I’ve liked this guy for almost 6 years, and now that he’s finally flirting with me… I feel nothing??
Okay, this is going to be a long one, so buckle up 😭
I’ve liked this guy for almost 6 years. Like, actually liked him. He’s probably the only person I’ve ever had those stupid, uncontrollable “butterflies” for. He was my genuine, long-term crush, not just some random phase.
We used to live really close to each other, but then I moved away. Before I left, I was too scared to tell him myself, so I had my friends confess my feelings to him 💀. They did, but his reaction was pretty… mid. And then his mom caught the phone, so that entire situation basically died on the spot.
Fast forward a few years: he randomly messaged me in 2023, and somehow we became really good friends again. We started talking regularly, sometimes literally spending hours on calls. We have a lot of similar interests and even ended up in pretty similar academic/career fields. He’s a year younger than me, though, so academically he was a little behind me.
At some point, he had this other female friend who he was basically in a situationship with. As his friend, I even tried helping him figure that whole mess out once. 💀
Now fast-forward AGAIN to recently. After years of NEET/academic pressure, we’re finally both relatively free, so we started talking a lot more again.
And apparently… the situationship is over.
The girl has apparently been ghosting him recently, they're basically done, and suddenly this man has started FLIRTING WITH ME. A LOT.
Like randomly saying things like “I’ll accept you in any form” and other stuff that makes me go ????????
And here's where I'm confused.
Because I still like him. I don't think those feelings ever completely disappeared.
But this is so weird because he literally did NOT act like this for YEARS. And now that we're both free, the other girl is out of the picture, and we have more time to talk, he's suddenly acting romantic???
When I asked him, “Why are you suddenly like this? What happened?” his response was basically “Hormones.” 😭
BRO???
I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that answer.
The weirdest part is that this was literally something I dreamed about years ago. Younger me would've probably lost her mind if this guy suddenly started flirting with me.
But now that it's actually happening, I'm not getting those butterflies.
I don't hate it. I actually kind of like the attention. But it doesn't feel real to me.
It almost feels like I'm watching the dream version of my life happen and I'm just standing outside of it thinking, “Yeah… but why now?”
And honestly, I’m scared that this is just because we’re both finally free from the academic pressure we've been under for years. Maybe we're bored. Maybe we're lonely. Maybe he's fresh out of a situationship and I'm simply the convenient person he's emotionally close to.
I also have horrible confidence right now. After NEET and everything that happened with my academics, my self-esteem is basically somewhere in the basement 💀. So part of me genuinely cannot believe that a guy I've liked for years would suddenly just… like me back.
And I REALLY don't want to ruin the friendship.
I spent years holding onto these feelings while protecting the friendship because he genuinely matters to me. I don't want to finally get what I wanted and then lose him because we got carried away for a few months.
So now I'm stuck.
Am I being completely stupid for reacting like this?
Why am I not getting butterflies when this was literally my biggest romantic fantasy for YEARS?
Are his feelings actually genuine, or is this just post-situationship loneliness + hormones + having too much free time? 😭
And most importantly…
WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY OR DO WHEN HE FLIRTS WITH ME NOW???
Because I don't want to reject him if there's something genuine here, but I also don't want to reciprocate and accidentally turn six years of feelings + a good friendship into a temporary situationship.
Am I overthinking this, or is my gut trying to tell me something?
