I think I’m still in love with my guy best friend, though we do not talk anymore

I was planning to write a short post, but in all honesty, I feel like I need to explain in depth and I want to vent a bit anyway, so apologies if this gets tiresome.


Me and this boy (for the sake of this post im calling him H), we sat next to each other in English class due to the seating plan. And so, we were sat next to each other for 3 years straight (from yr9 to yr11) and saw each other everyday.
We were always friends, but we definitely became a lot closer in yr11. We began to text every day, and we began to tell each other everything. It wasn’t like we kept the conversation going ‘for the sake of it’ but mainly because we always had something to talk about and we’d always send each other lengthy paragraphs.
As we became closer, we also started to tell each other our issues like when we were upset. We’d tell one another and we’d comfort each other so much. Genuinely we used to make each other so happy. I do recall him saying ‘I love you’ during yr9/yr10 (during the early stages of our friendship), but he meant it in a friendly manner.
I told him at the beginning of our friendship that I had strict parents and my mother didn’t like me texting H at all. I remember once she got my phone and threw it across the room because she was looking through my messages and saw that I texted him. I also told him that my parents don’t want me to date until university and so my parents are really strict with boyfriends. He had always respected that when I told him in yr9, and I remember I saw him outside of school while I was with my mom. He didn’t say anything when he saw me, and he said he purely did that because my mom was there and he didn’t want anything to happen to me.
So that’s how our friendship began. He made me really happy and I really liked him as a friend.
Honestly I did tell him everything - intimate stuff too like when I had a yeast infection lol- and he never judged.
He also had multiple girlfriends from yr9 to yr10. Ofc I never had feelings for him back then so I always supported his relationships and I wasn’t ever jealous because I didn’t like I’m romantically. However, all of his girlfriends broke up with him solely because of me. H would still talk to me everyday when he had a gf, and they got ‘jealous’ and all of his girlfriends thought that he liked me instead this whole time. Was that true or was that not? Well I don’t know, but I’m being so honest I never talked to him in a flirtatious manner - I never dared even as a joke incase my mom saw!

So fast forward to last year (when i was in yr11).
Everyone asked me if me and H were going out/liked each other because genuinely, says everyone, everyone thought we liked each other. we never used to talk much in school (apart from English) up until year 11. But I remember him letting me write on his hand that ‘*my name* is amazing’ as a joke lol and all of his friends would comment on that and asking him if he likes me.
He literally took care of me: he always asked me if I was okay, and made sure I was okay.
I remember developing real feelings for him midway year11, but I didn’t know how to handle my feelings because I never felt this way about anyone before.
I recall. I was so so stupid with how I did decide to handle my feelings though. I decided to ignore him. I was too scared about what my mother would do to me if she knew I liked him. Honestly, if you think I sound unreasonable, then let me tell you my older sister and I have a crazy past filled with screaming and shouting and I wasn’t willing to go through that. I was practically already known as the ‘depressed’ one at home, and I didn’t want to make my time at home even more of a living hell by this.
I ignored him by not looking at him in the corridors, not texting him anymore.
I thought by doing this, all my ‘pretty and childish’ feelings will go away, as my mom says.
He then developed feelings for me. I know this through my friends. H would text my friends about me, telling them how he ‘live laugh loves’ me, and my friends constantly would tell me about how he’d look about me and how he’d always talk about me with them. He told me how gorgeous me and my family was, and how my mother is so pretty and I’ve got her genes. At this point out of the blue, he told me he loved me (we hadn’t said it to each other in ages and I thought this time it wasn’t a friendly ily), it seemed like a genuine ‘ i love you’
He used to remember little personal details about me too, like what my favourite restaurant is and my favourite movie is and was always willing to watch it and eat there as long as I was by his side.
I also remember he practically asked me out on a date. He knew I liked nandos and sunsets. We had never met up outside of school, so he said we should hang out together - we never did.
Ignoring him was so hard but he just wouldn’t leave me alone and I used to cry to myself because of how much of a terrible person I thought I was.
I’d tell him how much I ‘hate’ him. I don’t know why, I was in love with him. I was so childish. Being in a family where love isn’t verbally nor physically shown is hard, and I think it’s reflected here. I used to make him feel insecure too, saying he was ‘too short’ or that ‘I’d only date a 6’4 tall person because I’m taller than him and it used to make him insecure. I felt terrible.
I could NOT tell him I liked him. I didn’t care what my friends told me when they said I should tell him how I feel, I absolutely refused to tell him I liked him.
Also with the fact that at this point GCSEs were near, and I’m a high attaining student who achieves 8s and 9s, I couldn’t deal with this stress.
Even when H used to joke about knowing that I liked him, I always thought to myself ‘deny, deny deny’.
And then one of my other friend began to like him too so that made everything all twisted too. I felt like I was betraying her.
I remember so well, H and I got separated in English class. After sitting next to each other for 3 years, at the end of yr11 we didn’t sit next to each other anymore. I still ignored him, trying to loose feelings, but I remember so vividly him and I exchanging glances from across the room constantly. my feelings for him became even stronger. Honestly, I had never felt this way about ANYONE.

