There's a friend I have. He recently came out about being gay to me and a few other people. At first, it was hard for me to take because I had a crush on him. After I got over it, though, it was a little easier. I hung out with him and another friend who knows he's gay today. But later, I realized just how complicated this all was. He's very sensitive about his sexuality, so much that he hasn't told his parents, which I guess shouldn't surprise me. The real thing that shocked me was just how much I need to be careful now. He and I made gay jokes about him all the time, not necessarily duragatory, but light and with no offensive intention whatsoever. He always laughed and played along, being the cool guy that he is. But today, I accidentally made a gay joke not referring to him when I was hanging out with him, and it got real silent in the room. I could feel the tension. I apologized, but even now I feel guilty about it.

I have dealt with this before, believe it or not. With two of my friends at different times. They were both girls coming out about being bisexual or lesbian so I'm not sure if it's different for a guy. It was awkward between me and them for a bit, but I got over it. They're both very comfortable about their sexuality, especially one of them, Hannah. She makes jokes about her sexuality sometimes, and she's learned to laugh about it. She's not one to scream on a rooftop that she's lesbian, but if someone asked her, she would tell them the truth.

As you can see, I was not prepared for the awkwardness and how closeted my friend who just came out about being gay was. His approach on his sexuality was different than my other friends.

I feel like since he came out to me, I've had to watch everything I say. I'm not as comfortable around him as I was, and I feel so awkward when something to do with gays comes up. I feel like it's strained our friendship. He and I used to sing Gay Bar all the time together, but now I'm scared to do it in fear of offending him.

I'm not a homophobic person. Quite the opposite, really, I accept everyone, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. I've told me friend multiple times that I'm always here for him, and that he can talk to me whenever he needs to. I can sense that he wants to reject his sexuality and try to ignore it and make everything go back to before he came out, but it know that it can't be like that. I want him to be comfortable about talking to me about what's on his mind about his sexuality.

In short, should I talk to him about it, or ignore it? Should I let him know about what's bothering me? What do I do?