Dear dreaming715,

I’m a gay male and like your boyfriend’s best friend I can also be very edgy with my straight friends, sometimes I cross the line and I don’t even need alcohol to get me in that state, but I recognise most of the behaviours you’ve described in myself. Here’s my take;

1. Your bf’s friend is essentially lonely

2. He’s certainly not in a loving or fulfilling relationship himself

3. He’s deeply attracted to your bf and fantasizes about him

4. He tends to blur the line between friendship intimacy and relationship intimacy because he lacks intimacy in his own life

5. He simultaneously admires and envies the relationship you and your bf have and so he wants to feel/be a part of that

6. He may be caught between a deep need for intimacy and a deep fear of intimacy which is why a push-pull relationship with a straight man allows for this endless cycle

7. There is also an unspoken need in your bf to be desired and admired by his gay best friend and the best friend probably finds in your boyfriend an acceptance that he doesn’t find elsewhere or even in himself.

Your bf’s best friend is clearly out to you both, but is he out to everyone in his life? I think he may have a bit of an issue with his own sexuality which is why he continues in this somewhat unhealthy cycle with a committed, straight guy. The fact that he’s so future oriented in his fantasies of running away with your boyfriend plus the fact that he needs to get drunk to express heis deepest desires says to me that he has a problem facing up to the here-and-now, because he either starts thinking about a possible future or medicates with alcohol to “be himself” in the present.

He also needs a relationship of his own from which to get love and acceptance from. Any chance of discreetly hooking him up with a masculine, straight-vibed guy? Get him on a gay dating app like Grindr, Scruff, Squirt or the like. Since you and your husband are open-minded, why not take him to a gay bar where the chances of him finding someone for himself are increased. The moment he has something to live for in his own love life, the less he’ll infringe on yours plus it’ll increase his empathy for you because he won’t want someone else pouring all over his man. If he suffers from fluctuating confidence, then express more confidence in him, in his looks, in his dress sense, in his suitability to find his soulmate.

Hope that helps.