'My (20M) lesbian best friend said she has feelings for me, now we're both confused.' UPDATED 5X

Attraction has the ability to transcend labels.

"My (20M) best friend (lesbian 20F) said she has feelings for me, now we are both confused."

Just to give some context: I have known this girl (let’s call her K) since we were 14. I met K when we were paired up in a group project for this one class. I found out we had a lot in common and we became friends. Over time, I developed a huge crush on her. Sophomore year I asked her to homecoming and she said yes!

It was a good time, but after it didn’t really lead to anything, I got the sense that she didn’t like me the way I liked her. Junior year, K came out as lesbian. Honestly, I wasn’t super surprised but I was a little heartbroken. I decided to put all my feelings away and just be supportive. I was really enjoying my senior year. I started dating this girl the summer before school started (thanks to K setting us up).

Things were going well until C0VID hit. My GF broke up with me because she couldn’t handle a relationship at the time. I was sad about that but more upset that I was gonna miss things like Prom and senior trip. K knew I was upset and invited me over for a fake prom which consisted of us getting dressed up for photos and immediately going inside to play old Wii games and watch movies.

She even bought some of my favorite snacks. Still probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. First year of college sucked. Nothing noteworthy happened other than K and I going to the same school. K started to date this girl who I’m 99% sure hated me for no reason. They break up in the summer and now we can move onto the important part of my story.

K and I decided to get a place near campus together for this school year. Her mom thought it was weird, but her dad (coolest guy ever BTW) thought it was a good idea. We’ve had lots of good times so far. My favorite thing about living together has been our late night talks. We talk about anything from school, sports, h0t girls, bad h00kups, etc.

Last night during one of our talks, K randomly brings up that she might be bis#xual. Not gonna lie, I felt a little jealous thinking that she hooked up with a random guy. But she tells me that she has feelings for me. I kind of laughed it off at first until she started crying. She said she started having feelings for me a month ago and was super confused about her s#xuality.

I apologized for laughing and said we’d talk tomorrow. I didn’t want to make any bad decisions that could ruin our friendship. So right now she’s at class and I’m just alone thinking. This is literally a dream come true, so why am I hesitating at all?!! I guess I don’t want her to just immediately change her mind after and make things weird between us. I’m anxiously waiting for her to get back.

I really do love her though I never thought I’d have a chance at this kind of love. Any advice on what I should say to her when she gets back? I feel like I’m overthinking this lol.

TL;DR: Best friends for 6 years, she’s a lesbian. Moved in together for school. She might be bis#xual and has feelings for me. Need advice on what to do next.

The internet was fully invested.

kazahani1 wrote:

Just gotta be honest with her. Tell her how you've always felt and ask her what she wants to do. Admit you're scared of things not working out. Try to decide if you want to try it anyway. From the tone of your post it seems like you might regret it forever if you don't try with her.

OP responded:

You’re definitely right about that last point. I’ll always wonder what might’ve been if I don’t try.

Santiago_the_sage wrote:

Go for it my boi. Communicate a lot with each other. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll at least want that friendship. You’ve known each other for 6 years. You guys should be pretty solid.

OP responded:

I’ll go for it. She should be here soon. And yeah my hope is that we’ll at least still be friends by the end of this.

Cat_Toucher wrote:

"This is literally a dream come true, so why am I hesitating at all?!!"

Because you're trying to keep yourself safe, and you (rightfully) are interpreting pursuing something with her as a risk. It's totally understandable to want to avoid getting hurt!

If she were a more casual crush it might be easier, but you have had feelings for her for a long time. The closer something is to our hearts, the greater its capacity to hurt us. And rather than dismiss that fear with platitudes or uninformed optimism, I will, instead, say this: you are resilient.

You can handle sh#$ty times. If you decide to take the risk of pursuing something with her, and it doesn't work out in the end, it will suck. Probably big time. But you can handle that suck. You can get through it. You have gotten through other bad times in your life, and you can get through whatever outcome this may have too.

On her end, she's probably feeling pretty confused. When your sexual identity runs counter to the mainstream, it's pretty easy to end up internalizing the label you picked as part of your identity. So she has had "lesbian" as part of her identity for a few years (and from an external perspective, you have likely thought of her that way for some time as well).

