Maybe you will find it in you to forgive his shortcomings. Or maybe not. Either way is OK to me. That is, what I prize in people is the ability to be who they are. For some people, these breaches would be so severe that they would have to end the friendship. Others might find it possible to overlook them. That is a personal matter. And so, there I was, sitting on the couch in my grey sweats and pulling this bandana over my eyes. “No looking man – got it?” he said with a seriousness in his voice.

Several months ago, I took a trip with a longtime, close friend. We are both gay men and have traveled many times together over the years with few problems and a hell of a lot of fun. My friend can be high-maintenance but I am pretty low-key and we've managed to work out our different styles and to enjoy ourselves. I was 19 when I first had full-on sex with another man. I was at college, living in dorms, and the experience—aside from the usual horrifying awkwardness and somewhat spontaneity of the occasion—was completely and utterly unremarkable aside from one thing: the guy I slept with identified as straight. My husband came in and told us and we decided that rather than draw attention to it we would just shout his name and tell him it was time to go home. Maybe you can be the one to elicit the darker truth. Think about it. His mother was dying. He was lonely. He was scared. You don't have to become his therapist to suggest that he be frank with you about the emotional needs that are driving his behavior. Maybe his marriage is unsatisfying. Maybe he feels people don't respect him. Maybe he's trying too hard. I’m not really sure what to do, or if I should do anything at all like tell his mum (my sister)? My mum said it’s better to just ignore it but is that right? Is it normal behaviour for a 9 year old? Also I’m feeling guilty for letting my son have his naked time... maybe I shouldn’t have done that??Later that morning as we had breakfast with our housemates, I asked him if he'd had a nightmare. He said he didn't, but I wondered if he'd simply forgotten and gave it no more thought. It was listening to Years & Years’ new song “Sanctify,” and seeing the band’s out gay singer Olly Alexander talk about how the song was inspired his sexual trysts with straight men, that I realized that these feelings are way more common than people let on. Sure, I know all about gay guys having sex with straight guys, but it felt reassuring to see him describe the “saint and sinner role” he embodied during those experiences, and to hear the uncertainty and melancholy weaved into the song. Because he said he felt weird about your little boy being naked, I wouldn't take it as anything pervy as he clearly wanted your little one to not be naked anymore.

In the days that followed that first incident, I worried about our friendship turning awkward. If you’ve ever gotten with a guy who identifies as straight, you know what I mean. Things can turn south real fast.Basically my cousin was staying with my mum (his grandmother) and she brought him over to our house for a couple of hours and we all had dinner. He came in and said he felt ‘weird’ about our little boy being naked, so of course we put a nappy on him. My nephew then again went into the kitchen and blatantly started again playing with himself. He had a girlfriend named Carla and he was dating her for two months when I first got a chance to meet her. I disliked her immediately, although I didn’t know at the time what was the reason for my aversion towards her. I mean she seemed a really cool girl. I just didn’t like her and I was under the impression that Timothy had noticed that. It also seemed awkward to me that he never said anything about it. You would have think that it would have been bothered him to know that I wasn’t too fond of her. Then he joined the army and we kept seeing each other only like twice a month, since I was also busy with college. You may feel a desire to punish your friend. It's natural when we have been injured to want to lash out. But I think the best course is to spend some time with him and try to reach a new understanding that contains a further frankness. What has gone between you requires you, in fact, to find a further frankness. The casual arrangements you have made in the past are no longer enough to encompass what you now know.