Hi lovers
I (30M) don’t know if this is the right place to post, but I’ve read some gorgeous posts on here about healthy, best-friend type loves and thought I would seek some thoughts to help.
A very close friend of mine (30M) recently told me they’ve developed romantic feelings for me. Initially, I felt like I needed to tell them I didn’t feel the same way, because i didn’t. They’ve gone travelling of two months and it’s given me the space I ended to explore my feelings and blockages. I feel calm and safe with them, I want to share things with them, but I haven’t felt attracted to them in the way I usually feel for men in the past. For context, we’re both gay men.
My relationships in the past have been fueled by an intense attraction. Being so into each other sexually that we try to build a relationship around that, but as we know, that level of infatuation makes you blind to who they really are and if the elements are there to build the foundation needed for a committed relationship.
My desire to explore what this could be comes from reflecting on this history of being attracted to the wrong type, and wanting to try something else, something mature and real. This friend and I have a bond so deep and intimate, it’s a level of connection I haven’t experienced before. Trust, safety, security and the getting-each-other elements are all there. I occasionally wonder if this platonic intimacy is birthing romance. Sometimes I want to touch and kiss him, but most of the time
I wonder if it’s a fear of intimacy on my behalf, or that that fear is there because it doesn’t feel right to be intimate with him, because the attraction that makes sexual intimacy natural and feel good isn’t there. I guess my main questions, which I know I have to answer for myself, are around what is love really, can I build a desire to romantic with them out of the intimacy we already share, or is it simply not there.
Has anyone had a similar experience with someone they were friends with first? How did it turn out?