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I Love my Best Friend

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by LostBobus, Jan 18, 2016.

  1. LostBobus

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    This is my first time posting on any kind of support site as well as my first time making a blog post. I may not be able to word things as well as I hope but I just need to get this off my chest and maybe hear some other people’s opinions about it. My problem is that I am in love with my best friend. A small warning to any readers is that I can sometimes rant or lose focus as I just spit my thoughts out into text but I will do my best to stay on target and remain in a coherent manner. Warning for everyone, there is a lot going to be expressed in this including some things that may be troubling to some readers. If you cannot handle some somewhat depressing news then please leave the blog. I have to get all of this off my chest.

    To keep my friend’s name a secret I’ll call him James. I first met James by first year out of high school. This was about five years ago so my memory may be a bit foggy. We met through a mutual friend of ours and our friendship grew over time. Neither of us have been particularly trusting of new people and so it took quite some time for us to truly develop a friendship, maybe around six to eight months. We were pretty solid friends at around that time and that’s all I ever thought of him. Sure, he was a good looking guy, athletic, and charming but that didn’t really attract me to him. We were just friends. It changed when he was at my house one day just hanging out when he noticed all of my Pathfinder books. Pathfinder, for those who may not know, is essentially Dungeons and Dragons. Elves, Dwarves, Battle, and the like. The large hardcover books with hundreds of pages of rules and statistics can be intimidating but really is just a complex looking illusion over a very simple purpose. Pathfinder is storytelling. We make characters and tell stories of bravery, heroism, drama, etc. He had an interest in fantasy that not many knew about and he asked me to show him how it was played. From there we found a real connection through our love of fantasy and storytelling. We made characters and epic tales that spanned over the course of almost two years of real life playing. While the rest of our friendship grew into other aspects and interests, storytelling was our backbone and helped us become the best friends we call each other today. The time I started to genuinely fall for him is something I can’t exactly point out. The people I had an interest in before him I often knew of the attraction within a short period of time. I don’t think I truly realized my emotions for him until one particular night.

    One summer night we decided we’d go out to a spot I used to play at all the time as a kid and have a bottle of scotch together. At the time I had just turned 21 and he was about to turn 20. I grabbed us a bottle of cheap scotch and we drove to the spot. It was in a small wooded section right between a neighborhood and a church. We sat down, I drank in the nostalgia of the area I hadn’t seen since I was 11, and then we started drinking the scotch. Neither of us were very big drinkers yet and so trying to drink cheap Scottish whiskey wasn’t easy to do, but it gradually got the job done. We were buzzed and started laughing more and more as we sat on the dirt ground. Our backs started to hurt from the extended “indian style” sitting we were doing and so I grabbed a small log and used my button-up to cover the rough bark and we used it as a makeshift pillow. By this point the sun was long since down and I don’t think anyone could have found us even if they could hear our laughing and chatting. We had just shared another swig of the scotch when he looked at me and asked “So when did you find out you were…you know…gay?” The question wasn’t something that shocked me. He knew I was gay since I was out to most of my friends at that time and I often went to him for consolation or just someone to talk to when I was feeling bad. I told him and the subject gradually shifted to a troubling experience I had with my first boyfriend (although it wasn’t so much a relationship as just two boys willingly experimenting) and how it blew up in my face before costing me the friendship. We drank more, I shed a few tears from the conversation, and he held me.

