so long story short i fell for my "straight" best friend that didnt turn out to be so straight after all. 3 'occasions' later i realized he would keep falling back on "oh i blacked out i dont really remember anything, by count i'm still considering myself straight". he's a giant dumbass and after a lot of hurt i've now gotten to the point where for the most part i'm over him. i still obviously care for him to some extent because i still consider a very good friend of mine. however, yesterday i was listening to a queer podcast and a lot of what they were saying kept reminding me off him. they touched on topics bi-invisibility and being in the closet and things that could have overall made it easier to come to terms with their own sexuality etc. this got me into thinking about when i was in the closet and how i would have rather had people straight up ask me about my sexuality rather than gossip/assume, and how much i dislike the fact that asking if someone is gay is often seen as a bad thing, maybe even offensive, to ask. now i'm stuck in this space where i kind of want to ask him about it and see if he's came out to himself, or at least give him the option have that kind of conversation. essentially i'd want to be able to be the friend i wasnt able to have type of thing. at the same time though i also don't want to put him in a position where he's not ready to come out or anything like that. there has also been a lot of gaps and lack of communication about the stuff that happened between us, so i dont really want it to come across as if i'm trying to resurface anything ( and i have also considered how i'm personally going to be feeling about having such a conversation with him & the possibility of things unspoken of being brought to attention which really just adds to my uncertainty but that's my personal issue) idk what would you guys do in this situation? is it okay for me to just simply ask or should i leave it alone and hope he figures it out on his own & doesnt live some sort of repressed life forever or something like that.
If you think there's a chance you can still be good friends, then I think its worth telling him how you feel. And by telling him how you feel, I mean telling him about your feelings towards the friendship. Don't make it all about how you want to be his support for coming out, because if he doesn't want to discuss his sexuality with you, that's up to him. But I do think it's important that you let him know you have been hurt by his actions and words. In my experience trying to be friends with a man who didn't want to express his sexuality, I felt like I had all of these things I wanted to say and share with him, I didn't want to keep all of these thoughts to myself, because I had already spent a part of my life in the closet keeping things to myself, and I wanted a friend in my life who I could be open and honest with. But this guy obviously didn't want that kind of friendship from me. Ultimately my feelings were hurt because I ended up feeling bad for liking someone. It took me back to being closeted and feeling ashamed of my sexuality, and I hated that feeling. So if you want to fix this friendship, I'd say put your own feelings before his. Don't focus on being his "coming out therapist" let him know how you feel about the things that have happened between you two. Be honest with him before trying to get him to be honest with you.