The day before our first GCSE exam, we were doing leavers and signing each others shirts. That was the first time I talked to him since ignoring him. He came up to sign my shirt and I think he held my back for a solid 3/4 minutes and he was pressing his hand and moving it up and down my back while we was ‘writing’. He wrote his name massively, so large that it looked like it should be his shirt lol. Everyone I walked past asked me why his name was on my shirt so large, and again asked me if I liked him.
My friend over heard a conversation in the lunch queue, and H’s friend was talking to H about me and how it ‘must have felt good’ for his to have his hands all over my back and he blushes.
We began to talk a bit more, I recall having this EXTREMELY jealous episode in class when one of my best friends started flirting with H, while I was just doing my class work. My friend didn’t talk to me, but just H the whole time. My eyes started to well up and tear and I shouted at my friend and I was so ****ed off with H, to the point that when he saw I was upset and try to cheer me up by teasing me, I told him to ‘go away’.

As you can see, I’ve always been the problem, not him.
If I told him I liked him, everything would have been SO EASY, but I can’t. I won’t, even a year later.

Prom happened, we hugged each other for the first time. It wasn’t like a friendly hug either. It was a proper full on hug with our arms wrapped around each other. He wanted us to hug. I was going in for a handshake but he opened his arms wide so I went into them. At that point, I would have been insane not to. What was weird was that everyone around us (our friends) started taking pictures of us hugging each other.

So summer holidays (this is last year btw). I accepted that I liked him, because I was practically in denial the whole time and I kept forcing myself to not like him. We continued on flirting for the start of the holidays and I thought I’d never see him again because I was so sure that he’d go to a different sixth form to me.
Then he went to NCS (a residential trip mixed with some random teenagers). He met a girl, and lo and behold, he began to text me less. But the things he did tell me in the few texts we had was ‘i met this girl, she’s amazing I really like her’.
Usually I’m a supportive friend when he likes someone, but I was raging with jealousy at this point. I also thought that this could really benefit me and that this was fate so I could move on from him. So, he got a new girlfriend and he texted me less and less - probably for her sake so she doesn’t get ‘jealous’ like his old girlfriends.
I then found out he goes to the same sixth form as me. I really thought I could get rid of him. I then found out we were in the same form. And then I found out that I still have feelings for him. After all that.

