I’ve been following this forum for a while now but I’ve never posted or comment on anything. I don’t know why I decided to sign up today and make this thread? I suppose I wanted perspective from other people, people like me, who are much wiser and has a lot more experience in this sort of stuff. So here goes nothing: About myself: I’m 19 years old. I live in Australia. People here are pretty open minded. I’m attending university and I stay at an on-campus accommodation. All of my good friends live about 3 minutes, or even less, away from me. Anyway, my best friend, let call him J. I have a huge crush, no, huge isn’t even the right word. Massive. Gigantic. Humungous. I wouldn’t say that I love him, no, that’s an overstatement. What I meant is I crave his presence. Whenever he text me first or come up to my room to play Mario Kart, my day turn into rainbows, unicorns and butterflies. J has a girlfriend. Let assume her name is K. She’s a mutual friend of ours before she became J’s girlfriend. We both pursued her at the beginning of this year, somewhere around February. Well, at least J thought we both were. I have absolutely no interest in her. Sound like another “ I’m in love with my best friend”? Not exactly. The problem I have on my hands is J knows exactly how I feel about him. I confessed to him somewhere around May this year. I smoked 3 cigarettes while telling him. It was sort of a big deal since I’m not a smoker at all. J knows perfectly well how I feel about him. I thought at the beginning that after I confessed he would turn me down. He did. However, he was very understanding about it and he said that nothing would change between us and he would still like to be friend with me. I expected this since another mutual friend of our is gay and J is perfectly fine with him. So I thought he wouldn’t treat me differently right? I mean, why would he? I told myself:” Okay so he’s 100% straight and nothing is ever going to happen between the two of you. You gotta move on and forget about being anymore than just friends with him.” But you know what? It doesn’t work like that. Oh how convenient it would be if you can just automatically switch off your feelings. What’s really annoying is that how can he be so understanding and calm and open minded and doesn’t freak out over the fact that one of his best friend, who is a guy as we, say they have feelings for him. The fact that he’s so understanding does not help my case. If it’s anything, I’m attracted to him even more. What I’m really struggling with is the fact that over past couple of months I’ve gotten some rather negative feelings about J and K. I feel jealous and angry, which are completely unreasonable, as I have absolutely no reasons to. For one instant, the other day I was hanging out with him and I saw a hickie on his neck. I was angry, jealous, mad, upset plus every other negative emotions your thesaurus can come up with. I’m not a violent person. My friends often describe me as calm, collected and composed. It’s strange for me to feel this way about another person. I’m told J that I would be okay with this whole thing and that we can remain friends. But as time goes on I’m beginning to doubt my own words. I told J that I would somehow stop this infatuation over him. I lied. I still crave for his presence, more so now because I rarely get to spend time with him anymore. He has been spending the majority of his time with K. I’m not okay seeing J with K. I want J to be mine. Oh good god I’ve never wanted anything so bad in my life and odd chances are he’ll feel the same way that I do and it’s killing me. I sound desperate. I probably am. All I want to do lately is to just lie in bed and feel sorry for myself and how me and J will never be together and it's taking its' toll on my grade and work. I don’t know what to do? Do I just cut him out of my life and lose a great friend because I can’t deal with my shitty feelings? Or do I keep on pretending that everything is okay? Do I lose J? Or do I lose myself falling deeper and deeper for J?
Hey there JAFUB, As someone who has attractions to men, it is natural that you'll often find yourself attracted to heterosexual men, as it is just sexual instinct. With your friend, the fact that you've shared a lengthy emotional bond as a friendship is definitely going to make it hard to not be drawn towards them. Sadly, if they identify themselves as heterosexual, it will be very unlikely that you will be able to establish a working relationship with them outside of your friendship, even more so if they're in relationship with someone of the opposite gender. One of the most important factors you have to consider is the people around you in this situation. J and K are seemingly both very happy with their relationship and you should try to keep this in mind and support that. While you have natural feelings, it is often the case that we forget to remember that other people do too. I can certainly bet if you tried to intervene in their relationship, it would carry a large amount of guilt and regret along with it. My advice would be to try and take a break from seeing J every once in a while to mingle with your local LGTB community and attempt to create some new friendships alongside J and K. As a result, your attention will not be fully on J and you can spark up interests with people you know would be comfortable in a same-sex relationship. I don't know much about Australia but I'm sure that there are places you can go to for this. In addition to this, start exploring new hobbies and generally anything which will help you lose focus of your feelings towards your friend. I would recommend some things like exercise or crafts as they provide positive, constructive feelings which often counteract the negatives ones you say you are feeling. Keep in mind not to completely lose contact with J. Keep texting him and play a race or two on Mario Kart. This is the principle to any addiction or desire, to slowly try and gain a sense of moderation through distraction and other commitments or interests. If you ever have the urge to meet him frequently, or you are feeling down, just get yourself into the mind-set of doing a hobby and enjoying yourself. If you feel like any of this is not working, you can always try and seek help from counselling or therapy. While you're not suffering from any disorders, they can be a good source of understanding people who genuinely want to ensure you're as happy as possible. I hope all works out for the best, and if you ever need anyone to talk to when you're feeling down, I'm always available on here. Compute .
