tom definitely read tons of homoerotic fiction in college all while not consciously picking up on it, but absolutely gravitating toward those themes and simply not touching any discussions of homoeroticism (and especially not whether it's *actually gay*) with a ten foot pole. just in his own little bubble with piles upon piles of everything but two men making love to each other in plain text, and no acknowledgment of why or what it made him, or even attempting to argue that it didn't because part of him just knew not to bring it up. maybe he could be seen reading them and he could respond if someone else initiated a discussion but if the word gay came up he'd go quiet and withdraw and feel discouraged from continuing to read it for a bit. maybe one day he came across Maurice and started reading and saw himself in it so deeply and simply had enough cognitive dissonance to not fully register the homosexuality until he was so far in that he could not possibly put the book down, and by the end he wept with the realization of what he was and it hurt so bad that he couldn't cope. he just put the book back on the shelf and stopped reading entirely for a long time.