First guy I ever fell in love with at the age of about 7-9 was straight. We were neighbors, classmates, close enough that we considered each other family (and I remained on good terms with his family for the longest time, even through some of the events I'll be talking about shortly), but I could tell my feelings were something more, especially when I began admiring his physical form (specifically his ass) during sleep-overs, though what that "something" was I couldn't define until I was a little older.
Over time, "stuff" started happening at sleepovers with him. And it continued, growing increasingly sexual by the time we were in junior year of high school. I'm not gonna say it happened every time he slept over, I'm sure there were times it didn't, but most of the time, and "mild contact" gradually spilled into our waking hours as well. (I'd be rich if I had a dollar for every hand job I gave him sitting at my computer.) Sexually speaking, I had a good time once I knew what I was doing, and more important, [italic]he[/italic] had a good time once I knew what I was doing.
He never once complained or gave any indication that he didn't want to hook up, for lack of a better way of putting it, or that he was uncomfortable with guy on guy stuff, and it didn't affect our friendship. So, in my naivete I believed that this meant if I was gay, then he must be gay too. (In retrospect, and today, I respect and accept his self-identification as straight, but honestly, my vote's in the "bi" category. Nobody enters a massive crisis period like what I'm about to describe if they weren't frightened by what our encounters might mean about them.) Turned out my mistake was in thinking we were on the same page.
When you're a careless, clueless, and horny teenager, shit happens. During a sleep-over, assuming everyone else was out like a light, he and I got down to what we usually did. Well, you know what happens when you assume... turned out someone in my family saw some stuff they shouldn't have. More than that, it was someone who wasn't known to exaggerate, so if they told others, I couldn't get out of it by saying what they saw didn't happen without being utterly disbelieved by everyone, or, worse, without the story getting back to adults (and as a teen, though some of my family knew about my orientation, I didn't consider my escapades their business). So when this relative raised the issue to mutual friends because who the hell else could they talk to, and these friends asked me about it, bearing the above in mind, I decided not to deny what was going on.
Evidently, this was a big mistake. Neighbor boy was not interested in confirming any of this. My once-constant friend went completely berserk for a few years --distanced himself from me for a long time for "trying to bring [him] down with [my] shit," became a substance abuser, a thief, and a klepto (in no particular order), and had a series of increasingly unsuccessful relationships with women. Joining the military straightened him out some -- no pun intended -- and he's now married with two kids, one of whom I was supposed to be the godfather. I remained close to his family for a long time, at least until political differences drove a deep fissure into our relationship, and reestablishing contact was probably easier than being awkward around me. We don't talk about back then, and we're not nearly as close as we used to be, because time and distance wound all heels, as John Lennon once put it.
I wish we'd at least been able to talk about it, un-pack how we both felt, and proceed from there; I feel like the friendship could/would have been a lot stronger as a result. But, aside from occasionally wondering what might've been had he been a little more secure about being bi, that's my only regret. I hope he thinks about it. I know I do from time to time.