est

(Sorry if my post is filled with grammar and spelling mistakes. I just don’t feel like double checking  right now)

As much as I hate to participate in the cheesy situations many young people my age part it, I need to get this out. I’ve thinking a lot lately about my relationship with my best friend. All the moments we’ve been through, the words we’ve exchanged, the laughs we’ve had. For the vast majority of the time we’ve known each other, I just thought we just had a great friendship, but now I’m wondering if there is a slight change that maybe it could be something more.

We’ve known each other for 5 years. We met in our junior year of high school. She was really nice, outspoken, positive and just wanted to get along with everyone. I was very shy and tended to seem a bit nervous around others, but we didn’t have much problems becoming pretty good friends. For the 3 years afterwards our relationship remained pretty much the same, we were good friends but we didn’t have a noteworthy relationship, or at least I thought. We didn’t really talk outside of when we would meet in school.

My perception of our friendship was completely changed, however, two years ago. It was during my third semester of college in the summer. All of the friends I would hang out with during the two previous semesters were either not taking classes that semester or had a very different schedule than mine. I was alone. I made a facebook post about it, and to my surprise, my soon to be best friend responded, telling me that we could hang out the next day. We ended up spending a lot of time together that summer. 

Before that moment, I thought we were just slightly-more-than-casual friends, but during that summer she let me know that she thought our friendship was more than casual. When she would see me, she was happy to see me, her hugs were tight and close, and she would often tell me “I love you.” One time she even went as far as to say “I’m not just saying that, I really do love you.” She cared and she wanted me to feel that compassion.

Our friendship kept growing as time went by. She started telling me personal things that she’s never told anybody. When she talked (jokingly) about all guys being pigs, she always made sure to say that I’m the exception, She would also defend me whenever someone was bad talking me. There was this one time some guy called me gay because I was nice and liked to hold the door for people. My friend punched him in the face. She even showed me the cut marks on her fist as. I wasn’t there when the incident happened, but that just showed that she wasn’t for talking behind other people’s back and people trying to hurt me. We were incredibly close.

At first, this was a bit much for me to handle. The amount of appreciation she gave made me feel a little awkward. I wasn’t sure if I wanted all of that. I never tried to avoid her or anything because of that, but I just didn’t know how to react in this relationship. I was never was one to tell her “I love you” first, and when she would say it, I would say back to her not as enthusiastically. Perhaps I was a little scared of where this relationship was possibly going. I felt that there was an actual possibility that we could become more that friends. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to handle that. Plus, I wasn’t sure if I was into her in that way. Eventually, however, I got over most those weird feelings. I fully embraced her friendship and I had no problem tel her that I loved her too.

Not too long after we started hanging out, she revealed that she had a boyfriend. I was happy because she found a gut that  could make her happy and I was also kind of relieved because I no longer the pressure of our relationship moving towards a certain direction, still we have gotten to really care about each other. When some people get into a relationship, they act as if they must change how the act around their friends in order not to cause potential friction between their respective boyfriend/girlfriend. Nit my best friend though. When she got together with her boyfriend, nothing changed between me and her. She never stopped showing me how much she loved me and would still tell her secrets that nobody else knew, not even her boyfriend. 

Not too long ago she broke up with her boyfriend. She wasn’t sad about it, in fact she was happy, because he was a jerk. I and her still continued to hang out and our friendship just kept evolving. Just a couple of months ago I sent her a long message telling her how much I cared about our friendship and she replied with an equally loving reply. She made it clear that our bond is special, strong and unbreakable and she is not shy about showing that. We were just very close.

On a few occasions, people seriously thought we were a couple. One time we went out with a few other friends to see some local band perform. Throughout almost that entire evening we were never more than ten feet away from each other. Every time I seemed to be far away from her, she would gesture me to come closer. People confuse our strong friendship with something with something more. To be honest however, I’m starting to be a bit confused as well.

In the last couple of months I and my friend have been hanging out more than ever and we’ve kept being open with each other. We affirm each other, we talk often, and I’ve driven her to places several times. She has become the best friend I’ve ever had and I could possibly be her’s too. If I’m not, I’m definitely at least one of the best friends she’s ever had. She’s made me extremely happy. I love her a lot, but I’m start to wonder, is this the love of a powerful friendship that I’ve never had before, or has it evolved into something else. To be honest, I’m not sure if I want it to be the latter.

I and my friend already have a powerful relationship that can last and I don’t want to risk that. If we were to become more than friends, how would that turn out? What I’m mainly trying to say here is what if we broke up? I don’t think I’m good enough boyfriend material. I’m still awkward and very shy. She’s accepted those aspects of me, but if we were to become more than friends, wouldn’t she expect more out of me? What if I can’t do that and she becomes disappointed in the lack of “passion” in our relationship? Then we’ll end up breaking up and our friendship is ruined. That’s the thing; I don’t want to lose her friendship. I’m perfectly content with always being her friend, but more and more these days I’ve been thinking that being more than that is a possibility.  It’s kind of a scary thing to me.

How do I go about this? How do I handle these emotions? Should I be taking these emotions seriously? Are my worries just silly? I just can’t help but think about where our relationship might lead to in the future. It’s kind of exciting but also very scary. I just don’t know.

This is just a thought I came up with. I hope it makes sense :)

I’m completely cool with that! You don’t need a boyfriend/girlfriend to make you happy or feel loved. You also don’t to act like you need one in your life or that your that is incomplete without one. Find good friends. Don’t tell that there aren’t any. Just go put put there, remove that fear that you can’t be accepted, and you’ll find them. Maybe a lot of them, maybe a few of them, but you will find good people who will love you for who you are. Love those friends, accept their qualities and accept their flaws. Nobody is perfect, and appreciate a person for who they are, not what you want them to be.

I see that phrase posted on tumblr a lot and it really makes me think. As sad as it is to say this, I can’t say that I love myself. I have made much progress with combating my depression, but I still have episodes of extreme sadness here and there. However, I still try my best to show love and happiness to all of my friends. Whenever I am dealing with those episodes of sadness, they are always there for me and do their best to keep me strong. They’ve told me that they love me and they know that I don’t really love myself.

So please, explain to me why is it that I person who doesn’t love themselves? I just don’t believe that, no do I want to believe that. The love and support I have from my friends are the most important think I have in my life right now.