Meganium
July 12th, 2015, 04:20 PM
So I met this kid in my sophomore year at a cross country meet. Little dude, nice, polite, and we share the same name. We picked the same sports season after season and eventually became close enough for me to call him my friend.
While we were together during sports, he clung to me very, very often. He's fairly small and not very athletic, so it appeared as if he felt out of place daily and kept close to me for conversation because he couldn't start it with many others. This was perfectly fine for a while.
We kept hanging and talking, and I began to notice that he talked about the same things, over and over again. And I regrettably became a *little* more distant from him because of that. It was somewhat annoying, and since we were together for a decent fraction of the day, I thought I needed a break. (Though, in retrospect, I probably should've spoken to him about it.)
Fast forward to my Junior and his Sophomore year, and things start to get weird...
I didn't mention earlier, but I tend to do this thing with kids who I'm cool with and flick them. Like, with my fingers. Some people will let me know if it's pissing them off, and I'll ask if it is too, just to make sure I'm not unintentionally bullying people, but anyway, it's just a habit off mine. It's probably one of the most common ways I show affection. :P
Anyway, so this past year, we picked up where we left off, and I began the year somewhat distanced from him, but not too much so he would know that I still enjoy conversing with him.
On top of an apparent lack of athleticism, he also demonstrates outrageous amounts of laziness, to the point where he often won't participate in certain sports or other activities at all. So, this past fall, during soccer season, he usually just chilled next to the bench, and waited for me or some other new person with similar interests to come over and talk to him.
One day, as practice/stretches were ending, out of comPLETE nowhere, he notices another kid heading towards the benches and says something (in a... we'll say 25% whisper) to me along the lines of,
"Have you seen X's arms?"
"Ummm, yeah? What about 'em?"
"They're kinda ridiculous."
"I...guess?"
Now, I didn't assume anything, and just thought it was out of place, so we just continued our conversation about videogames as usual as we walked back from practice.
I became somewhat separated from him and his other two friends again somewhere in the fall, but I eventually dissolved back into that posse and began to hang with them more, with a new addition.
One evening, we stop by a classroom after dinner so the new kid can tend to some animals he's been assigned to take care of. Somehow the topic of girls come up, and we all go around in a circle telling our tastes and experiences and etc. When we get to the friend in question, he just offers a shrug and then gives a short answer that doesn't totally answer the question. At this point I still hadn't questioned anything about him.
This is where things get somewhat weirder.
So I haven't mentioned this yet, but we go to a boarding school, and I often visit his dorm to chill with him and a few others. I purchased Super Smash Bros. for 3DS on the weekend of release and I would often let him play it with me. About a week or two later, maybe more, he got the game for himself, and we played against each other. Now he's pretty damn good at the games in this franchise, and tends to beat me a lot. So I tend to pretend to be pissed and tease him with flicks when he gets a big head and a long streak.
And I did just that more often than not. Whenever I was in his room playing Smash, I would flick him while we played on his bed and he would just make a quick whine and let it rock, and we'd continue.
Flick attacks became flick assaults, and eventually I went from a few flicks to him lying on his back on his bed, laughing while I flicked him. This happened pretty regularly for a while, and again, I didn't question it at all. Nor did he.
Fast forward a few months, and this pattern persists, and he begins to expect it more and more.
Something I also noticed in this multimonth timeframe is that he can be very affectionate with his actions. It's not uncommon for him to just hug someone out of nowhere. Issue is, I've only ever seen him hug three people consistently, and as far as I know, he hugs me the most. He's always clung tight to me, and has been known to be at my shoulder a lot, but if I recall correctly, he's never fully embraced me until this past year.
End of winter, beginning of spring/tennis season.
This is where the flicks escalate to borderline roughhousing. We continue to go to his dorm almost daily, and follow the same pattern of Smash then flicks then dinner then split, only now, he starts to submit to the flicks, or run away; and when I say run away I don't mean it like he's terrified or anything, it's just part of the fun, but I'm just trying to note a change in his actions.
(And in case anyone is concerned, he has been annoyed at my habits before, and I've stopped if he's seemed uncomfortable, but when things get to the point that I'm about to describe, and I ask him if he's uncomfortable with it, he either says no, both before and after, or he just dodges the question entirely, mostly the former.)
