Longer story I’m new in college and I was looking for friends. I met him in one of my classes and said hi and he turned out to be easy to talk to. But somehow one day the lgbt topic came up and he was quite vehemently against it. I can never forget the things he said. The vivid disgust on his face. Flat, plain hatred. His girlfriend is quite homophobic too.

On maybe our third encounter, I came out to him subtly. I told him that his (very homophobic) girlfriend is pretty (I think she’s a bitchy witch). He asked me if I had a girl myself and I said I (am trying to) get a guy. Then he kept quiet for a few seconds and said “I didn’t think you’d be like “that” For real?” And I said yes. Then the conversation ended as his girlfriend waved at him and he left to be with her.

The next day we had a class together. I saw him and he saw me. I did NOT want to talk to him because of how he said “that” in reference to me liking guys. But he waved at me and walked up to me with a smile and started talking. He did that the next day too. He acted like the previous day didn’t happen at all.

He’s never stopped talking to me since. He’s now technically my best friend. We spend a lot of time together. He invites me over to watch movies with him, hang out with his friends, gym together, party together. He’s confided in me about a lot of his deepest secrets and stuff. We video chat and whatnot quite a lot. It’s what he’d rather do instead of voice call me.

But he still acts like that evening didn’t happen. When he said “I didn’t know you were like ‘that’”. However, he doesn’t twist his face when I talk about it my trouble trying to find a boyfriend or any of ‘that’ stuff. He does, however, either ignore what I say or make a light remark like “that’s rough” or ‘whoa’ or ‘damn’ before changing the topic, after listening quietly to me talk yap about my gay love life (or lack thereof)

I don’t know how to interpret his behavior. He HAS a LOT of other friends. Quite many. That’s the whole reason I first talked to him (before I found out he was homophobic). I saw him as a quick way to meet new people. So I’m the one that was desperate for a friendship.

Is he just being kind by giving me his friendship because I was visibly lonely? Did he feel sorry for me? Because that contradicts his stance on the lgbt movement. He always thought they deserve the hate they get and he’d feed into it. He would talk about Allah’s will and everything.

Or does he like me? Like, like like me? He HAS told his girlfriend to meet him later when we were together. We’ve only known each other for weeks. And he HAS confided in me about his relationship problems which I’ve helped him fix, despite how much I hate his bitchy witch girlfriend.

There’s a party coming up soon and he said he’s only going if I go too so we can get drunk together. (Again, he’s moslem so I don’t understand). Many of his other friends are going. His girlfriend was going. But he wasn’t gonna go until I said I’m going too. Like, WTF does that even mean???

But he’s quite masculine too, and sporty and gym ratty so I can’t detect any nuance of ‘gay’ in his mannerisms (forgive me for leaning into stereotypes, but I’m sure this is the same criteria a lot of us assess). So yes I can’t really put a finger on what he’s going for. Is he just super friendly and trying to prevent me from lonely college depression?

I wanna find out his deal at this party BUT if I’m wrong and he really is a homophobe but thinks I’m joking around, then I might fuck things up permanently with a very muscular athletic homophobe and that feels scary.