[LONG] What do you make of this love triangle situation. Did I conduct myself appropriately?

[u/Obiely]

I (M29) was in love with my best friend, AKA BF (M31).

Sorry, I know the post is super long, but I promise it’s worth the read.

 \*TL;DR: My straight-identifying male best friend spent years cuddling, kissing, and initiating sexual contact with me, knowing I was in love with him. He later admitted that he considered dating me but pursued my other closest friend, who initially promised to tell me if she developed feelings for him. She hid her attraction to him, and I ended up losing both friendships.\*

We were inseparable, so much so that people would often ask if we were a couple to mutual friends (but for some reason, it was never directly to us unless it was just me since I’m the only one out as gay). People would also regularly ask where the other was whenever we weren’t immediately seen together.

Context:

We knew each other from college but really connected right after COVID. It was an unusually fast and deep connection. He was calling and texting me all the time, inviting me to hang out, buying or cooking us breakfast/lunch/dinner. His friends (who also became my friends) told me that he would talk about me all the time. He was more excited to interact with me than his girlfriend at the time (now his ex) – the relationship ended about 6 months after we got close.

Some time after he broke up with her, our relationship developed into a weird space. He identified as straight but would begin crossing the boundary into non-platonic territory often, and I obviously developed feelings at some point.

Here are some examples:

• He would give me his clothes. He gave me more than 20 of his hoodies, almost a dozen of his hats, many shirts, shorts, and he even literally gave me his underwear (more than 5 times specifically for underwear that I can remember). He also gave me several of his old jerseys, which had sentimental value.
  
• He would invite me to sleep with him (literally just sleep) in bed. Sometimes we’d also cuddle.
  
• He would kiss me on the forehead every now and then.
  

When he’d drink, he would sometimes explicitly cross into non-platonic territory. This only really happened when it was just the two of us and there was nobody around. Whenever he would try to initiate full on sexual contact, I would always stop him and tell him to talk to me when he’s sober. I did this because I respected his claims of being straight and did not want to be a drunken mistake.

Every time after we’d have intimate moments, he would suddenly not remember the night before and would be moody and somewhat cold for a few days to a few weeks. One thing to note, he didn't have consistent memory issues after drinking under any other circumstance.

These are some of the more explicit moments and most of them (but not all) happened after he had drinks:

• One time, on my birthday, we got home from the bar. He kissed me on the mouth after pulling me into his bed and told me that he loved me (he referred to me by name too, so it wasn’t like he thought I was a girl — not that a bald, bearded man can be easily mistaken for one). He then tried to perform a sex act on me, and I stopped him before he got anywhere. We ended the night there by cuddling and sleeping together. One of our mutual friends found us together in bed the next morning because I let him sleep over in my room and he was looking for us.
  
• (Ref. 1) Another time, we were messing with alcoholic whipped cream when the nozzle broke. He told me to get on my knees and suck out the whipped cream, which meant also sucking his finger. I knew because he tried to figure out how to get the can working and that’s how he made it work, which honestly looked like something from a porno. I asked why I had to kneel down and also why he had to be the one holding it when I could do it myself. He then insisted that I “just do it”. He wasn’t even drunk at that point.
  
• One night, we were drunk on his couch and he spilled his drink on his crotch. I got a small towel and tossed it on his lap, not making any contact with him whatsoever. He told me I needed to pat down on it, which I did really really lightly because I didn’t want to cross any boundaries. At that moment, he grabbed my wrist and said “no, like this!” and pressed my hand down right onto his crotch firmly. By the way, moments before, he had just told me when we were cuddling together on that couch that he “doesn’t tell it to [me] enough but [he] loved [me] so much”. A few minutes later, when I sat back down next to him, he bolted to his room and locked the door, apparently remembering nothing that happened between us.
  
• (Ref. 2) There was a night we went to a well-known viewpoint to look at the city together. This night was different from the other nights we went there because I had a strong urge to confess my feelings to him out of the blue. I said “I have something to tell you,” but nothing came out of my mouth. When he asked why I wasn’t saying anything, I told him that I didn’t want things to be different and I didn’t want him to leave me if I told him. He didn’t press me about it and we went home. That night, before we went to bed, we hugged each other very tightly and nuzzled into each other's necks and held each other for about 1 minute or 2. The hugging and nuzzling wasn’t unusual for us, but this duration was very long. Usually we kept it to about 10-15 seconds. Maybe 20 on occasion, but never a whole-ass minute. It happened more than just that but considering how obviously I was about to confess to him earlier that night, I think it matters a lot. Also, this night he was not drunk.
  