Now in an effort to avoid noise and injury, (because I'm like, twice his size/weight or whatever) rather than chase after him, 9/10 times we do something like this, I'll make an attempt to grab him rather than chase, and just toss him back onto his bed and continue flicking. Sometimes he'd give up, sometimes he'd defend himself, and sometimes he'd put himself in a position for me to pick him up more and more.
This went from flicking, to roughhousing, and now we have cuddling.
We've cuddled. Often. More likely than not, in his bed. While lying down. It wasn't uncommon for me to hold him while lying on my side after being tired from flicking him the whole time, and he's just rolled with it. I've put my arms around him before while in a lying position, and there have been times where we've just stared at each other like that. It was incredibly awkward, but it seemed like we were just ignoring it to keep the moment going. And the bed is a twin size, and I'm 6"2', so it's not like we were at all distanced while on that bed. We might as well have been in an embrace.
And THIS happened regularly too. There's been several times when he seemed to invite me to the bed nonverbally, just so I would be in a similar position.
Not only that, but in times where I've clearly said that I was done, he would do things that are almost...antagonizing, as if he were trying to egg me on, trying to get e to continue. He was teasing me, it seemed. :\
Now, obviously I though something about this at this point, so I talked to another friend about this and everything else we've done that I can recall, and things that he and I noticed helped us undoubtedly come to the conclusion that he's gay and has some sort of thing for me.
Time moves on and I'm noticing even more and more contributing stuff that I won't mention because they're stereotypical and don't necessarily indicate anything about anyone's sexuality, but they helped me keep the conclusion in my head.
So eventually I got sick of not knowing, and I wanted to take a shot at this, and I figured that if he's close enough to me to go through with all this touchy feely stuff, then if I walk up to him honestly and ask him what's up, he'll give me an honest answer.
So one night, following dinner, he goes to the art room in the basement, and I follow him. He's alone, and we literally go over to the couch and almost do the same shit again (though it felt much more awkward this time, I guess because I instigated it more than he did, but I digress.), and as we're about to leave, I ask him, after trying to verbally assure him that I honestly did not care if he's gay:
"Hey, can I ask you a serious question?"
"You mean, like, a personal question?"
"Yeah."
"Uhh, yeah sure. What's up?"
(brief pause) "Are you gay?"
aaaaaaaand he says no. Which blew my fucking mind out of here.
so I apologized for making things awkward and asking that question and he said something along the lines of:
"Don't be, it's an honest question. You're not the first one to have that impression. People think that of Y all the time, and I asked him myself, but he told me no too. He said that the reason why he appears that way is because he was raised alongside several sisters and adopted certain traits that they express, including an inflection in his voice, over time. I'm kind of in the same boat, I have a sister, and only play with her, and so I may act unlike other people a lot of the time."
He then followed by asking me why I asked, and I said something about him not talking about girls alot and things just seemed awkward whenever the topic came up; and he answered that with:
"Well, we go to a boarding school, and I'm not interested in a LDR enough to pursue one while I'm here and don't think I can manage it. So I'd rather not talk about girls, because I'm just not interested right now."
I could go over the list of rebuttals I could have said or evidence against these claims that I had in my head, but if I said those to him I would have been an invasive dick, and again, those are stereotypical for the most part, and don't necessarily reflect anything.
At the moment, I'm convinced that his answers to my question were lies, but I'd like a second opinion, and possibly some suggestions on this. I know I could still be wrong.
Not only am I upset because potential for a first relationship might have just been wasted, but because even though we've been somewhat distant, I've always felt like he could trust me, at least to a degree where he could give me that answer. I know him better than you all do, so only I can really judge what's up, but I need to know what I should do next, if anything at all. Especially if things somehow continue as they have.
If you have any other questions for me, I'll happily answer, but I just need some extra input right now, because I don't want to waste the last year I have with my friend, if I can have him as more than that. I've grown to like him a lot, we have a lot of fun, and I know that there are thing's that I can teach him, and he me, so that we can both improve as people. I'm not asking for a relationship because these encounters may have had us both horny or something. I'm asking because I believe that it would go well.
Thanks for reading this far. I appreciate any input you guys give me.
