I've been wondering if in fact ideal platonic love isn't just an intensely concentrated form of what inspires the best teachers.

Quite apart from cringing at the thought of being called queer or gay, he did not want to be labelled anything at all that would cause presumptions to be made about his tastes and aspirations in life, which he did not think were anyway very different from most people’s.

The newer word “gay” was perhaps even worse, reminding him of limp-wristed men simulating ridiculously the opposite sex in the ludicrous hope of attracting a real specimen of their own.