• One time, his apprentice came to our house with his girlfriend to hang and have drinks. At some point toward the end of the night, the apprentice French kissed me out of nowhere in front of BF and his own girlfriend when he thought they weren’t in the living room with us — super shocking and incredibly awkward for me. The apprentice and his GF left right after that and BF immediately went to bed. He was clearly angry, not looking at me or talking to me and locked his bedroom door. Later that night, I heard him puking in the bathroom so I helped him and cleaned him up. He pulled me into his bed with him and said that he wasn’t angry at me. We slept that night cuddled up together. A little bit after this incident (maybe a few weeks to about a month) , he told me that he was going to stop dating (random girls) and focus on himself. As far as I’m aware, he actually stopped having sexual contact or dates with women after this point.
  

We moved in together at the very end of 2022 and all of these incidents happened when we lived together including more that I haven’t written about. It was toward the end of 2023 that I started bringing around my closest friend, AKA CF (29F) regularly. She got along very well with BF as well, so we had a tight-knit trio from that point on, and our house would be the gathering point.

When I started bringing her over regularly, I had a frank conversation with her about BF. She was already aware of all of the context and of my feelings for BF because she was one of the few people who I could confide in. During this conversation, I asked her to please tell me if she ever develops feelings for him so I can be prepared for heartbreak in case he reciprocates. I told her I would step aside if that was the case, but I just wanted to know from her before anything happened and that I would support her and him if it meant they would be happy. This would be something I’d ask her about from time to time to check-in.

Side note: I had never asked BF frankly about my feelings for him and his conduct with me because I didn't want to pressure him when it seemed like he was struggling with his sexuality.

I told myself that I would never make the first move either because I didn't want to get treated differently if things weren’t going to work out. Years earlier, I had confessed feelings to another close male friend, and although he initially promised that nothing would change, he eventually started treating me differently and the friendship fell apart, especially because the girl he was interested in told him to keep his distance from me. I was terrified of repeating that experience. This is context that BF knew about from the very beginning of our connection right at the end of COVID. Regardless, I didn't make a special effort to hide my feelings for BF either – it was very obvious that I liked him, which confused me because he made no effort to create distance between us if it was unwelcome, not even mentioning how he would be the one initiating more than half the time.

———————

The incident (conversation 1):

Fast forward to the middle of 2025, BF woke me up from a nap and asked to talk to me. His voice was shaky and nervous and he looked almost frightened and even began to cry – I thought someone important died because I never saw him behave like this before.

He told me that he thought he had feelings for CF and was afraid that things would change and that he wanted to tell me first before anyone else. He said that he wanted my approval before he went for it, because she was my closest friend.

He said CF wasn’t his type, but he was turning 30 soon and wanted a wife and kids. This is literally a cliche in the gay world (turning 30 and suddenly wanting a wife and kids). It gets memed about all the time, but I knew he wasn’t joking. My world was destroyed with those few words, and I was still just barely getting out of a funk from waking up.

We went outside to talk, and I started crying too and told him that the important thing is that he does what makes him happy because I love him and I wanted him to be happy more than anything else. He said that he didn’t expect me to confess to him and that he knew it must have been really tough for me to say out loud. Then, he told me he couldn't be that person for me and that he was sorry.

I asked how long he knew that I liked him because I knew he wasn't blind and was aware for some time. He told me it was around the time we first moved in together. I also happened to learn that he spoke to CF about being interested in her, and she confirmed that she was interested in him as well – this happened just a few days prior to him dropping this news onto me. One of the next things he asked me was not to hate CF.

I asked him about the homoerotic moments we’ve had and he said he didn't remember any of them. I didn't say it out loud but I found this hard to believe because he wasn't drunk in some of them. Also, being drunk is one thing, but not remembering literally any one of the dozens of moments we had together seems implausible, but I didn't press any further on this topic.

At one point, he talked about how he knew I was devastated from the last time I had confessed my feelings to a male friend and they distanced themselves from me and reaffirmed he’d never be like that.