TL;DR: A friend I've had went from normal, to awkward, to acting uber touchy-feely around me, and when I started to reciprocate, he seemed to back off.
While we were together during sports, he clung to me very, very often. He's fairly small and not very athletic, so it appeared as if he felt out of place daily and kept close to me for conversation because he couldn't start it with many others. This was perfectly fine for a while.
We kept hanging and talking, and I began to notice that he talked about the same things, over and over again. And I regrettably became a *little* more distant from him because of that. It was somewhat annoying, and since we were together for a decent fraction of the day, I thought I needed a break. (Though, in retrospect, I probably should've spoken to him about it.)
Fast forward to my Junior and his Sophomore year, and things start to get weird...
I didn't mention earlier, but I tend to do this thing with kids who I'm cool with and flick them. Like, with my fingers. Some people will let me know if it's pissing them off, and I'll ask if it is too, just to make sure I'm not unintentionally bullying people, but anyway, it's just a habit off mine. It's probably one of the most common ways I show affection. :P
Anyway, so this past year, we picked up where we left off, and I began the year somewhat distanced from him, but not too much so he would know that I still enjoy conversing with him.
On top of an apparent lack of athleticism, he also demonstrates outrageous amounts of laziness, to the point where he often won't participate in certain sports or other activities at all. So, this past fall, during soccer season, he usually just chilled next to the bench, and waited for me or some other new person with similar interests to come over and talk to him.
One day, as practice/stretches were ending, out of comPLETE nowhere, he notices another kid heading towards the benches and says something (in a... we'll say 25% whisper) to me along the lines of,
"Have you seen X's arms?"
"Ummm, yeah? What about 'em?"
"They're kinda ridiculous."
"I...guess?"
Now, I didn't assume anything, and just thought it was out of place, so we just continued our conversation about videogames as usual as we walked back from practice.
I became somewhat separated from him and his other two friends again somewhere in the fall, but I eventually dissolved back into that posse and began to hang with them more, with a new addition.
One evening, we stop by a classroom after dinner so the new kid can tend to some animals he's been assigned to take care of. Somehow the topic of girls come up, and we all go around in a circle telling our tastes and experiences and etc. When we get to the friend in question, he just offers a shrug and then gives a short answer that doesn't totally answer the question. At this point I still hadn't questioned anything about him.
This is where things get somewhat weirder.
So I haven't mentioned this yet, but we go to a boarding school, and I often visit his dorm to chill with him and a few others. I purchased Super Smash Bros. for 3DS on the weekend of release and I would often let him play it with me. About a week or two later, maybe more, he got the game for himself, and we played against each other. Now he's pretty damn good at the games in this franchise, and tends to beat me a lot. So I tend to pretend to be pissed and tease him with flicks when he gets a big head and a long streak.
And I did just that more often than not. Whenever I was in his room playing Smash, I would flick him while we played on his bed and he would just make a quick whine and let it rock, and we'd continue.
Flick attacks became flick assaults, and eventually I went from a few flicks to him lying on his back on his bed, laughing while I flicked him. This happened pretty regularly for a while, and again, I didn't question it at all. Nor did he.
Fast forward a few months, and this pattern persists, and he begins to expect it more and more.
Something I also noticed in this multimonth timeframe is that he can be very affectionate with his actions. It's not uncommon for him to just hug someone out of nowhere. Issue is, I've only ever seen him hug three people consistently, and as far as I know, he hugs me the most. He's always clung tight to me, and has been known to be at my shoulder a lot, but if I recall correctly, he's never fully embraced me until this past year.
End of winter, beginning of spring/tennis season.
This is where the flicks escalate to borderline roughhousing. We continue to go to his dorm almost daily, and follow the same pattern of Smash then flicks then dinner then split, only now, he starts to submit to the flicks, or run away; and when I say run away I don't mean it like he's terrified or anything, it's just part of the fun, but I'm just trying to note a change in his actions.
(And in case anyone is concerned, he has been annoyed at my habits before, and I've stopped if he's seemed uncomfortable, but when things get to the point that I'm about to describe, and I ask him if he's uncomfortable with it, he either says no, both before and after, or he just dodges the question entirely, mostly the former.)
