I have thought for a long time that I am aro/ace and sex-indifferent. I’ve had two boyfriends in the past (high school). I was pretty unaware of my sexuality at the time so they were basically both normal friendships due to my lack of romantic and sexual emotions towards them. I’m in the beginning years of college now, and I think my best friend of 5 years has started having feelings for me.
(He’s spent the night on Fridays for abt 2 years, and we’ve always slept in the same bed without issue, although some think it’s weird but wtv)
I’m a night owl and he’s a morning person, so he usually wakes up before 8 or so and scrolls through tiktoks until I wake up. The most recent time he was over, I was starting to wake up. I hadn’t opened my eyes yet bc I was just gonna turn over and go back to sleep. So i flipped over, now facing him, and I felt him brush the hairs off of my face to behind my ears while I was “sleeping”. Then he proceeded to BOOP MY NOSE. OK. It made me giggle on the inside. (are those butterflies? idk he’s just precious)
I already love him in a platonic way and I enjoy his presence so much. I adore him the way anyone adores their best friend. (i think) I’ve always thought that if I were to ever be in another relationship, I would want to be friends for a while first. That maybe I could develop romantic or sexual feelings once I really got to know someone.
Now I’m in this situation where, yes, I do love him a lot, but am I willing to make an attempt at a relationship with him at the chance that I’ll be too confused abt myself and messed up in the head for it to work? I hate the idea that the attempt might ruin our friendship. Do I just sit and wait for the romantic feelings? If they don’t magically appear over time, what is he going to do? I doubt he will confront me about it due to my aceness. But I am not completely opposed to the idea of dating him due to how much I like him already.
But I once accidentally led on a male friend while I was trying to figure myself out and he ended up falling for me REAL HARD. I thought that maybe I liked him so I didn’t accept or reject the gf offer. I tried to keep the friendship going but it just got to the point where he started hugging me for too long, wanted to hold my hand, etc. It started making me a bit uncomfortable and we drifted apart due to my awkwardness. The summer after, I get messages from him about how he couldn’t stop thinking about me and wtv. My friends (who were also his friends) said I broke him.
I don’t want to break my best friend’s heart.
I’m terrified and really overthinking this.
Help.
TLDR: I’m ace and my best friend likes me, but I’m scared a relationship will ruin our friendship.
1 comment
> we’ve always slept in the same bed without issue, although some think it’s weird but wtv
When you do this you give off a really strong signal that you’re interested romantically. It’s not “whatever”. You can’t just ignore friendship boundaries because you don’t catch feelings (quickly). If you wanna be friends you gotta act like friends and not do coupley shit. If you wanna do stuff like that (but not be sexual or romantic) you gotta find a queerplatonic partner who consents to doing all of those things without the feelings and the sex. Because if you act like that with anyone that isn’t aroace they will assume you have feelings and therefore catch feelings themselves.