After we talked, I took the whole week off work because I just couldn’t keep it together. During this week we would both be breaking out into tears out of the blue. He would actually get so emotional that he would puke in the restroom, and for some reason, I would be there to comfort him despite it being me who was heartbroken. He asked me if I wanted to go to this beach town we used to always go to and I said yes.

—————

The weekend trip (conversation 2):

That weekend, he chose a hotel room for us with just one single king bed. This would be normal for us if it were any other time, but the man literally just told me earlier in the week that he was interested in CF and not me. Plus, I know he could have easily afforded another room for himself. I was confused by this and in some way slightly hopeful, if that makes any sense. In any case, we had an eerily similar day to our normal trips, and when we got to bed, we talked all night.

These are some of the most notable things we spoke about:

• I asked him why he didn’t confront me early on if he knew I had feelings for him and he said he was a coward.
  
• I asked him if he had ever considered us being together and he said that at some point he did, but he followed up saying that it was just a passing thought and wasn't serious. I asked when he had this passing thought, and it was before we moved in together, meaning probably 2022 or before. This means that he considered a relationship with me before he even knew I was a viable option because he didn’t know I liked him, which I find very significant.
  
• He told me again that CF isn’t even his type but he started to develop feelings for her because she “did a lot for us” and when she told us earlier in the month that she needed to leave for a temporary work opportunity for 6 months, he said he realized that he liked her.
  
• He reiterated that he was about to be 30 and that he wanted a family and kids – Call me crazy but it sounded like he picked her just to achieve this goal of having a wife and kids. I thought this especially because he didn’t talk about the things he loved about her or what he found attractive – Just this goal in particular, and I thought it was really unnecessary to emphasize how he wasn’t attracted to her.
  
• (Ref 2.) At some point, he mentioned that the night we went to the viewpoint, he knew I was about to confess my feelings for him but stopped myself. He told me it was really obvious because of the way I phrased everything. I didn’t bring it up then, but I find this really significant, because of the incredibly intimate hug and neck nuzzling that night. If he knew the context, why engage in that manner?
  

In the morning, I told him that I couldn’t do this anymore and that I needed to be alone for the foreseeable future… that I couldn’t bear to look at him because of how much pain it brought me. I told him that I needed a clean break, as much as possible since we lived together and would hang out every day because things couldn’t be normal after this. He tried to convince me to stay with him like normal because we “talked about it”. He looked heartbroken and his voice cracked when he said those words. I stayed firm and told him that I couldn't for the sake of my own mental health.

—————

Conversation 3:

Only a few days later, I’m already getting questions from friends asking why I wasn’t going to be at an upcoming event that weekend with BF. I guess he told them I wouldn’t be there, which was apparently so incredibly abnormal that it immediately raised alarms. I didn’t have a good answer, so I said I’d tell them later.

Then, I asked BF if we could talk to find a way to answer these questions in a way that we’d both liked. I didn’t want to tell everyone everything and make people think he was gay if that wasn’t how he felt, but I also didn’t want to be portrayed as a delusional person projecting my feelings onto my friend by cutting out details.

So we figured out a story we could tell people about why I wasn’t really going to be around anymore — the explanation was going to be that I got a second job that I do on the weekends — but then the conversation turned back toward the overall situation and got heated.

I asked him again about the intimate moments we shared, and he still denied remembering anything. I want to note here though, that he didn’t deny that these moments existed. He explicitly only said that he didn’t remember.

At some point, he said I was like a brother to him, which set me off. I snapped back with “you don’t try to fuck your brother. Don’t you fucking dare call me brother.” He had nothing to say in his own defense to this.

I asked him one final time if he really didn’t remember any of the suggestive moments we’ve had, and he firmly stated that he did not remember. I called it out in more depth, referencing direct events of some of the occurrences. He said he really didn't remember and claimed he was drunk.

I told him that he either has a massive drinking problem (which seems unlikely since I was around for every drink he’d have) or that he is lying to me because it’s really convenient that he doesn't remember a single event out of dozens.

I also called out that in some of these moments he barely had anything to drink. I said there was one moment in particular (ref. 1) where he wasn’t drinking at all during the sexual part, to which he replied that he was just having fun with a friend and that it wasn’t meant to be sexual – meaning he did remember that event… but also didn’t see the problem? He didn’t see how inappropriate it was to engage clearly sexually suggestive behavior with me considering he knew my feelings for him at the time and also assuming it really wasn’t mutual.

