u/Any-Egg-6162

So I did post this the other day but I got self conscious lmao. I’m bringing it back! You can skip a little bit to the big part, I’ll make it obvious, but first a little bit of backstory.

First off, I’d like to clarify that I’m not usually the person people give romantic attention to, and I’ve accepted that, but it leaves me kinda clueless lol. I’m also usually pretty private about my crushes, but this one has been particularly bugging me, so I told a friend. When I thought about them flirting with me, it was more of a “oh no, I’m reading way too much into this”, but it still felt like flirting in my brain. And just as I was telling my best friend (who has way more experience with relationships) that much, she said “Yeah, it sounds like flirting“. And as good as that sounds, it is not for one big reason (And some smaller ones).

THE BIG REASON: They (my crush) are recently taken. But they really ramped up the “flirting“ attitude once they had already started talking to their current partner. I’ve liked them for months, and thought there was no way they could’ve liked me. LOTS of people like them, after all, and we’re already good friends so I didn’t want to ruin that. So part of me is still hesitant to believe they are flirting with me. But when I confessed all this to my friend, I asked her for a verdict. She said she trusted me, because she knows I wouldn’t go and try to homewreck (True. In a weird way, I’m rooting for my crush and their partner), but she said she doesn’t trust my crush anymore, with grace given to the fact that she doesn’t know them as well as I do. I know my crush though, I know they are 100% against cheating and wouldn’t try anything. My best friend told me if they break up with their partner, and they ask me out immediately after, that would be a red flag and tragically I agree.

Some of the little details are this: the “flirting” I’ve witnessed has just been some questionably flirtatious talk such as referring to us in ways such going together well or being a package deal, making jokes about that, more physical touch, asking me if I liked anyone, etc. The little problems are that they are my friend, their new partner has began trying to be my friend, I’m not going to cut either of them off, and obviously I’m not going to do anything about MY crush. Also for reasons that would take a while to explain, in their mind I COULDN’T like them, so if they had a crush on me before they were ignoring, that could be possible.

So is this flirting? Is that bad on my part?

I’m usually not the type to write about something that centers around myself or my feelings, but I’ve had a positive discovery that I think would be nice to represent/reframe as positive and would love to write a story about it (plays are usually my medium of choice, which could be relevant). I wouldn’t like it to be autobiographical however.

To summarize: I spent a long time feeling like a temporary person; easy to talk to, friendly, but not somebody people have ever really needed to keep around. I entertain people for the time I have them. I used to get upset/self conscious about this but I’ve sort of reframed that into being happy I get to be a part of so many people’s lives and make them smile pretty stress free.

Obviously the easiest way to show this would be to give a run down of characters loosely inspired by the people I’ve met and build up until reaching the conclusion I came to, but I feel like that’s too bare bones to be a good story? If anybody has any ideas for settings, that would be wonderful! Or any idea on how to come up with that?