And now she's experiencing something she did not think was possible, which forces her to question that core part of her identity, which was likely difficult for her to accept in the first place. It can be a bit of a mindf#$k, as I'm sure you can imagine.

But labels are meant to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive- that is, a label is meant to describe your experiences up til now, not dictate what experiences you can have in the future.

It's not like you pick out a label when you're a teen and then have to stick to that your whole life. When she decided that "lesbian" was the label that best fit her, it was because up until that point, she hadn't experienced attraction to genders other than her own, but that doesn't mean that she can't experience attraction to any other genders for the rest of her life.

It simply described what she knew about her attraction then.

You can still be cautious. It's not an all or nothing thing, where you have to jump in without looking.

You don't have to give her your whole heart, no strings attached, right at this moment. If you decide the risk is worth taking, you can take things slow, and make sure you both check in with each other often. And like I said, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. But you can handle that, and you'll know for sure, instead of always wondering, "What if?"

OP responded:

I appreciate the response! I think you definitely summed up my feelings perfectly and probably hers as well. I think I need to go take a walk lol. She texted me that she’ll be here in an hour and that she’s not purposely avoiding me so I’m happy about that.

Robinandtheflash wrote:

Give her a chance with boundaries and instructions if it doesn't work out with her. Tell her you want her in your life even as friends if the dating goes different. If the dating doesn't work out take a little separation and resume being friends. Good luck and I hope you both come to a conclusion that makes y'all happy.

Two days later, OP shared an update.

First of all, thanks to the people who commented on my original post. So K got here later than usual so she could finish an assignment and have the whole night to talk. When she walked in, we both smiled at each other and didn’t say anything.

I thought the mood was gonna be lighthearted but as soon as we started talking we both got really emotional. I took the advice to just be completely honest about how I felt. I told her how I had a huge crush on her when we first met (she knew).

I also told her how grateful I was just to have her in my life and whatever happens I don’t want to ruin that. K agreed and gave her side of the story. The long comment on my original post pretty much nailed what she was feeling. She felt like she was stuck with the label she put on herself when she was younger. After her last break up, she started to question herself and her feelings towards me.

She eventually sorted out her feelings last month but was afraid to tell me. We laid out some of the possible risks of being together, but realized we were probably being too hard on ourselves. So we’re gonna give this relationship a try! We’re gonna take it slow and communicate a lot about how we’re feeling. We ended the night with a long hug and some more tears.

Yesterday morning we talked some more about things like Spring Break plans and when we would tell parents and friends. Parents will come when the time is right, but our friends will probably just figure it out themselves lol. Honestly, there was a super awkward vibe between us in the morning. I think both of us were scared of trying to make a move or trying something different.

We both thought of some fun date ideas for this week to break the awkwardness. Things were a lot better last night. We cuddled for a while, which wasn’t really something new but it feels a lot better now. Overall, I’m just hoping I don’t fuck this up. We have a week off from work and school starting today, so it should be a good time.

Thanks again to the few people who commented on my first post. I think I needed to see someone say “go for it”

TL;DR: We talked and decided to give this relationship a try! Things were weird at first, but we’re already adjusting and starting to get more comfortable.

The internet loved the update.

After-Maximu8975 wrote:

Good luck and keep us updated!

OP responded:

Thanks! Maybe I’ll post an update a while from now or if something important happens.

[deleted] wrote:

Sounds to me like you are both really just beautiful, sincere and lovely people, with a huge dose of maturity thrown in. I’d be super surprised if it doesn’t work out for you 😊

HeluniasRoses wrote:

Congrats! Have a friend who went from the lesbian to bi label through a similar experience. Just happens sometimes, but it can really be so overwhelming to feel like you are proving the "you just haven't found the right man yet!"-bullsh**tery right.

Best of luck!

Two days later, OP shared another update.

Hey, thought I’d give a quick update to the people who followed/ asked to keep them updated. Probably my last post for a long time. Don’t really want to keep posting my personal life on here. So K and I already had plans to visit our families for spring break before we entered our relationship which sucked because we didn’t want to be apart.