He then blew up at me saying “I’m not gay! I’m straight!” . When he said that, I asked him why it took 3 whole long-ass conversations about this topic for him to straight up tell me that he’s straight and not gay – he had no answer to that and told me that he never once gave me a green light. I told him that that may be true, but he never gave me a red light either. There was no response to this either.

In the beginning of this conversation, I told him that I didn't want CF in my home, and he protested saying that she wouldn't be happy with it. I followed up saying that it’s my home too and I want to be safe and comfortable where I live and that one veto should have been the end of the thought of bringing her over.

I also pointed out how cruel it would be to have their couple moments where I can hear them (I was staying in my room for the most part) trying to survive my negative emotions. I also mentioned that I wasn’t the one who changed the status quo, so I shouldn’t have to be the one who has to accommodate non-essential changes especially when I didn't initiate the change in the first place. I also said that they were both adults and that they could surely find a private space that wasn’t where I lived. When things cooled down toward the end of the conversation, he eventually agreed that he would tell her she couldn’t come to the house.

I also brought up how I didn't like the way he talked about CF. I hated how he repeatedly said he wasn’t attracted to her and that she wasn’t his type. It made me feel like he didn’t actually respect her since he was openly saying it about someone he was interested in.

He told me that when he said the same thing to his friends, they called him out and told him that he should never say that about a partner and that he wouldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know how many people he said it to before he was called out, but it’s not my relationship so I didn’t care to ask at the time. I feel like there was an implication that he didn’t understand the impact of his words because technically english is his second language, but here's the thing – He is fluent in English and he knows damn well how insulting it is to say that you aren’t attracted to your partner and that they aren't your type.

Then, I asked about how he’d told me ages ago that his next relationship had to be an open one because he couldn’t see himself sleeping with just one person for the rest of his life, especially important because he admitted he had cheated at least one time on his ex. CF was very clear in the duration of our friendship that she is a monogamous person and that she wouldn’t accept anything less. BF then told me he’s too jealous of a partner to be in an open relationship.

I was satisfied that I could at least speak up for CF since she wasn’t present to vouch for herself, but it also didn’t seem like my duty to press any further. I decided I would talk to CF directly about my concerns later.

—————

Conversation with CF:

For the next few weeks, we were both basically living in our rooms and the mood of the whole house changed from how lively it used to be. One notable thing is that BF would be stuck in his emotions, and I could hear it. He was still so emotional that he would puke in the bathroom on the regular.

I heard absolutely nothing from CF. I texted her asking to talk and got nothing. I followed up several times and even called twice just to be sent to voicemail each time until I got fed up with it. I made sure to pick times that she wasn’t working so I wouldn’t be a distraction too.

I went to BF and said that I needed to talk to CF and that the more she avoided me the more negatively I began to feel about her and I couldn’t help it. She and I had been friends since freshman year of high school, and I felt like the least she could do was talk to me while my life was falling apart.

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that I lent her $1000 to secure housing for her work opportunity because I wanted her to be focused on learning and succeeding at her potential new career rather than be insecure about housing. I realized that the day I lent her the money was literally the day right after BF and CF confirmed their interest to each other, which was a few days before BF told me he liked her. She said originally that she just needed her first paycheck and she would pay me back, but it was already about a month and I got nothing and heard nothing. I didn’t realistically expect the whole thing back at once, but some communication would have been appreciated.

Because I spoke to BF and he pressured her into talking with me, I finally got a phone call from her. She asked what I wanted and I knew it was going to be an argument from the tone of her voice. I asked to hear her side of everything because I just wanted to know what was going on in her head.

She was very mad. She said that she was angry that I talked to a friend about the situation (she knows because I told BF that I talked to 2 people about it because I had nobody to talk to – CF and BF would have been the normal people I went to for venting).

She said that she wanted to keep everything private. She expected me to talk to her first before talking to anyone else, which I found unfair because I was trying to survive my pit of emotions.

Actually, now that I’m writing this, I remembered that BF gave his blessing for me to talk to those two friends because I didn't know people who I was close enough to vent to about the topic which led me to asking him for his consent. He literally encouraged me to talk to these people.

Besides that, I found it ridiculous that I had made my request to her very clearly (to tell me if she developed feelings for BF during our time as a trio), and she didn’t respect it – yet, she expected me to somehow know her unstated wishes and follow them to a T.

