This is bothering me more than I expected 😭
Disclaimer: This is less “I want this person” and more me trying to understand why certain social dynamics and comparisons affect me emotionally even when I logically know they shouldn’t matter this much.
i just need to vent because i honestly can’t fully make sense of what i’m feeling.
there’s this guy i interact with in an academic/professional setting and i had a kind of admiration-type crush on him. nothing serious or romantic-romantic, just… i liked the attention, the way he noticed me, complimented me sometimes, and i guess i got a bit emotionally aware of him over time.
recently i’ve noticed he’s started giving more attention to my friend/pal, and i don’t even know why but that shift has been messing with my head more than it should. it’s not like i want anything from him, it’s just this weird internal reaction i can’t explain properly.
that friend/pal is someone i’m not really close to anymore because the dynamic became very one-sided. i was always the one putting in effort and at some point i just stopped feeling it from my side.
what’s confusing me is not even the situation itself, but how i react to it. like i feel weird when i think i’m being seen in the same “category” as her. it’s not jealousy exactly, it’s more like comparison/ego/identity stuff that i can’t really put into words.
i know it probably sounds silly but i just needed to get it out somewhere.