Wanted to show you his rope eh? Haha.

This isn't super relevant to the discussion being had but your comment reminds me that I wish I had the confidence of whoever those guys were because I have always assumed any effort on my part would be rebuffed so I never pursued anyone. I also never tried to make friends with women (or anyone really) because I feared they'd view it as an advance and be creeped out by me. Or in the case of male friends, I was afraid they would have similar feelings later on in our friendship when they discovered I was gay. It's a shame really because looking back on it there were a number of people who in retrospect I can see were interested in me romantically and a number of people who seemed to enjoy me as a friend, but at the time I was so convinced no one could care for me that I didn't realize the signs they were giving me. Very obvious signs in some cases. One poor girl was so sweet and not that subtle to me but at the time I thought she was just being kind to make the comments that she made. Had I realized I would have told her I was gay so she wouldn't have felt rejected.