She was also mad that I didn’t want her over anymore. Then, she followed up by saying that she had been telling me the whole time that BF was straight – we never had a full conversation about this when she was a part of the trio. She would just say in passing “I think he’s straight” every now and then in the last year or two.

This also doesn’t erase how firmly she would tell me that he COULDN'T be straight when she wasn’t part of our trio. Before she became part of the trio, she would hear my detailed account of the things we did and would tell me that she really believed he wasn’t straight because straight men don’t act the way he did.

She followed up saying that everyone could tell that she and he were into each other and that I was the one who was blind to it all, but nobody ever said this to me… even to this day. All I hear from others is that the relationship seemed to come out of nowhere and that it was an odd couple.

She then made a few personal attacks, and I asked her why she didn’t keep her promise – To tell me if she developed feelings for him, so I could be prepared for heartbreak and step aside. She told me that she wanted to protect BF’s privacy. I called this out and said that I was asking about HER feelings, so how is BF’s privacy relevant? She had no answer and doubled down on it.

At some point, she told me that she had feelings for BF for a long time – Later on, I asked one more time why she didn't keep her promise and she said “why didn’t you ask me when I was sober?”. The implication was that she didn’t remember our promise even though I followed up several times over the duration we were a trio of friends.

This is when I finally snapped and said “How could I? You’re NEVER sober!” Which was the honest truth. She drank a lot. She would regularly come to our house, slam 3-5 shots and then start interacting with us. I didn’t even mention how this story now contradicts the story about her wanting to protect BF’s privacy because I was overwhelmed by emotions. She either deliberately lied to me to “protect BF’s privacy”, which makes no logical sense, or she forgot the promise because she’s always drunk. Somehow, she’s claiming both stories despite the contradiction.

In any case, we end the conversation with nothing left to say. Actually, I had a whole list of grievances to air out about how she handled the situation, but I was so shocked at her anger that I didn't have the energy to say my piece. She told me she would send the money back eventually, but that took some prodding from me and took about a few more months before I actually got it back.

I’m 99% sure that BF paid in her stead too, which rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn't really my concern anymore as long as he could afford rent until our lease ended. I’m also still bamboozled by how she could break her promise to me and do me so dirty then accept my money with a smile on her face the day after she broke her promise, knowing that I’d be incredibly hurt in the matter of days.

I didn’t get the chance to tell CF that I had concerns over the way BF spoke about her, but in the end, I didn’t think it would matter because I saw the bridge was burned.

——————

Conversation 4:

Eventually (probably a month or so after the conversation with CF), I asked BF to have a frank conversation about our living situation. We met in the kitchen and I asked him to move out when the lease ended. He agreed, and somehow we got talking about the situation again.

Apparently, he didn’t know anything about how my conversation with CF went. He said that he thought whatever happened between us was just that and it didn’t involve him, but he wanted to hear what happened. I told him everything and pointed out how nothing she said made sense. He agreed that none of it made sense and he said that he didn’t think I was lying (which he better not have – he knows me far too well for that), but he thought that I was overreacting to what she did.

During this last conversation, In response to him saying that he respects me, I made it clear that I didn’t think so because he knew I had feelings for him and led me on for years. He dumped the worst news on me, knowing that he was the worst person to deliver it. I said that if he actually respected me, he should have talked to me about my feelings for him first, then separately dealt with his interest in CF after that had time to settle.

I also made it clear that I couldn't see myself ever associating myself with him if he is okay with being around someone who deliberately backstabbed me.

At some point, we started taking shots because we needed access to his room to set up a new router that was taking forever to connect and it was getting awkward.

Somehow, we talk about the situation one more time, and I start calling out all of the ways I went out of my way to make sure he was safe and taken care of including one moment where CF chose to go to bed and called him a liar, then a B-word when said he needed to go to the hospital after he broke a bone. He got really mad and said that good people don't keep score, and that was essentially the last time we had a real conversation. Everything we said to each other from then on was just about the logistics of moving out.

——————

It’s been a little more than a year since the day BF told me he thought he had feelings for CF. I still have tons of questions that I don’t know if I’ll ever get a truthful answer for – not that it really matters anymore. I’m a lot less angry today, but it still riles me up to think about the sequence of events.

Some days I feel like I’m crazy (less often than I did during the fallout), but when I review the chain of events and every not-so-straight signal I received from BF, i think it’s so ridiculous – that no purely straight man would behave in such a way, but it’s so obvious that I feel like maybe I’m crazy.

