This is a complicated issue for me and one which has dragged on for over three years now. I hope that there is somebody out there who can help me.

I am a gay and quite comfortable with that. I am "out" to everybody I know (work and home) and have no issues nor baggage of any kind. Around three years ago I met a guy at work whom I soon grew to like. He was/is "straight" and I knew him through his girlfriend (who also worked at the same place). It was not until he split with his girlfriend that we became far more close and eventually we began seeing one another outside of work.

After a short time he asked me to help him find a new girlfriend, which is fine, given that I do have a lot of straight female friends. I did arrange some dates for my friend and really did not pay too much attention to this at the time, because I almost had it figured that as soon as he did find another girlfriend, I would not be too hot on his list of "best friends." However, it seemed that every time he made arrangements to go on a date, it fell through. It was not until later on that I found out that he either did not turn up, called it off at the last moment, or completely stood the woman in question up, to the point where he would not even make any contact afterwards, not even to explain why he had let her down.

As time went by this began to irritate me, mainly because he did this to several of my friends and left me to explain his way out of it to these people, which I felt was dreadfully unfair to me. However, no matter how much the friendship suffered, as soon as he was able to come round to my house to see me again, he began to get very tactile, hugging me at every opportunity, buying me gifts and even writing me letters.

I have always found this to be quite odd. I am by no means stereotyping anybody, but it does seem somewhat unusual that a straight man would actually go this far with a man who is known to be gay, if for no other reason than to stop him getting totally the wrong idea (which is clearly the case here).

However, recently this has progressed to the point where he allowed me to kiss him and hold him very close. By this, I do not mean a deep kiss or really suggestive holding, but very close nonetheless and a lot of kissing. Now this has happened, he kisses me every single time he sees me. Recently he split up with another girlfriend (but got back together with her soon after), only to stand up yet another of my friends in the interim period. The most recent contact I have had from him was an email to tell me how he was going to give me such a hug when he did eventually see me.

This is the brief run down of the story. There is much more to it and in all honesty I have had quite enough of it. I personally do feel that if I do come right out with what is on my mind, the friendship is going to end. I realise that this will never go anywhere in terms of a relationship and I doubt he will ever admit to anything. I wish I was better at spotting a gay person (being gay does not make me an expert on this), but the truth is that I am not and all I really want to know is where this is going. Is he gay? If so, why, in three years, has he not felt the opportunity to tell me that he may at least be leaning that way or maybe even use the old "I think I am bisexual" line? Ultimately, this really is messing with my head.

Do straight men do this kind of thing? Is it possible that he simply does not wish to offend me by telling me to stop or slow down and that I am pushing it too far? Anybody who can help me and dissolve these doubts would be so welcome...

Thank you