I fell in love with my best friend in middle/high school. By the time I realized it wasn’t going to go away, he was dating someone else. I decided that he couldn’t possibly like me “that way,” and tried to shelve my feelings–at the very least, I never mentioned them to him. I felt that it would be horrible to do so when he was dating someone, and all I felt sure of was rejection.
In the beginning of our senior year, he broke up with his girlfriend, again (it was a long-distance relationship, and they were always on-again, off-again). He asked me if I wanted to go for a walk after school. Of course, I did, and we walked around, and ended up in a park. I snuggled up against him, because it was cold (well, maybe that wasn’t the only reason). We kissed. I was in heaven.
The next day, we didn’t have school. He didn’t call.
The day after, we talked. He didn’t want to have a relationship with me because we were both seniors and it couldn’t go anywhere, as we were almost certainly going to be at different schools. I said okay, and I cried (mostly not in front of him).
A few months later, we were talking again, and he said that half of him really wanted to make out with me there. I told him it wasn’t a good idea–I think I was afraid he’d just turn around and tell me no again.
Of course, after thinking about it for a while, I regret this, and the day before Christmas vacation, I tell him so, and kiss him–but I have to run, as my ride shows up. That night, we talk on the phone, and he says that he doesn’t want us to be anything more than friends. He gets back together with his girlfriend on New Years, but he doesn’t tell me this until he says that he wants us to tone down our friendship, because he really loves her. He tells me this in March.
So, I get pissed, and just avoid him for a while, which works well with the toning-down-the-friendship thing. We sort of become friends again over the summer, and then we go to college. (He broke up with her again at the beginning of the summer, but I didn’t know this until the fall.
While completely stressed, I call him and tell him that I’m in love with him, but I know he doesn’t feel the same way about me, and that I’m going to get over him–I just had to say it. He says, yeah, he knew, and yeah, he doesn’t feel that for me.
(Wow, this is getting long.)
So, I get over him–date other guys, have a random hookup. I tell him about this, thinking he’ll be reassured. Later, we have a phone conversation that gets…um…sorta involved. Of course, I think he’s just flirting casually. He then tells me that he was serious, and he’d like to hook up with me at Christmas.
So, I go for it at Christmas–but as purely a physical thing. In mid-kiss, he tells me, “I can’t do this.”
I said okay, but that this wasn’t happening again. That I was tired of the yo-yo. He said that it hadn’t been too bad, only three times (I think his perception was skewed because of the on-again-off-again-ness). I said, whatever, but forget it.
He got back together with his girlfriend at New Years. I don’t know what their current status is, and I don’t really care–I realized that I was just his rebound girl, and that I was sick of that. We’re still friends, but I doubt we’ll ever be as good as we were in high school. But I think we would have grown apart whether or not all this had happened. And I’m fully over him now–and I think it’ll take quite a bit of alcohol to get me to kiss him again (not that that’s what was responsible for the others–just that I’d have to be more than a little impaired of judgement). I realized that it was mostly puppy love and that he wasn’t really the best person for me–he was just what most closely resembled my daydreams.
So, that’s my very own personal soap opera. As for what this has to do with telling versus not telling the best friend–I’m glad I told. Even though it didn’t work out, it’s hard to bear a secret like that. And in the long run, our friendship stood up under the whole stress of everything, which is a relief.
But allow me to kick your ass if you don’t tell him (see below).
