I (20F) have feelings for my best friend (20F) who says she is not ready, how do I handle this whole thing?
I (20F) have feelings for my best friend (20F) who says she is not ready, how do I handle this whole thing?
I don’t really know how to start this, so I’ll just go from the beginning.
My best friend (we’ll call her Ally) and I have been best friends for about two years. We clicked almost instantly over Billie Eilish. Within the first day of talking we were already texting constantly, and I remember saying Billie was my “gay awakening.” She reacted in a similar way, just more closed off about it, but that moment kind of bonded us immediately.
Our friendship has honestly only gotten stronger since then.
At one point, after our friendship had already became more like best friends I went through a really serious sexual assault, and that changed a lot in my life, including my friendships. My original friend group kind of shifted after that, and I ended up moving into a different group (Ally’s group). It was a completely different dynamic. More boys, more relaxed energy, less drama, and for a while it actually felt like a good change.
Then school changed again. She stayed at the local collage, while I transferred to one of the unis in my city. Around that time, I also became really close with another girl (I’ll call her Addi). She’s very different from Ally and very similar to me in a completely different way, very Christian, very modest, not supportive of LGBTQ stuff or celebrities or anything like that, but emotionally we just understand each other really well. So I kind of ended up with two very different best friends who represent two very different sides of me.
Around the same time, I had a crush on a boy (Hudson), who was actually originally Ally’s friend. That’s how Ally and I met in the first place, he introduced us because he knew I liked Billie Eilish.
I’ve also had other crushes but mostly boys I’ve almost always identified as bi though, and I’ve had a girlfriend very recently, which made my family dynamic super chaotic for a while. They’ve always known, but as loving my family can be, it’s a joke to them. but I never saw Allyy as anything other than my best friend at first.
But things started changing.
There’s another girl (Cassidy) who is very popular and someone I’ve known for a long time. We all had classes together at one point in high school, me, Ally, and her, and Ally and Cassidy became really close, really fast. I got jealous, which I know is an ugly feeling, especially because Cassidy and I were also friends, just not as close.
When I transferred schools, I ended up in some of the same classes as Cassidy, but it felt like she chose Ally over me in terms of closeness. I think that’s when I started questioning my feelings for Ally more seriously.
But it’s also made everything more confusing.
We’ve talked about our feelings in general. At one point, she said she liked me back, but I wasn’t even fully sure how I felt then. We’ve also talked about friends-with-benefits before, and I told her I liked her. She didn’t really know how to respond at the time.
She’s also said she’s not ready for anything like that or not ready to be fully open about her feelings. People around us also say she just doesn’t really know what she wants yet.
I’ve had feelings for her on and off, but honestly I don’t think they ever fully went away. They’ve just gotten stronger over time. I think about her a lot, and our relationship is emotionally very intense for me.
We’ve cuddled before and talked about kissing, and we’ve come very close, but nothing has actually happened. Physical touch is my love language and after everything that’s happened to me she’s the only person that’s felt super safe. I wanna be close to her. I wanna hold her.
I also want to be clear that I’ve gone through sexual assault twice, and that has affected how I experience intimacy and closeness with people. I’ve started therapy again recently, and I’m working through a lot of that.
Ally is honestly the only person who makes me feel this kind of connection. I’ve only been in love once before (with a boy), but even that didn’t feel like this.
Right now, I just feel stuck. I don’t know if this is mutual, one-sided, or just complicated friendship feelings that got too intense. And I don’t know what to do with it without ruining the friendship.
I got high for the first time a few days ago but a day before that she said I miss you, I felt her energy shift for the first time we fell asleep on FaceTime. I’ve always wanted to do that but she always just said good night and went to bed. I felt like she really wanted it. I’m stereotypically more attractive, slimmer bigger chest revealing clothes. She’s a little bit heavier, acne, less confident, and when I talk to my friends and family, they say she might be afraid and simply doesn’t know what she be afraid to say what she wants.
When my mind is stuck on something it’s stuck it doesn’t move and it physically impacts me chest has been super tight. My whole body aches. My stomach I can’t stop thinking about her. I’ve never tried just asking her in person. Can I kiss you I wanna give this a I really I think if she she’d want to too obviously I don’t anything her though our friendship is more important, but I don’t know how much longer I can feel this strong about her and not do anything. It’s killing me. If you have any questions, I’d happily give more context, please help me. and I’ll update you as often as I can.