he is that straight…

I agree, thank you.

 

[Sagittarius84]

I agree, thank you.

This is where the toxic hope springs eternal. To embrace the notion of he's not straight, just (blank), as opposed to he's simply an egotistical, braggadocious straight man that gets his jollies on being lusted after, is exactly why so many gay/bisexual men get hung up on straight men they'll never be able to access.
Perhaps you need to ask yourself why it's so comfortable to speculate on his low-key homoeroticism, instead of accepting the narcissist tendencies he displays at face value?