My best friend is in love with me and I’m unsure

I (21f) have been best friends with Avery (21) for about 3 years. We have spent probably around eighty percent of our free time together and have even worked a few jobs together. They are my best friend and I don’t know if I have felt this close to anyone before. Avery has confessed they’re in love with me twice now and we’ve tried it twice. The first time was in January and it ended when I broke it off because I was unsure of my feelings in general then we kind of pretended it didn’t happen and things went mostly back to normal. I didn’t want to string my friend along if I was unsure because that feels unfair if I do just wake up one day and go “yeah you know how we’ve been seeing each other for a while now well I don’t feel that way about you lets just go back to friends”

The second time is currently happening and I wish things would have happened differently. It was a drunk confession in the bathroom at a party while they were dating someone else (the relationship ended the next day) so I was very blindsided. We do live together and I will admit it was probably a bad idea for me to move in when I was unsure of my feelings and we were both just pretending January didn’t happen.

I care about them incredibly deeply and would do just about anything for them but I don’t know if I feel romantic love toward them. I love them but I’m not sure if I’m in love with them. I know that part of why I don’t have romantic feelings for Avery is that when I first became friends with them they were in a committed 3-year relationship at the time which only actually ended around august this year (the ex was stringing them along to an extent) when they immediately started seeing someone else around a week later. When Avery was seeing this new person I know I was jealous and upset but mainly because I felt like I was losing my best friend because I no longer received any of their free time even though we lived together. I don’t know if those feelings were just platonic or not on my end. I did push a bit for them to break up but that’s because he was a walking red flag and wasn’t treating them right.

I think I might be in love with my friend because I can see them in my blurry picture of the future and I do enjoy their company deeply. I enjoy how they treat me and I would do just about anything for them. Part of the other issue is that I don’t understand how I feel about sex so I could be asexual. I know that my friend is conventionally attractive and I enjoy every aesthetic version they’ve been since I met them but there’s never been a sexual desire. We have kissed and cuddled and which I do enjoy. There are just no feelings of wanting to be more physically intimate past that which I am unsure if I’ve actually felt toward anyone. Anytime I did date in the past it started as that from the start and any crushes I had were onesided and more about just wanting to constantly be around them Which is something that was brought up back in January. Part of me questions how to even figure that out fully.

More than anything right now I just wish things would have happened at a later time. The reason I didn’t want to take the time to figure out and answer these questions after January is simply that I had other in-my-face stuff that I had to deal with and figure out so I wasn’t even really planning on getting into or looking for a relationship anytime soon. I’m not sure if I just need/want some time to get things on my end sorted before I can even fully understand how I feel/start anything or if I don’t feel that way about them. Even if we don’t stay friends after everything I don’t want to hurt them and just be another shitty person in their life.

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**TLDR:** My best friend is in love with me and for a multitude of different reasons I’m unsure of how I feel toward them. I don’t want to hurt them any more than I have to if I do end up having to. I’d rather be sure of how I’m feeling instead of just assuming that if I do care so much about Avery and we have a deep friendship why not try a romantic one?

I don’t know if it would be better to just ask for space to try and figure things out and have life be a bit more settled than it has been for the past year for both of us and try again then or to just not take space and keep moving how we are. I know the longer things go on the worse it will hurt if I don’t have feelings.

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**other bits of info I couldn’t figure out how to fit in:**

I’ve been struggling with my mental health pretty badly for over a year now and just started a new medication so I know that’s messing with me a bit. Some of the things I struggle with are people pleasing and not understanding/being overloaded by my emotions which is very detrimental for this situation if you ask me.

Avery was born a woman but they identify as nonbinary/ more masc. Before I was trying to figure out if I’m asexual I labeled myself as bicurious (i do feel romantic attraction towards women and men because I’ve had crushes on both before) but never actually did anything physical with women because I didn’t want to just sleep with a random stranger to figure it out and the other part is dating someone with female anatomy and being unsure if I’m sexually attracted to them feels shitty.

If we do go out in public together most restaurant staff assume we are dating and most people who have seen us interact either assume we are dating or ask when we are going to.