My mistake: telling my friends. Also: when friends become nosy.

Last semester, I (20F) formed a friendship with a dorm neighbor whom I’ll call London (21M). While he may not be conventionally attractive, I find him absolutely hilarious, love his presence, and we can talk to each other for hours, which we have. I want to emphasize that I don’t care too much about appearances. I appreciate that he doesn’t use social media, so when we lived on the same floor, we always talked in person. However, I’ve only ever viewed him as a friend. He’s always been just a friend with whom I laugh and joke.

However, I made a mistake by telling my friends. Here’s how it usually went:

1. I would tell my friends, “By the way, London gave me his number,” and they’d say, “Ooh, that means he likes you.” But here’s the thing: I didn’t think of it that way. It would be different if he didn’t have social media and asked for my number. But since he doesn’t have any social media pages, we can stay in touch with each other best through text messaging.

2. London and I would have a conversation, laughing, cracking jokes, and trolling each other. Later on, my friends would tell me, “He likes you. Look at the way he was smiling at you.” Meanwhile, I wasn’t even giving his smile a second thought.

3. I would be out with my friends, and London would send me a text like “Hey, can I borrow your colored pencils?” Or he’d send me a meme that I find absolutely hilarious, and I’d be smiling at my phone. My friends would peek over and ask, “Who are you texting?” It’s a bit annoying because why can’t we just be friends? Why does everything he does have to have some hidden romantic motive behind it?

Now I feel like my desires and feelings aren’t my own, or like I didn’t come to them on my own. Because my friends kept pointing out very small gestures of his or things he would say and do, I feel like it made me hyper-fixate on things I wasn’t really looking too deeply into. I feel kind of upset because if I do allow myself to fall in love, I wanted it to be a conclusion I myself came to. I don’t want to feel like I like him because he might like me; I wanted to actually gradually fall in love.

Maybe I’m just a terrible person. Maybe my friends were just looking out for me. Maybe I’m completely oblivious. Maybe I suck at reading people. He’s a great guy. But I don’t think I’m in a position in my life where I’m looking for a relationship. I feel bad when I sometimes distance myself from him. I’m scared we might become too close! What if everything he does, is doing, and has done has only been out of kindness, respect, and just because we’re great friends, and my friends have completely turned it into something else!

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TLDR: I (20F) formed a friendship with my neighbor from last semester (21M). However, my friends seem to over-analyze our relationship and believe that everything London does has some hidden romantic motive. I feel like they aren’t giving me space to come to my own conclusion about our friendship.

If I do eventually fall in love with London, it might feel like something that was pushed on me rather than a natural conclusion. Maybe he is just a kind person and my friends are turning our friendship into a romance story.