Indeed, we are talking about very different personal experiences altogether.
Living in a culturally speaking 'eastern mediterranean' society during my college years really meant that very, very few people were openly out. There were no gayborhoods, and everybody including most of my buddies and yours truly thought that no one would really want to be gay, live in a gayborhood, least of all, publicly admit that he was having sex with other men.
By far, most of my college buddies depended for their survival on their parents who were most certainly going to be very much against anyone being openly gay; as would be all your friends - not that the concept carried much weight in those days. Being gay, caught, outed etc., simply was NOT an option.
On the upside, we were definitely having a ball, the society around us knowingly turning a blind eye on our underground activities, and even being supportive of the idea that a college guy was naturally going to be hanging out with other college guys. If a dude was 'too much' into hanging out with girls, well, that was seen as pretty unmanly.
In retrospect, I have very little doubt that our fathers, brothers, uncles, etc., all must have known what was really going on. They must have gone through a set of similar arrangements in their time and day, too. The generations before them shared in the experience, too. Hence, the true nature of our close friendships was certainly no secret to anyone with some basic life experience but the society as a whole decided that raising the subject to any level of public discourse was really both entirely unnecessary and fully uncalled for.
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I cannot think of any of my buddies in those days who really did not like the guys he was having sex with, at least to some extent. We belonged to a closely knit coterie of friends, and you made sure that your really kept meeting up with and having sex with the dudes whom you thought both attractive and friendly enough.
A few months into the process, human nature took its course. I was having coffees and chatting with at least two dozens of guys whom 'I knew', meaning I had sex with or at least a very close buddy of mine had sex with. Naturally, I found some of the guys far more attractive and interesting than the others, and was working towards landing those who I was really interested in. No doubt, the others followed the same tactics, too.
Soon enough, the coterie started to function as a social platform, but 'everybody within' knew that I was meeting for sex, say 3-4 bottom boys on a regular basis. No one talked any exclusivity here but those dudes and I clicked together, and the chemistry worked for us, too. No doubt, both they and I strayed away sometimes or even pretty often which was deemed perfectly natural if rather immaterial. Other top dudes played around with maybe only 1-2 bttm guys, some got stuck with 1 bttm dude only, but the pattern was there.
Sure, what kept us all together was the underground, secret nature of our arrangements, and the idea that we all benefited majorly by keeping in touch. This is how you got to meet the 'newcomers', have some fun on the side, and compensate for the fact that sooner or later one of your regulars would drop off, graduate, move away or even find a new, possibly more suited 'partner'.
The coterie typically concerned itself with three basic issues only:
First off, the dude was one of us. He had sex with one of our guys.
Second off, he was either a top or a bottom. (Few people took versatility seriously those days.)
Third off, for all we knew, he fitted the pattern. He belonged to our peer group, and was at least superficially not seen as a source of trouble. (He was not a heavy drug uses, petty criminal, etc.)
The coterie did not share all the information among its members. People have been having secrets since the dawn of times.
Say, one of my bttm dudes was also meeting a sugar daddy totally out of the coterie for some fun and benefits on the side. This stayed buried six feet deep between the two of us. Additional income, presents, clothes, etc., were always welcome. And you would not judge the dude. A guy has got to do what a guy has got to do.
Another good example of a 'deep secret' used to be that a certain top dude wanted/agreed to bottom for a very specific top dude.
On a purely social level, tops tended to communicate among themselves, hoping to exchange pertinent information about the available bottom guys, first and foremost. Bottom dudes did the same. This, too, was deemed as perfectly natural.
An archetypical situation occurred if the two tops organized a threesome, and less frequently a foursome. Once the play was over, the guys parted. If you knew how to read the signals right, you would know that your top buddy may be returning for some more 1:1 fun with you, once the designated bttm dude was seen driving away in public bus, taxi or a tram.
Neither my 'oh-not-so-exclusively-top' buddy nor I would ever mention the little remission to anyone. But once the first 'remission' occurred, you would expect him to be repeating the pattern, and possibly stopping by at your place alone at all the ungodly hours, hoping not to be seen by anyone for some top-to-top fun on the side. If a dude was sighted approaching your place, everybody agreed that he must have been too drunk to go home, and crushed in at your place until the morning.
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Once I post-graduated, the game was largely over. I moved into a major European capital for business, and shortly thereafter transferred to San Francisco, CA. I slipped into the new 'public gay world' without much ado. And life actually got even better.
KD