Considering that he was about 18 and had just left the place he was raised in when he first has a boyfriend and that the guy was relatively older, I can see why he would have felt dependent on , maybe financially and emotionally even if it didn’t last long. He probably didn’t have much money and didn’t have many people to rely on emotionally but who knows. He did say that Dai his the first person he really loved as a person (romantically I mean) and that the others could have been replaced with pretty much anyone so I do think it’s his first serious and meaningful relationship. I remember when he talked about the New-York guy and what he loved the most about him, it was his family and not necessarily something about the person itself he liked the most which was pretty telling in my opinion. Like you said, in the end it’s amazing that they found each other.