I’m feeling a bit confused about an important friendship in my life.
I (20f)’ve been friends with a guy (25m) for almost three years now.
We’re in the same art school and same friend group since we arrived in the city we live in (back in September 2020).
We bounded pretty quickly and grew to be very close. I knew I was never an object of desire to him, which has honestly been quite refreshing.
He’s one of my closest friends and we picture ourselves together through common projects in the future (currently working on being associated partners in art, being roommates with my other best friend – who I already live with).
I know that what we have is based on deep mutual affection and friendship but I can’t help but wonder. I’ve been confused about my feelings for a while.
We both went through breakups recently, we were the dumpers. Our breakups aren’t correlated in any ways but we’ve been really there for each other. We’ve had some difficult moments and our mutual support has been super helpful.
We grew even closer than we ever were in the past few weeks.
– One night I arrived at a gathering with our friends in a middle of a mental breakdown and couldn’t restrain my tears. It’s very unusual for me as I rarely even cry. I stayed with them for a bit but couldn’t handle all the social stimuli. He was caring and reassuring enough as he knows me extremely well and knows about my boundaries. He took me to his place and cooked for me, we laughed and listened to music and it made me feel a lot better. We had a tight hug and I wen’t home. Just that.
– Last week end I took him and my other best friend to my town. It was the first time he saw the city I come from and it made me feel quite vulnerable. We bounded through that too. (He told me he wanted to take me to his city too, and meet his family.)
– I have too many examples it’s kind of useless to put them all here. We’re basically hanging out often and are sticking to each other non-stop at school.
I can sense that our friends are confused as well. There’s a non spoken thing in the air…
I wan’t to talk to him about all of that. And I will do it. I just wan’t to be really careful with it because I don’t wan’t to ruin our friendship.
I don’t know what I feel exactly and I can’t tell whether he feels something more than just friendship or not. I’m afraid I read the situation all wrong and being completely delusional…
How can I bring that up to him without making a big deal out of it ? I care about our friendship way more than an eventual ephemeral sparkle.. but I’m too curious not to know for sure. + since we’re probably going to be roommates next September it’s probably best if we have that conversation before actually living together… What do you think ?
TLDR : I don’t know how to tell my best friend that I possibly like him romantically as I consider our friendship more valuable and important
3 comments
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Talking about feelings and possible relationship change the friendship dynamic at its core. If you are going to talk about it then you need to be prepared for the friendship to change
Just tell him.
Odds are he’s feeling something similar, and is also afraid to ruin things.
If you don’t go for it, odds are your friendship will fade away anyway.
>How can I bring that up to him without making a big deal out of it ?
There’s probably no way to broach the subject without potentially embarassing one or both of you. It’s just a risk you have to take.
I went through something similar. Good friend at work. I developed feelings. Knew all the reasons not to bring it up. Two close friends I confided in told me not to. Finally decided that I couldn’t not know whether there was a chance for more than friendship.
That, in my opinion, is what your decision should hinge on. Can you live with not having this question answered? If not, then ask. If the risk of blowing up the friendship is too scary, then don’t ask. Find a way to cool down your feelings.
(In my case we had our 20th wedding anniversary last year, but I don’t want to say it’ll go that well for everyone.)