I met someone, but i screwed it all up because i'm afraid to be gay

I'm a recently 22-year-old college student, with absolutely no relationship experience. Living in a highly conservative (think "Fox News is too liberal", literal swastikas hanging on the wall "conservative") family, I've spent my life doing everything possible to hide the fact I'm gay, all the while hoping somehow I was not.

I've come to terms with the fact that I am, and that's not going to change, but I still have to hide it. In fact, just hiding it isn't good enough. At home, I must be gay if I'm not actively lusting after and borderline sexually harassing women. It's exhausting. Having been homeschooled on top of this, I've never had the chance to meet or tell anyone. I've never been on a date, never been kissed... I've never even been hugged, and I'm a very hugg-y kind of person.

I finally left home a year ago to start college, and I've probably met more people in a few months than I had the previous 21 years of my life. The freedom I have now is amazing. Sadly, though, my school is pretty small (~2,100 students), and the LGBT population on campus is tiny (a college equivalent of a gay-straight alliance tried to start up, but gave up after months of being harassed and having found only 5 LGBT-identifying people to join). The city my school is in isn't super LGBT-friendly, and isn't really a "college town", so people don't really leave campus. That is to say that my dating/gay friend-making prospects are pretty small.

I spent this last summer interning at a large state university that's a 4 or 5 hour drive from my school. While there, I met this guy that I was almost instantly head-over-heels for. I can't possibly begin to describe how sweet, smart, and absolutely adorable he is. I'm talking one of those people that you meet and just go "wow".

We have a lot of common interests and, although I admittedly only had the chance to talk to him a few times, it was amazing to be around him. No one had ever made me feel fluttery before, until him. I really, really liked him.

I have absolutely no "gaydar", though, and I've still never told anyone that I'm gay, so there was no chance that I'd ever even think about saying anything to him, although I really wanted to. Still, there were a couple of times I thought he may have been flirting with me. The first time I met him, for instance, we ended up talking about relationships at one point, and he made a couple of super vague comments that I interpreted as saying he was gay and was having a hard time with it. He then insinuated that I "had been there". I brushed it off as hopeful thinking and ignored it.

I'm back at my home school, now, and a few days ago I was talking with a friend I'd made over the summer, who had also met this guy once or twice. As it turns out, he was not only gay, but everyone thinks he liked me. Looking back now, it's so incredibly obvious that he did. I can't stop looking back at all the things he said and realizing that he was so very clearly trying to tell me he was gay.

After the initial high of knowing someone I liked so much, and who's wayyy out of my league, was into me, I can't help but feel sad and frustrated. I screwed it up. I would've done next to anything to be with him. He was so incredibly sweet, so comfortable and fun to be around. He was one of the few people I've met that was actually interested in listening to the (very) nerdy things I like to talk about. He had the prettiest eyes I've ever seen, and one of those too-good-to-be-true movie start smiles. I wanted to hold him soooo bad.

We don't have any mutual friends. I never had the courage to ask for his number. I can't find him anywhere on social media. I have the number of his room mate, who might have his number, but it feels creepy to ask someone I don't really know for his number only to text him out of the blue. What would I even say? It just hurts to know what could've been :(.

I've wanted someone for a long time. It suck to just wait around, I'm not the sort of person that likes to be alone. He was everything I could've asked for.

I know the odds of me finding anyone else are slim to none. The dating pool at my school and in my town is absolutely tiny. I've tried Grindr, I've tried Tinder, and all the hundreds of other dating apps out there. They're all garbage. Knowing that I could've had him, I don't want anyone else. I want him. And it would take a miracle for that to happen.

Sorry for the rant. Being very in the closet, I have no one to vent to :(.