JAPANESE (KATAKANA):
Wa ga seko ni
misen to omoishi
ume no hana
soretomo miezu
yuki no furereba

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
The plum blossoms
that I thought I would show to my man
cannot be distinguished now
from the falling snow.

by YAMABE Akahito[ Volume 8, 1426]

We find "my man" also used by men addressing close male friends. Yamabe Akahito was a man. Should we assume from his use of the term "my man" that this poem is addressed to a male friend?
[1]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
If just for a moment, my lord,
I could have viewed together with you
the blossoms of the wild cherries
on the foothill-trailing mountain,
would I be caught in yearning like this?

by OTOMO Yakamochi[ Volime 17, 3970]

"Judging at least from the expressions found in letters exchanged by ancient literary aristocrats, the emotions of friendship hardly differed from those of love. Yakamochi was exchanging missives with the man as intricate as love letters." *quoted [1]
According to the Japanese specialists of " Man'yoshu" the relationship is seemingly not homosexual, even though some scholars have another idea. No one knows for sure.[2]