Andrew Robinson clarified later on that Garak’s first interaction with Bashir was 100% hitting on him and his character was intended to be pan at first. They made the characters so close in early seasons because they were building up to an actual onscreen Garashir romance, IIRC. I personally thought it was a bit odd on my first watch through, I noticed they were being paired especially close together, but then nothing came of it. But on later watch throughs it’s easy to see that they totally were going in that direction. It only didn’t happen because Rick Berman put a stop to it and sometime around season 4 or so you’ll notice they both suddenly drift apart and get girlfriends. In Garak’s case, a totally implausible and forced relationship with Ziyal.
It could have been a groundbreaking 90’s gay romance, but they pulled back from it.