Even in a platonic friendship there are feelings of love, it's just a different kind of love, with boundaries that need to be respected. When the lines get blurred though and the feelings we have for our friends run a lot deeper, it really shreds our emotions - even more so when someone else arrives on the scene, like a new girlfriend. At this point we are awakened even more to our true feelings through the jealousy we experience. The jealousy may be projected towards the other person or it may be a jealousy of the happiness in their relationship, which is in contrast to our own experience. Either way, we have our own feelings to deal with at this point and it can be very difficult because the issue is on our side and not theirs. Your friend, J, sounds like a really cool guy who is totally at ease with your sexuality and his own. If he'd reacted to your revelation with awkwardness or hostility it might have raised a question or two about his preferences, but he didn't. I'd say he is very secure in his own feelings. Hard is it might be, this is exactly what you need to do. The very best way to move forward is to find someone who can give you what J sadly can't. I know that may seem improbable, but it is certainly the best way. While your attention is focused solely on J, nobody else will even catch your eye. I agree with Compute about putting a bit of space between you and J from time to time, but that doesn't mean cutting him out altogether - I think that would be a mistake. He's a great friend and you need to hang on to him. You just need to give yourself a chance to develop other relationships that can bring you happiness. If you are able to do that I'm confident your friendship with J will endure.
You said that you have no reason to be jealous of J and K when you saw the hickie on his neck, I disagree. You DO have a reason to be jealous; you're in love with him. I think that the best way to get over J is to start looking for someone else that you could actually pursue a relationship with. When you're looking, try not to compare them to J but rather appreciate how they are different and how you still like them. Everyone wants to find love and it can be tough when you think that you've found love and it can't be. Appreciate the time and the relationship that you do get to have with J and remind yourself that someday you will find someone else that you can have a real relationship with. Best of luck
@Compute Hey I’m perfectly aware of other people around me. I assure you I have absolutely no intention of causing any trouble for K and J. Sometimes during July, J was going on holiday because our semester was coming to an end and we’ve had a discussion about this whole thing and I said something along the line “I hope you and K don’t workout”. He got angry at me later and tell me that I’m suppose to be his friends and friends don’t do that to each other. He was so understanding and telling me that I need to figure it out somehow and be at a place where I am okay with him. He said that he really enjoyed my company before any of this ever happen. I will not intervene with his relationship. I’m not angry at him or K. K is a very lovely person. She and I was good friend. Still are good friends. I don’t know who I’m angry and upset at. Myself? For feeling this way? Thank you haha my plate is quite full at the moment without all the extracurricular activities. I have assignments and whatnots every week. Thank you for your advice. I’ve managed to make some progress today. I didn’t ask him down for lunch (we have a dining hall where everyone come and eat there) today. I saw him there and he joined me later. However, I didn’t sit with him at the beginning and I didn’t ask him down like I always do. That’s progress. @Linco Thank you, that was very well written. I do know where the boundaries are and I respect them. However, there are times…. For instant, this happens way to back last year when we were playing pool in the game room where we live. We were just hanging out and the topic of our gay friend came up and we were talking about how this friend is dating another person then out of the blue J said: “I wonder what it’s like to do it with a guy?”. This was way before I confessed to him. One time, me, J and another friend went to see a movie, this is after J got a girlfriend. On our way walking to back, J grabbed my arm, like he grabbed it for a very brief moment and I freaked out. I know these things don’t mean anything but they’re just doing my head in. I feel like I’m reading the signals wrong or that I am in denial. I’m not unhappy with where I am. I have a decent job, great friends I can rely on and I’m doing something with my life. I’m a very lucky and content person. I’m not jealous at J or K relationship. I assure you that. What I am unhappy about is seeing J happy. I’m unhappy that I am not responsible for J happiness, if that make sense. I sound ridiculous. But that’s how I feel. I know any sort of relationship, friendship, romantic relationship or whatever, is about appreciation and not possession. I appreciate all of my friends. However, I want to possess J. Not as in some sort of voodoo thing. I want to spend my entire day with him if it’s possible. 24/7. It’s not the right thing to do or feel and I am trying my very best to stop feeing this way. What’s really hard is before I confessed to him, he hinted at wanting to share a place with me when we both finish uni because both of us wouldn’t be able to have the entire place to ourselves. We both need housemates. The topic hasn’t come up since May. After I confessed to him, somewhere around June or July we talked about taking a vacation together at the end of this year when our uni finish. Granted, he said :” We should ask A B C and D to come along as well.” But I don’t want A B C and D to come. I want it of just be the two of us. I know it’s becoming a problem and I’m aware that it’s not healthy this way. I guess you can call it self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m only seeing things that I want to believe is true instead of seeing things for what they are. I’m aware of it. But I can’t help the way I feel. I’m trying to get over him. I even come up with things that I hate about him like how he is literally the most competitive person ever. He always wins in Mario Kart. He even voted for Tony Abbot. Thank you for your advice. I’ll put up some barriers for myself. To be honest, I would like to very much get over J, to stop this whole thing. J is a very great friend and I value him very much, friend-wise. @Easton No, I assure you I am not in love with J. Love is a strong word. I’ve had one girlfriend in high school. I think we all did haha. Oh the straight days!! I’m not out to everybody. Three people knows that I am interested in same sex relationship. I don’t mind and am not ashamed, if people ask I’d say yes, I just don’t go out of my way to let people know. I’m sort of looking for a relationship, not because I want to be in one, but more because I want to get my mind of J. I’m know I’m doing it for the wrong reasons so I don’t know if I’ll go through with it. Perhaps not. Thank you, I appreciate it.