    There are two moments in that night which I feel may have led me to realize that I had fallen in love with him. He looked me right in the eyes and said “If I was gay, I would date you in a heartbeat.” The words shocked me not in someone telling me they liked me but in that someone who looked like him would willingly date me if they could. He is an attractive man and I will not deny that I’m not exactly the most attractive guy around. I’m just not usually the one the guys or girls approach. I told him “a damn shame” with a laugh and a hug. As we drank more and laughed more about fantasy, school, futures, and other things, we occasionally would exchange a kiss on the top of the head or forehead. The aura of the kisses were almost entirely brotherly and friendly. He’s an open guy and doesn’t have issues with such signs of affection despite his heterosexuality. However the sign that confused and allured me was when we looked at each other after another story of my terrible sexual experiences as a kid, both of us quite thoroughly drunk, and he leaned in and kissed my chin. I had moved my head up but I could tell he was going for my lips. I was a bit unsure as we just looked at each other. Trying to clear the air I let out a laugh, obviously a bit nervous and unsure, and said “You almost got me there.” He grabbed my chin and placed his lips on mine. I can’t tell you how long the kiss lasted, it likely didn’t last more than a second or two, but I was frozen. My heart was in my throat and when our lips separated I was a bit of a babbling mess. I could barely get out anything beyond “ummms” and “uhhhs”. I later asked him why he did it and he said “I wanted to show you that you weren’t alone anymore” but in the aspects of having a friend. From that night my feelings for him went crazy.

    I think it was that winter I finally told him how much in love with him I was. I wasn’t expressing it with much joy. He understood but did express that it unfortunately couldn’t work out. I understood and told him I would still love to have the friendship we shared and he happily agreed. I thought I could keep my emotions in check and gradually move on. I didn’t. Every time I saw him with a girl, and gradually saw him with a girlfriend, I would get extremely jealous and angry. At first I could keep it locked away but soon I couldn’t. My jealous and anguish soon became very obvious over time and soon we argued a lot. It eventually reached the point that we still wanted to talk to each other but it would typically degrade into a massive argument. It finally culminated the summer after the kiss when, learning he was going to spend a whole weekend with a female friend of his alone at her family’s beach house, I lost it. I tried to kill myself. I felt trapped. He was my best friend and we had helped each other through some of our most troubling times in the last three years but now we found ourselves in probably one of the worst ones we’ve ever experienced. The whole thing seems like a dream. I eventually managed to regain some level of composure and knew that I truly needed professional help, as well as medical. I walked out of the bathroom and my grandparents and cousin, who was living with us at the time, found me where I just kept saying “I need help. I need help. I tried to kill myself. I need help”. I was taken to the hospital where I, lacking any medical insurance, had to stay in the waiting cells (I refuse to call them rooms as they had nothing but a lone bed and chair in a cold room without so much as a door to offer privacy) and waited for three days without a television or any form of media to distract me outside of my Game of Thrones books which my father brought to help me pass the time. I wasn’t allowed to leave since I was still labeled a threat to myself and possibly others until my aunt’s boyfriend (an apparently high ranking member of the teamsters) helped get me out. I spent three days in the cell and an additional four in the psyche ward. I was released on the fourth day since I told them I had to get to my new job the following day and I was permitted to leave under the requirements that I would attend counseling.

    James and I didn’t speak for the entirety of my stay in the hospital as well as a few days after I was released. We reconnected a few days after and he knew why I had done it. He knew there were other factors that lead to my suicide attempt including my less than perfect home life but he also knew that the news of him being with the girl sent me over the edge. Needless to say it fractured the friendship a great deal. We reconnected as best we could but that winter we stopped talking. Not for my lack of wanting to talk but he was strong enough to say we had to stop talking to each other.

    We didn’t talk again for two years. My life was in a much better situation and I had spent some time with other guys but never had sexual relations with them beyond a single one night stand. I got more involved with gay sites and talked with more gay men. After 18 months of no communication at all, I sent him messages through facebook just giving updates on how I was doing as well as how everyone else in our friend group was doing since he had broken off all communication. 25 months after we stopped talking, he messaged me. We started with small talk. We chatted about how things were going, how our jobs were, our latest fantasy books we’d read, and our overall spot in life. His girlfriend at the time greatly disliked the thought of us talking and his messages stopped coming about three days after we started talking again. Another three months passed before he messaged me again. I was angry for a couple reasons but there isn’t enough time or energy for me to express them. We finally had a big talk and I met him in person for the first time in over two years when I was closing at work. My work is small and I was closing alone so no one was there to see it. We looked at each other, admittedly each of us more mature than we were the last time we had met, and hugged. I was so sorry. He was sorry. We admitted we’d missed each other greatly. He couldn’t listen to certain songs that I had introduced him to because they reminded him of me. I couldn’t play pathfinder with my other friends because it reminded me of him. Neither of us could read many fantasy books because it reminded us of each other. We wanted to give it another chance. This all sounds like a relationship but it revolves around a friendship. We have been enjoying things quite well since we started talking again in the last 8 months with only minimal bursts of the old emotions. I still feel emotions for him from time to time. I don’t even find myself sexually attracted to him, I instead find myself attracted to the closeness of our friendship and desiring to spend the rest of my life with him. My jealousy and anger towards females in the past were obviously my fear of losing him. I was possessive and I was destructive to him.