For example, how on earth did he consider a relationship with me as a passing thought and remember it years later to tell me? Doesn’t sound much like a passing thought to me. Also, I don’t know any straight man who ever considered a relationship with another man. Not to mention, if it was really a passing thought, why was it important enough for him to remember it so long after? And why was it appropriate for him to say at that moment if he was really trying to tell me he wasn’t gay and wasn’t interested in me whatsoever?

I think, considering how much emotional pain and stress I’d been under, it was pretty amazing how well I conducted myself. Now that my head is clear, I know I would have been far more thorough in asking follow up questions and getting to the bottom of inconsistencies that I was told as well as standing up for myself.

A lot of people we aren’t close to even put two and two together because CF and BF went public with their relationship basically on the 2nd week after he dropped the initial news to me that he liked her. I guess my disappearance was just too convenient for it to be ignored. Not to mention, he was telling people “I wish my best friend was happy for me”, which is a pretty big clue as to what happened if you ever saw our dynamic. I’m also pretty sure he never used the explanation for my disappearance that we came up with together.

I also wonder about CF. I wasn’t mad at her at first because I figured there had to be some good reason why she didn’t keep her word, but I was really shocked to hear her side. It seemed cartoonishly evil, and I’ve never had a friend flip on me like that in my entire life.

It makes me question if she actually saw me as a friend and, if she didn’t, when did that change? I used to think she was one of the most honest people I’ve ever met in my life, but now I can’t trust anything she’s ever said to me. Also, if she was really interested in preserving our friendship, why was she so aggressive toward me off the bat?

During our time as a trio, CF admitted to both me and BF that she is an incredibly jealous person when she’s in a relationship. Because of this, I can’t help but think she probably manipulated the chain of events at some point in a way to produce the most visceral reaction from me to eliminate any potential competition, this being not keeping her promise to me and allowing BF to be the one to drop the news onto me.

In any case, it feels weird how my closest friends seemed to make the worst,

most callous choices in regard to this situation. It also made me really question my judgement of character because, while I don’t expect perfection from my friends, I certainly expected more decency than this.

CF and BF are still together. Several mutual friends told me that when they came over to their house, it was a really awkward and miserable experience. I don’t really know what that means, but I don’t really care to know. They also told me that he would get defensive if they’d ask if he thought she had any responsibility in how things played out – That tells me everything I needed to know about his character.

In any case, I didn’t write this to post originally. I just wanted to process my feelings by writing out everything from start to finish, but then I figured, why not get opinions from strangers on the internet – what do you make of this long-ass story? AITAH for how I handled everything? This whole thing is incredibly ridiculous, and I still can’t believe everything turned out the way it did.

I welcome any overall comment/opinion, but a few questions I have:

- Was I wrong to unilaterally make the decision to ban CF from visiting our home?

- Did I handle my confrontation with CF unfairly? Was it wrong of me to ask for my money back before I expected it to be paid because I was angry?

- Was I wrong to pressure BF for an answer about the intimate moments we shared?

- Was it wrong of me to end the friendship with BF because of his association with CF after explaining how she treated me?

- Other than confronting BF a lot earlier about my feelings and his actions, what should I have done differently?

[u/Kiyuna]

wow

[u/ikonoclasm]

- Was I wrong to unilaterally make the decision to ban CF from visiting our home? - Yes. He pays his portion of the lease, and you have no say over who his guests are unless you have a legitimate reason not to allow them over. You being petty is not a legitimate reason.

- Did I handle my confrontation with CF unfairly? Was it wrong of me to ask for my money back before I expected it to be paid because I was angry? - You created that situation by banning her. You punished her before getting her say on the matter. YTA. The money was owed back regardless, and the drama doesn't change the fact that she owed you.

- Was I wrong to pressure BF for an answer about the intimate moments we shared? - No. He still owes you an answer, but he sounds spineless and consumed by internalized homophobia so don't expect him to suddenly learn to communicate like an adult.

- Was it wrong of me to end the friendship with BF because of his association with CF after explaining how she treated me? - No, but not for that reason. You two were terrible for each other because neither of you knew how to communicate. You both sent hella mixed signals and blurred the fuck out of the definition of "platonic." You're also too dense to realize that you hurt him every time you rejected him when he was making a move. He showed vulnerability, you rejected him, he pretended he didn't remember so he didn't continue exposing that vulnerability to you because you kept hurting him.