Now in an effort to avoid noise and injury, (because I'm like, twice his size/weight or whatever) rather than chase after him, 9/10 times we do something like this, I'll make an attempt to grab him rather than chase, and just toss him back onto his bed and continue flicking. Sometimes he'd give up, sometimes he'd defend himself, and sometimes he'd put himself in a position for me to pick him up more and more.
This went from flicking, to roughhousing, and now we have cuddling.
We've cuddled. Often. More likely than not, in his bed. While lying down. It wasn't uncommon for me to hold him while lying on my side after being tired from flicking him the whole time, and he's just rolled with it. I've put my arms around him before while in a lying position, and there have been times where we've just stared at each other like that. It was incredibly awkward, but it seemed like we were just ignoring it to keep the moment going. And the bed is a twin size, and I'm 6"2', so it's not like we were at all distanced while on that bed. We might as well have been in an embrace.
And THIS happened regularly too. There's been several times when he seemed to invite me to the bed nonverbally, just so I would be in a similar position.
Not only that, but in times where I've clearly said that I was done, he would do things that are almost...antagonizing, as if he were trying to egg me on, trying to get e to continue. He was teasing me, it seemed. :\
Now, obviously I though something about this at this point, so I talked to another friend about this and everything else we've done that I can recall, and things that he and I noticed helped us undoubtedly come to the conclusion that he's gay and has some sort of thing for me.
Time moves on and I'm noticing even more and more contributing stuff that I won't mention because they're stereotypical and don't necessarily indicate anything about anyone's sexuality, but they helped me keep the conclusion in my head.
So eventually I got sick of not knowing, and I wanted to take a shot at this, and I figured that if he's close enough to me to go through with all this touchy feely stuff, then if I walk up to him honestly and ask him what's up, he'll give me an honest answer.
So one night, following dinner, he goes to the art room in the basement, and I follow him. He's alone, and we literally go over to the couch and almost do the same shit again (though it felt much more awkward this time, I guess because I instigated it more than he did, but I digress.), and as we're about to leave, I ask him, after trying to verbally assure him that I honestly did not care if he's gay:
"Hey, can I ask you a serious question?"
"You mean, like, a personal question?"
"Yeah."
"Uhh, yeah sure. What's up?"
(brief pause) "Are you gay?"
aaaaaaaand he says no. Which blew my fucking mind out of here.
so I apologized for making things awkward and asking that question and he said something along the lines of:
"Don't be, it's an honest question. You're not the first one to have that impression. People think that of Y all the time, and I asked him myself, but he told me no too. He said that the reason why he appears that way is because he was raised alongside several sisters and adopted certain traits that they express, including an inflection in his voice, over time. I'm kind of in the same boat, I have a sister, and only play with her, and so I may act unlike other people a lot of the time."
He then followed by asking me why I asked, and I said something about him not talking about girls alot and things just seemed awkward whenever the topic came up; and he answered that with:
"Well, we go to a boarding school, and I'm not interested in a LDR enough to pursue one while I'm here and don't think I can manage it. So I'd rather not talk about girls, because I'm just not interested right now."
I could go over the list of rebuttals I could have said or evidence against these claims that I had in my head, but if I said those to him I would have been an invasive dick, and again, those are stereotypical for the most part, and don't necessarily reflect anything.
At the moment, I'm convinced that his answers to my question were lies, but I'd like a second opinion, and possibly some suggestions on this. I know I could still be wrong.
Not only am I upset because potential for a first relationship might have just been wasted, but because even though we've been somewhat distant, I've always felt like he could trust me, at least to a degree where he could give me that answer. I know him better than you all do, so only I can really judge what's up, but I need to know what I should do next, if anything at all. Especially if things somehow continue as they have.
If you have any other questions for me, I'll happily answer, but I just need some extra input right now, because I don't want to waste the last year I have with my friend, if I can have him as more than that. I've grown to like him a lot, we have a lot of fun, and I know that there are thing's that I can teach him, and he me, so that we can both improve as people. I'm not asking for a relationship because these encounters may have had us both horny or something. I'm asking because I believe that it would go well.
Thanks for reading this far. I appreciate any input you guys give me.
TL;DR: A friend I've had went from normal, to awkward, to acting uber touchy-feely around me, and when I started to reciprocate, he seemed to back off.