Reddit Posting
From user: ConfusedInATL
Title: I Accidentally Fell in Love With My Gay Best Friend. Now What?
I come to you totally humbled, asking for any help you can give. I have nobody else to ask, so I’m about to confess something that is eating me up inside. I’ve always thought of myself as a straight guy. Football games, girlfriends, the whole nine yards. You know the whole thing. But earlier this year I met someone who is changing my life, and he doesn’t even know it. And he is a he. And if I tell him, I could totally destroy the closest friendship I’ve found in years.
So I guess I should just come out with it: I’m a straight guy who fell in love with my gay roommate-turned-best friend. I know they say it’s good to be in love with your best friend, but sometime this year, I guess I started taking that phrase a bit too literally…
I know it sounds dumb and makes no sense, but I guess love usually doesn’t make sense. I met him on a Saturday when he showed up as my randomly selected roommate, and I can still picture the way his hair looked. I can still smell the scent of his body wash. My heart stored away these memories forever, because now I know what my brain was too afraid to admit: I loved him from the first moment I met him. He was a guy, and I thought I was straight, but my heart didn’t mind. It made the decision for me. And now I realize there are some things you cannot deny.
Before this, I’d never dated a guy. Never kissed one. Never even knew this side of me even existed. So I didn’t understand my behavior at first, why I’d get jealous and possessive over stupid little things, why I drove myself crazy trying to make him comfortable or find a specific brand of pickle he loves at Publix, why I’d feel my heart tremble every time he walked out the door for another Tinder date with some guy I really wished was me…
It was hard not to bond with him, despite our differences. Easiest thing of my life, actually. We actually have so much in common: we’re both obsessed with our dogs, we both love a good slasher movie, we both put Tabasco on everything we eat. So gradually our friendship became closer and closer. He was unlike anyone I had ever met, and I became fascinated by everything he did. At first I was confused and in a bit of denial, but when he got in a car accident and I rushed to the scene like the world was ending, I realized the truth: I was in love, and I could no longer bargain with it.
He has no idea my feelings have become romantic. Well, I’m sure he notices some weird things here or there, but he has no idea I fell for him like this. Now I fantasize about writing him love letters and taking him on dates and growing old with him, which are obviously things friends would never do together. There’s the other problem, though: he is still my best friend.
Actually, he’s become even more than a friend or a roommate – he is a confidant, a platonic other half, my shoulder I cry on. And now that I know the truth about my feelings for him, I have no idea how to act around him anymore. Our relationship is starting to get weird, and it terrifies me. Every awkward silence buries me alive, and if this situation ruins our friendship, I will never get over it.
I am not running from this anymore. I cannot. And I am not writing this post to ask you to convince me it’s puppy love, or that it’ll fade, or that I’m just confused. I am writing this because I am tired. I’m tired of crying myself to sleep every night over a guy who is sleeping fifteen feet away from me. I am tired of envisioning a future with someone who is across the living room, and who doesn’t even know my heart sings his name. But I’m afraid that if I come clean, I will make it weird and ruin our friendship – or even worse, that he won’t want to date a closet case like me, and he’ll reject me. I don’t know how to both confess my love, and keep him in my life at the same time. Is there any way I can salvage this thing, and see if he will be with me? What if I make the leap, and he doesn’t want me? What will I do?
I’m not asking for anything other than help. Besides being the star of my dreams, he is also my best friend. If he freaks out and rejects me, if he doesn’t want me, two of the biggest figures in my life will disappear at once. I would not be able to withstand it. I love him so much, but this is ruining my life.
As I write this, it’s Christmas break, and he just left for his family’s annual vacation. I’d like to come to some kind of decision by the time he gets back on New Year’s Eve. Please help me with this.
So this is my ultimate confession: my best friend has my heart in his hands, and nobody in the world knows it but me. I found hell inside the most beautiful person I’ve ever known, and every perfect memory of our friendship is eating me alive. But I’m terrified that if I tell him, I’ll ruin everything.
What in the world do I do?