Lost friend guilt who may be dead

I’m a straight male who once had a best friend once who was flamboyantly gay but the best person I’ve ever known. He wasn’t happy, he said, unless he was around me. It was an obvious crush, which I assumed would pass once he regained his senses. It didn’t. It only grew.

I was in denial for a while that he could be in love with me, and looking back, he clearly was, as I knew then, but I tried to shrug it off. I always knew. We were both attractive, sometimes inseparable, and yes, he was flamboyantly gay. I really thought nothing of it, and he was a great friend and person who made me feel better as his personality was infectious.

Over a period of time, I realized, just by paying attention and waking up from my denial and his other gay friends, that he was in love with me. I did not, at that young age of 24 all those years ago, understand that if you haven’t been with someone who isn’t into you that way, let alone a different sexual preference, you could be in love with someone.

Again, over time, my naïveté went away. In all honesty, it was sheer denial and outright fear. A lot of things happened in fun ways with our crowd of 3 straight guys and 4 gay guys. We were all just friends with dark and goofy personalities. The nicest and funniest guys I’ve ever known. My best friend, though, who, for some odd reason, loved me, was not so happy. It was obvious.

We were both severely honest and blunt guys. He always sensed I was not exactly straight, but I always told him I can admit a guy is attractive, but it doesn’t do anything for me as women are on the brain all day, which was true until I got older. I’ve always been open-minded, but I will freely admit that if a guy is as appealing and attractive as a girl, if it presents itself, I’ll give it a go.

My boy never gets up for it, so there’s your answer. I knew that then, and I know it now. Nothing new; my friend is no longer in my life, and I fear he is dead like all the rest of our former group.

We all, in different ways, told him something he inadvertently did, often which was that he was being extremely loud in public and it was a problem for us.

I worded it as delicately and nicely as I could, which my friends did not. I didn’t even know they had the same small problem as I did and were much harsher and crueler about how they told him. It clearly didn’t go well, as he vanished one day without a trace; he’s been missing ever since.

We naturally figured he was angry or had found a guy somewhere and split. It wasn’t his personality, but he was sad, impulsive, and so forth. Over the years, we hired a PI to see if he was actually alive and, hopefully, happy somewhere.

With my personality, I assumed he was sadly likely dead. I hated thinking like this, but the PI came to the same conclusion. We both believe one of two things. He either likely OD’d on something by accident or purpose via depression. Two, he was a John for hire or with someone violent he thought liked him where things went horribly wrong and was disposed of and in a hole somewhere.

I am fully aware it’s a very bleak belief, but I believe it quite likely happened. This was the early 2000s, and flamboyantly gay, naive, and innocent in demeanor and nature, it could’ve easily happened.

I’d like to think he changed his name and is overseas, somewhere in the middle of nowhere here in the States, but this guy we hired was good and my friend was a gayer version of Tom Hardy without any confidence.

He was so fragile and innocent that we were constantly afraid for him hence our deduction that he is likely dead.

Now, some two years later, he’s in my mind. as I feel guilty about my past and if I’m the sole reason he split because he was in love with me. Or was it because we all broke his heart by not liking that he was so loud that anyone in public could hear our business, even if it was something minimal in nature.

I guess I’ll never know, but it’s killing me, as it always has. I also have PTSD about it, although not unlike my real PTSD from the hell that was my past life long before I knew him.

When he pops up in flashbacks that aren’t the horrible things done to me, I still fall apart, but in different ways. I knew he had similar issues, which is likely in some part why we meshed, in the first place.

I miss him and hate myself, but was it my fault or just one of those things? I’ll never know and it bothers me greatly