So, Two Bisexual Bipolar Guys Meet at Work... Oh Boy

So there's this bipolar guy at work that I've been friends with for 8 months. To the point we are now best friends. I'm also bipolar. We are so much alike, but in weird complimentary ways. Like, I'm bisexual, but I've been with mostly men, only a few women. He's bi-curious and has only been with women and I feel it's sort of me that has sparked his curiosity. He's open about it and says lots of things "jokingly" but then will ask serious and explicit questions about what I like sexually, etc. But he has to be the one to initiate this type of conversation. If I do, he just changes the subject. We are a couple of moody hypersexual bipolar guys.

He says he's afraid to be alone with me because *I* might be drunk and advantage of him, which I had to explain made no sense. The drunk one is the one that gets taken advantage. I said I might get drunk and take advantage of his currosity and he laughed. But finally after 7 months of me asking him to hang out, I started to feel foolish and I stopped. Then, boom, he asked me to hang out. And sure enough, after a party and dinner and watching a movie, as soon as he started getting a little physical with me and saying some sexual stuff ("joking" of course) his phone rang and it's a girl he just met. They hung up and he said I had 15 minutes to do whatever I wanted to do, so I "jokingly" said 15 minutes was long enough. I was flattered, excited, confused and offended all at the same time.

He's moody, I'm moody, but for 8 months at work we are together constantly, we text and talk on the phone day and night for the whole 8 months now, since the day we exchanged numbers. I'm NOT jealous of this girl he likes (which surprises me, normally I would be) but I think he might be overcompensating because he is having feelings for me.

I mean, he's been my best friend for 8 months. I don't have many friends and I haven't had a friend this close in years. Now he's barely texting me, he never texts first, the last few days, he stops conversations the minute they get flirtatious or what I realize might be uncomfortable for him (which he used to just say "I don't want to talk about that right now," now he just stops responding). I'm honestly not jealous, but I just think it's rude to be so into me then drop me almost completely the minute he meets this woman. And I do not like the way he says she's treating him. One night she told him to come over to his place so he dropped everything and ran to her and he waited in his car for her until he fell asleep. He slept the entire night in his car. But he won't come to my house when I say I'm making dinner and having a beer to watch a football game or something.

The poor guy sees starved for love and sex, but he also seems terrified of it, confused, he says he's uncomfortable when people do nice things for him, which is not unlike my past as well. But ironically, he's the one that has helped me get over these things. He's always concerned about my physical and mental health. He's helping me so much with getting into new things, new music, he got me back into cooking and has shown me how to deal with a somewhat complicated relationship. Maybe he was just my practice boyfriend? lol

I'm mostly just trying to come to peace with all this and let it unfold. I honestly don't predict he will be with this woman long the way she is treating him. It makes me so sad that since they started hanging out he has called off sick twice in just a week. That is NOT like him and he won't tell me why he's calling off sick. Probably because he's doing stuff like sleeping in his damn car!

I'm sure my therapist would say oh, it's unhealthy, you deserve better, stay away from him. But we work together and I can't just turn off my feelings for my best friend after 8 months!

What to do? What to do? And any deeper psychological observations into our behaviors would help.

P.S. I'm torn between helping him experiment sexually at the risk of it affecting our friendship. But at the same time, if he ended up experimenting with another guy and then maybe started dating or something... well, I'm not jealous of a woman with him, but if it was a man, then I'd freak out.

It seems like he's just not that into you. Maybe he's scared of his new bi feelings?

I agree with you... half of the time. As you know, with bipolar disorder, we sometimes aren't just moody but we truly feel differently about the same things or the same people at different times. The other night when he accidentally told the new girlfriend he was at his boyfriend's house and was kind of all over me, or when he asks really sexually explicit questions, I think yea, he's really into this. But then he won't do things when I ask him to hang out. When we do hang out it's on his terms. I think it's about his confusion and it's all going to be on his terms which I'm not used to and the sad/scary thing is, I start trying to think up ways to "trick" him into hanging out.

Just stay friends. He's interested in this girl and you don't want to be a back up. cut any flirting, hang out at public places because private seems to be to much. take two steps back. Sorry this is happening to you.

I don't want to hear this and I'm denying that it's the best thing but in my heart I know it is. I am not a doctor and he is not my patient. I haven't been to bed yet. I've been up all night drinking and crying. But I don't feel horribly sad, just mourning the loss of what I thought was happening. The same thing I always think is happening.... that I've found the one. As unconventional as it always is and, well, yep, the outcome is always the same.

Sorry you are going through this. It sounds like he isn't ready to be serious with you, or maybe with anyone.

Keep the friendship, and be glad for now that you never took it further. It will hopefully make things less awkward between you.

I hope you find the one.