I like my best friend of 5 years
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I’ve liked my best friend for about 3 years now and she recently moved schools where it only then made me realized that I liked her for so long. We still talk and meet up to hang out about every other week but I feel as if every time I meet up with her that I’m leading her on and that I shouldn’t be lying to her when I say I only like her as a friend. I’ve consoled in this to our mutual friends and recently took the girl to a dance where my friends sorta just played it off that they were shipping us but were lowkey just outing that I liked her. They now steal my phone to text her things like how I like her and she only ever thought of them as jokes until one person phrased it in a way she actually believed it. She didn’t respond to the text for awhile and an hour later I got the text “really?” I chickened out and explained it was a friend and we later called to talk about it. She said how she felt like she needed to look back to see if I did drop hints that I liked her and she joked about how everyone in the library must’ve thought she was insane for how she was looking at her phone. There have been instances where I feel like she may like me but I play it off as something friends do and I’m overthinking or misinterpreting her actions. We cuddle, stay up night calling, say I love you, and I catch her looking at me randomly when I’ll be making her food or we’re making cookies. We’ve danced in the kitchen and talk through text every day- practically all day long. She’s made a playlist about me and the description is “songs that remind me of my favorite person” but she’ll still talk to me about her crushes or guys that’re interested in her or explain to mutual friends that do ship us why we don’t date (basically going on a rant of how we’ve been friends for 5 years and it would never work). I feel like I’m so far in the friendzone that I can’t confess to her and if I do I’ll be ruining everything that we’re planning for (we’ve made plans basically all through summer and to October that I know she’s looking up to). I also feel like though if I don’t tell her I’ll just end up another year where I’ll be crying over the same girl for the same reason stringing her along acting as if I don’t like her. I keep waiting for my feelings to disappear and thought that since she did move schools and I wouldn’t see her as much my feelings would just fade but it’s been the complete opposite. I don’t know where to go from here and I feel like I’m going in circles.
Be honest with her and tell her that you’ve been feeling more than just friendship feelings for her but you’ve been hesitant to say anything or to act on them because you weren’t sure how she felt and you like your friendship so much, you didn’t want to say anything that might change it. But the reason you’re saying something now is because the feelings haven’t gone away – they’re only getting stronger and you know if you didn’t say something, you’d always wonder ‘what if?’.
Here’s the thing: you admitting your true feelings to your friend *might* change the friendship, but you not admitting your feelings to her is bound to change the friendship as well. Friendships evolve and change – through circumstances and feelings. Your friendship right now is running along under a pretense – the pretense being that you are strictly platonic friends. But your feelings are not strictly platonic, and that makes the friendship less authentic. At some point – sooner than you probably realize – the inauthenticity of your relationship is going to change how the friendship functions. You probably already suspect that possibility and that’s why you’re feeling more and more like you want to say something – like you want to have some control in when and how the friendship changes.
So, take control. Tell your friend what your true feelings are and know that if/when your friendship changes – and it may change in positive ways! – it’s changing because it’s becoming more authentic. Authenticity may not always get you exactly what you want right away; but it will always serve you longterm needs better than hiding your true feelings.
