I'm a 28 year old gay male, and I moved to San Francisco three years ago to start a grad program and to start my life in earnest. The first week of classes I met a guy. He was a year ahead of me in school, super intelligent, funny as hell, and gorgeous to boot. We became inseparable pretty quickly. I fell in love with him and wanted to date him, and told him so a couple of times. He definitely had some feelings for me, and told me so, but didn't want to date. That was OK -- I contented myself with our intense friendship and the fact that we hooked up occasionally and spent the night together often. We did almost everything together, everyone knew we had feelings for each other, and most people assumed we were boyfriends. But many also knew that I was more into it than he was. And our relationship (or non-relationship) definitely has precluded us from pursuing other serious romantic interests. We may not have been dating officially, but we were definitely de facto dating, marked with brief spurts of fighting and spending some nominal time apart.
A few months ago we gave actual, exclusive dating a brief shot (at his suggestion, still don't get why). It didn't work, and I know it had a lot to do with the fact that he just isn't that into me. The emotional connection is "the best he's ever had", but frankly he's better looking than me, and the physical spark is only there when we're drinking. The breakup was pretty mutual -- I was miserable because I acutely felt the lack of enough sex and affection.
It took us less than a week to start hanging out 3-4 nights a week again, mostly w/o the sex (we are that co-dependent -- not even a breakup will keep us apart for long). I don't know if I should have read the signs and cut my losses a long time ago. I do know I harbor a secret hope that we work out in the future. I don't know if sticking around and subjecting myself to the emotional hurt of being in love with my best friend is pathetic. All of our friends are mutual, and I feel like I can't live without him. We're in the same social circle, in the same profession, in the same city. I feel like we're destined/doomed for each other. I go on dates, and see other people, but so far I've refused to give up hope that we end up together. In fact I would almost always rather spend the night with him, even without sex and with that pain of rejection and inadequacy, than go on dates. Is this as pathetic as I'm coming to believe it is? Advice desperately needed.