We live like 10 minutes from each other so yesterday we just drove back in one car (wow way to make it obvious). I said f#$k it and convinced my parents to let K and her parents come over for dinner. Dinner was good and we all played a few games afterwards. We had to hold in our laughter when her dad made a comment about how nice it is that K and I have been friends for so long.

I guess it’s possible that he knows because that’s definitely his style of humor.

Now the biggest part of the update: We had our first kiss! K wanted to go on a late night drive just like we used to.

I was dropping her off and she just leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t super long, but it was really nice. We have some plans for this week but we’re also broke af so. Like I said, I’m probably done posting these for now. I feel like first kiss is a good note to end on. Thanks for all the nice comments! If I do post again, hopefully it’s a positive update.

The comments kept coming in.

StayAwai wrote:

Hey man, Im really happy for you. Thank you for sharing :) Hope you two have a great weekend!

Competitive_Rip6498 wrote:

Congratulations bro! Made me smile!

OrdinaryEnd8851 wrote:

That is awesome to hear congrats to you both.

A week later, OP shared another update.

Hey! I saw a few notifications about new followers on this profile and apparently my post was shared somewhere so that’s cool. Figured I could give a quick update about K and I. These last 2 months flew by. Relationship is going great! Not much has changed in our dynamic except we kiss and have s#x now lmao. We just moved out of our apartment because the semester is over. Gonna miss that place.

We were planning on telling people about us once the semester was over, but SOMEONE got d*unk and posted a picture of us kissing on their Instagram story. Of course, K’s parents saw it and told my parents because they are all friends. They were happy for us so that’s good. So yeah that’s about it. It’s funny looking back at how nervous I was.

Then, a year later OP jumped on with another update.

Good news is K and I are still together a little over a year later. It still feels surreal that we’re actually together. So I just wanted to share a couple stories from the past year and clarify some things I’ve seen in the comments. So overall things are going great. Last summer was basically our time to get used to being a couple.

The transition from friends to dating was easy. It was only a little awkward the first time we were together around our families. Like most of you guys said K’s dad had a good feeling this would happen. He actually made a bet with K’s brother 2 years ago that we would eventually date.

We moved back in together when this school year started. We also both turned 21 this year. K’s 21st birthday party delivered an all time great moment but don’t ask about it.

K and I spent one night going through all of the comments. We’re happy that so many of you loved our story. And yes I know why K’s ex hated me. I just meant that I didn’t do anything to her or try to take away from their relationship. So thanks for the support! Here’s to 1 year and hopefully many more!

People were happy to hear from OP again.

snowwh1t3 wrote:

Well this is adorable. Best of luck! I hope it works out, and if it doesn't, I hope you both maintain a healthy friendship.

jullian727 wrote:

I'm rooting for you guys. Keep it up. This was a very cute wholesome story and I hope that story continues for decades.

Secondisd*ck wrote:

Congrats man. Hope you guys are still doing well.

Another year later, OP shared yet another update.

I guess I have to do another update cause it got posted again and my dm’s are blowing up lmao. Yes K and I are still together and going strong. We graduate in less than a month which is pretty crazy. Gonna be sad to leave the place where this all started but I’m excited to see what’s next cause to be completely honest I have no clue what’s next lol.

Always gonna love coming back and reading my original posts and seeing how everyone has responded to them. Forever grateful for all the advice I got. It changed my life. If anyone wants to ask me anything go ahead but other than that I’ll see y’all whenever my DMs blow up again!

The comments kept comning.

FlygonosK wrote:

Glad that both of you are still a couple and things going great. Congratulations on your soon graduation, hope evyrthing keep great as it has been. A side note, I got curious about what happen K's last year bithday, but you told to not ask, but that made me more curious about, haha. Hope to hear from you, with more good updates.

OP responded:

Lmao to answer your question: Let’s just say I drank way too much and I ended up breaking my wrist.

sophielikesthis wrote:

I read your story a couple of days ago and followed just in case you updated again, glad I did! Congratulations on your graduation and it's so nice to know you are still together!! Best wishes for whatever comes next!

No-Horse-3509 wrote:

Let’s go! I was waiting for this. But give us a face to go with the story because this feels like the end of a movie but I never seen the characters before.

This is truly the cutest outcome.