When I was younger, I had never thought about having any sort of desire to be romantic with another boy. Actually, guys doing stuff together like that, sounded pretty awful and strange to me. That summer I was feeling typically bored, and there was this boy who lived close to where I did, and we sort of knew each other from school. Well, he was feeling bored too, and we kind of started being friends. One day, for lack of anything else to do, we decided to go up to this woodsy place not far from where we lived. It was at least something to do.
So we hiked up. There was a small creek, and it was warm, so we took our shoes off and went wading in the cold water. Then we sat down to let our feet dry. After sitting there for a couple of minutes, he remarked that he was glad that there was nobody around to see us, saying how the two of us sitting there barefoot and close like that, might look kind of Gay. I hadn't really thought about it, although I could see what he meant. I smirked and said how there was nobody around, and pointed out that if friends sat together like that, it didn't mean they were Gay. He agreed, and said how it really wasn't the same anyway if stuff like that was between friends. We kind of philosophically discussed the issue, with both of us admitting that we had never done anything like that with another boy, and grinned somewhat modestly over the idea of our doing something like that together. Ordinarily, I don't think that either of us ever would have had the courage to instigate anything. But right then, with each other, it didn't seem like such a big deal.
We looked at each other. Then we slowly leaned over and we kissed. It didn't really feel strange like we might have expected. It felt like kissing a girl. Only, the fact that we were doing it together as boys, made it pretty enticing. We did one kiss, and then we did another, moving our lips around and making it last much longer. We drew back and then kind of sat there evaluating the whole thing. Neither of us knew exactly what to think, except deciding that it had actually been pretty nice. So we kissed some more and then we finally went home.
The next day we were both a little self-conscious about our "friendliness," although we both liked it, too. We decided to go back up to the same woodsy spot. When we got there, we tried kissing again, liked it, and just enjoyed being generally romantic with one another, feeling quite pleased with this new found form of friendly expression between guys.
After that, the two of us started having a romantic friendship that lasted for the next three years, and it was a long time before we finally took it farther. Neither of us ever became Gay because of the experience, but we sure have some great memories of that time. Sometime being Gay is definitely not reuired for two boys to be romantic.