- Other than confronting BF a lot earlier about my feelings and his actions, what should I have done differently? - You could have told him after the first attempt that if he wanted to experiment, he needed to trust you enough to tell you. You should have had boundaries of your own. If he's straight, then don't let him get all cuddly and give you reason to think he's not. Waiting until he's about to slip it in is faaarrrr too late to establish that boundary. Which is why you hurt him every time you rejected him.

[u/Obiely → u/ikonoclasm]

Ooh -- thank you for the honest and detailed response.

- Was I wrong to unilaterally make the decision to ban CF from visiting our home? - Yes. He pays his portion of the lease, and you have no say over who his guests are unless you have a legitimate reason not to allow them over. You being petty is not a legitimate reason.

• That's a fair way to look at it. I guess the reason I leaned toward thinking it was an okay decision is that where does the line end for a legitimate reason? If BF and I were really in a relationship and ended up cheating on me with CF, surely I would have a say in her being around in our home right? Would that still be petty? Technically, it's also a betrayal. I understand that there was no relationship, but the premise is the same -- I would ban someone who hurt me from the home.
• A similar premise applies to couples and inviting guests. Commonly in these situations, if theres a guest one person absolutely hates and the other person is okay with, most people generally side with the one who doesn't want to host them. Is this just a reddit thing though? I'm legitimately curious.

- Did I handle my confrontation with CF unfairly? Was it wrong of me to ask for my money back before I expected it to be paid because I was angry? - You created that situation by banning her. You punished her before getting her say on the matter. YTA. The money was owed back regardless, and the drama doesn't change the fact that she owed you.

• One small correction in this interpretation -- I didn't outright permanently ban her in the beginning. I told BF that I didn't want her over for a while because I was still trying to process everything, but she interpreted it as a ban, which then just became fact because the bridge was burned.
• The main reason I felt it was justified for me to push about the money is that she told me herself that she would pay me back on her first paycheck, though I didn't really expect it then. Technically, I was holding her to her own word.
• The other thing is that I would have never given her the money if I knew she deceived me. I found out she deceived me after the fact, and it felt like she took that money under false pretense.

- Was I wrong to pressure BF for an answer about the intimate moments we shared? - No. He still owes you an answer, but he sounds spineless and consumed by internalized homophobia so don't expect him to suddenly learn to communicate like an adult.

• Ok cool! It's kinda sad that we will probably never get an answer from him. Oh well

- Was it wrong of me to end the friendship with BF because of his association with CF after explaining how she treated me? - No, but not for that reason. You two were terrible for each other because neither of you knew how to communicate. You both sent hella mixed signals and blurred the fuck out of the definition of "platonic." You're also too dense to realize that you hurt him every time you rejected him when he was making a move. He showed vulnerability, you rejected him, he pretended he didn't remember so he didn't continue exposing that vulnerability to you because you kept hurting him.

• I really hope this doesn't sound argumentative -- I don't believe that he thought I was rejecting him because I simplified the way I'd turn him down in the post. If he said I love you, I would explicitly say it back. When he'd initiate sexual contact, I'd say that I'd be down for sex but that I'd want to discuss it sober before actually doing it. One of my best guesses is that he was using the drunken moments as a way to initiate while having plausible deniability, because he didn't want to have to commit since he knew I was seriously in love.

• Otherwise, it's possible he may just have had no impulse control .

  - Other than confronting BF a lot earlier about my feelings and his actions, what should I have done differently? - You could have told him after the first attempt that if he wanted to experiment, he needed to trust you enough to tell you. You should have had boundaries of your own. If he's straight, then don't let him get all cuddly and give you reason to think he's not. Waiting until he's about to slip it in is faaarrrr too late to establish that boundary. Which is why you hurt him every time you rejected him.

• Actually interestingly enough, there was a time where we were playing a card game, truth or drink, when it was just us. One of the questions was something like "how confident are you in your sexuality? Have you ever experimented or considered experimenting?" During this game, he said he was curious about being with a man. When he said that, I told him that, if he decides to go for it, the most important thing is that he should experiment with someone he trusts because it's a very vulnerable space to be in. Then he said he meant that he was only curious for a little bit when he was a teenager and not today, even though the tense he used was present tense. When we had our conversations listed in this post, he actually referenced that truth or drink game conversation at one point.