    He admitted to being in a destructive relationship as well with his old girlfriend who had become extremely controlling over his life. It was a dark chapter in both our lives but we have come out of it, tattered but stronger than before. We have made the decision to get an apartment together so we can get out of our family’s homes and start our own lives. We still maintain the friendship and it has never gone beyond it. There are times when I feel the old emotions, usually at a time when I’m extremely stressed from work or just alone for long periods of time. I’m talking with a guy who I am getting closer to as a boyfriend and things are moving in a positive direction. I don’t know how to end this or really why I posted it. I just needed to get my story out and see what people thought. I don’t want the feelings to exist because he is my brother and he has called me his brother. This friendship is too important to both of us. I love him still, as a brother would love a brother, and I want to allow the old wounds to finally close. I know they will never close for good but we can move forward and start a new life.

    Thank you for listening
     
  2. Euler

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    It's a long story and there are so many points. It's obvious you are troubled and I get the feeling so is your friend.

    1) Normal healthy person does not try to kill themselves over love. Like you admitted, there were other reasons which also were a factor when you tried to kill yourself. Have you addressed these issues and do you feel they are dealt? (Since you don't have medical insurance I'm pretty sure you didn't go through extensive therapy after the incident.

    2) It seems that you friend also has some issues. I don't suspect he is gay or bi but the fact that you guys feel so strongly about each other would suggest that you have something more in common than just interest in books. Are the circumstances where you grew up similar? (E.g. abusive or distant parents etc.?) The fact that he sticks around in abusive relationships is indicative of issues.

    3) So why are you guys getting an apartment together? Are you just friends moving in or are you in a romantic or sexual relationship? Do you still see a psychologist or a therapist? If not, would it be possible for you to see one?
     
  3. Nicosa

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    Hey,

    I'm deeply touched by your story. And that is exactly the reason why I felt compelled to write something to you. In my experience (and other's that I have seen), this type of friendship is not easy to come by. Sure, you guys have history. But now, as you say, both of you have grown and are way more mature. In my opinion this is a friendship worth fighting for, but for the right reasons!

    If you are not being honest about your intentions to yourself it is gonna fail. First you should decide what do you want out of him. It may well be that you are still unintentionally infatuated with him still, and that okay, but you shouldn't lie to your self. If not, and you genuinely want to keep him as your best friend, then you just have to focus on that and keep the communication between you as honest and fluent as possible.

    I have a question though: Why did you come here? What triggered you? I know you said you don't know, but you do. Try to figure out why, it may be a good start to solve this. And wounds DO close, completely. You just need a good strategy and most importantly time.

    Warm hugs! :slight_smile:
     
  4. Nyanodesu

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    Wow, I wish a guy would obsess over me like that, not for my body but for my personality. Anyways, I think you need to move on, having a unrequited love remain as only your "friend" must be torturous, that's why most people just cut off communication with that person entirely. I know it must be hard for you, but in the long run it will be better for you to forget about him and look to the future for new love. Maybe get off of social media/internet for a while and find a new hobby like volunteering at an animal shelter or something. . . life has more opportunities than just being in a romantic relationship. Make a bestest friend~! Go to a comic convention where people play that fantasy game thingy, there's tons of stuff to do! It hurts like a bitch right now but before you know it you will forget about him. (And this is coming from someone who has had 5 suicide attempts)
     
  5. bookreader

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    Wow, just wow. That is one guy I would be happy to be friends with. This is one strong friendship and I wouldn't want to lose him.