I'm a girl with strong feelings for my best friend - but I can't tell if she feels the same.

[bogfate]

Hi! I'm a young adult who has, in the past few years, come out as bisexual to select friends and members of my family. I have never been in a real relationship before. The closest I got to one was when my best guy friend and I had mutual feelings for each other in high school. He acted on them, but I soon developed some very cold feet, which completely ruined our friendship through awkwardness. I would do anything to avoid that again.

Moving on to the present! I met my best friend ( we'll call her S ) on the Internet around four years ago. Since then, we have met in person twice over the last two years ( she lives around six hours away ) and have grown extremely close. We keep up text conversations all day, every day, stream movies and tv shows with one another, and feel comfortable enough to / have shared a large amount of personal information with each other. While S is unsure of a distinct label for herself, which is 100% okay, she knows that she is attracted to both boys and girls.

I began to feel differently towards S in the beginning of this year. Simple things, such as thinking about hugging her or holding her hand, made me blush and feel stereotypically fluttery inside. I began to listen to love songs and think about her, fantasize about kissing her, and more - all of which I felt and FEEL guilty for, because I haven't told her that I have romantic / etc. feelings for her. This is also when I found out that being attracted to a girl in such a heteronormative society is extremely hard. For awhile, even with obvious feelings of attraction towards S, I questioned if I really liked her, or if I was just being "weird" about our friendship, which is something I never did with my male friend from high school. It made coming to terms with my feelings for her that much harder.

The kicker is really this: heteronormative standards have clouded my judgement when it comes to trying to determine if she feels the same way. And, to add to that, sometimes I think she might. Not out of desperation, but because of things we do or say to each other that would be considered romantic for a straight couple. For example, she once texted me in the middle of the night telling me that she thought I was beautiful. Her tone was serious, and it was a very conflicting message to wake up to. Since then, S has complimented me on my appearance often. She has also sent me multiple songs over the years that I just "have to listen to" where the female singers allude to having feelings to girls. We say I love you often, call each other "wife" habitually, and even occasionally talk about cuddling, or, on rarer occasions, kissing. When we're together in person, we often holds hands, hug, or rest on each other's shoulders. S has even liked various posts of mine which vaguely allude to my feelings for her, or my feelings towards liking girls in general. All in all, when these things happen, it's done in a more serious manner. It never feels like a joke to me.

I've been grappling with this for awhile now, and have wanted to tell S my feelings towards her. The fear of looking creepy, clingy, or scaring her away altogether is what's holding me back. That, and the fact that I would likely be crushed if she didn't feel the same. I'm not quite sure what to do about all of this, but feel better knowing it's out in a way that I can receive any kind of feedback on it. Thank you!

[Heather]

Hey, bogfate, welcome to the boards.

Let's see what I can do to help! I understand how you're feeling with all of this, including that you're very nervous about doing anything to make a sea change in what is obviously a very important intimate relationship for you and your best friend already.

Obviously, what you say or don't probably won't change however it is *she* feels about this, and however she feels is how she feels, whether you know about it or not. You also talk about that you'd feel crushed if she didn't feel the same. I get that, too. Do you want to talk about what you would need to get through that? Obviously, we will feel crushed in life sometimes, there's usually no avoiding that, so we just have to get through it. You might feel a little better about this if you had some kind of plan for taking care of yourself in that event.

I think whether you tell her or not, though, probably should be based on whether or not you want to tell her, more than fear of outcomes. You two sound really solid to me. She also sounds like someone very unlikely to handle this disclosure from you badly even if she either doesn't feel the same way, or doesn't want to particularly do anything with those feelings she isn't doing already. (In other words, even if she shares your feelings, that doesn't mean she'll want to have the same kind of relationship when it comes to them you may have in mind: having the same kinds of feelings for each other, alas, doesn't mean we want the same things.) I get the impression that even if you two didn't feel the same way and you shared this, even if things were a little rough or awkward while you figured out how to deal with all that, you two would probably work it out together and not destroy what sounds like a wonderful relationship over it. Do you agree?

Can you also say a little bit to me about your fears of her thinking you are creepy or clingy? That doesn't sound like that would really be in alignment with how she seems to see and treat you, so I'm curious about where you think those particular fears are coming from.

One more thing I want to throw into the mix is for you to think about what you want here. Like I said, you two obviously already have a very close, very intimate relationship. In potentially sharing these feelings with her, do you just want to share them and then have your relationship go pretty much as it has been? Or is this about both sharing your feelings AND then asking for a change in the nature of your relationship? I think thinking about and getting clear on that might help you make this decision, but also, if you do decide to share this with her, help you be clear on what you're asking her for, if anything. <3