Now moving to present day - god im so sorry this is all so lengthy - he still has the same girlfriend. He posts her, i still get jealous.
I did him a happy birthday - seeming as birthdays used to be a big part in our friendship. As a joke, I’d always drill into his head when my birthday was and I’d always remember his. When I said happy birthday to him on text, he didn’t reply until 3 days later, which made me furious.
Me and H haven’t spoken in 20 weeks on text. I don’t talk to him at school at all. I don’t even want to look at him in school, so I don’t. I pretend he’s a stranger all over again. I had a little tiny bit of hope that he’d message me on my birthday at least. I drilled into him the day of my birthday and he would always wait until 12.00am to say happy birthday to me. He didn’t this year. He didn’t say anything at all. That’s what made me think that if he couldn’t even do that, he definitely doesn’t have feelings for me anymore and that whatever connection we may have had is over completely. This was in June this year btw
One of my friends somehow got invited to a party which he also attended. She spoke with him, and someone I became the subject of their conversation. ‘Though he still has a girlfriend,’ my friend said, ‘i think he still has feelings for you by the way his face glowed when I mentioned your name’.
That made me quite jolly icl lol.

After the whole thing of him not texting me on my birthday, because that occurred after the party, i lost all faith. For some reason, i thought we were meant to be. He has still kept me on his close friends story which he posts a lot on on insta, though I’ve removed him from mine.

I have crushes on celebrities, i think it helps me overcome the fact that I’ve lost my best friend ever who was like my platonic solemate, and I’ve lost someone who could have potentially loved me a lot.
I try to constantly think how in life, i could meet someone who is- for example - taller, more attractive, more clever, more muscular than him. There are so many celebrities who i love and find handsome, yet my mind always goes back to him.
It’s been a whole year since we properly talked to each other like we loved each other and it’s probably been 6 months since we’ve spoken to each other at all.
He still doesn’t know that i like him, so I think, and I always catch myself stalking him and his girlfriends profile on social media. I keep having dreams about him recently and i keep thinking about him. I went to a Coldplay concert recently and when the song ‘yellow’ played i started sobbing because he was literally my ‘yellow’.

I keep telling my friends that I’m over him, I’m not. I think about him so much. I’ll see him in yr13, but I wonder what will happen to my feelings during uni, when I’ll never see him again?
I might remove him from all my social medias.
But one thing for sure that I did tell myself is that if one day he ever decides that he wants to be my friend again, I’m holding a grudge and I’m telling him that that’s not happening.

I'm probably going to say something that might hurt your feelings but you brought this upon yourself. He had feelings for you. He was there for you for a very long time but because you were scared, you tore him down, crushed his hopes with you and now, you're angry that he moved on. You only have yourself to blame here.

It's a very sad situation from your perspective but imagine how it is from his perspective. Stuck in the best friend zone, so lovestruck that he's telling all his friends about you, practically singing your name to them. Then what happens? Not only do you reject his feelings before he can even confess them, but you also went out of your way to try to ruin his self esteem. Can you imagine how much that must have hurt him? Now, he has put himself back together and found happiness. Please, do not interfere. Let him be happy if you really care about him. If fate flows your way, maybe in the future you'll both be single and meet again. But let him be happy now. I do feel sorry for you but sometimes, we just have to accept how life goes and learn from our mistakes. If he still wants you as a friend, be there for him but don't break up a relationship. Sending virtual hugs your way. I genuinely hope you find happiness too.

Honestly, I’ve talked to many people about this but this comment has definitely had the most impact on me. I like your point of view.
i always go back in my mind and think how much of a bad person I was
thank you for your comment. It really has helped

Honestly, I’ve talked to many people about this but this comment has definitely had the most impact on me. I like your point of view.
i always go back in my mind and think how much of a bad person I was
thank you for your comment. It really has helped

I just want to say that it's not his fault or yours. I mean, you have strict parents and you tried to concentrate on other things... I also did that.
If you can't be more than friends, can you at least just stay friends ? I know that it seems weird, but H's girlfriend allows him to have a female friend, right?
Maybe try and text him: 'Hey, we haven't really talked to each other for the past few months... how are you doing?' I tried this, and honestly, at first I thought I was an idiot. But then he responded and we started talking again. Don't be needy, don't text him too much because he has a a girlfriend. If you can't have him as a boyfriend, try and have him as a friend. He seems funny and kind, so I don't really understand how you can just forget about all those things and about your friendship...

And one more thing: don't try and text him/talk to him to make his girlfriend jealous, do it for your friendship.
I wish you good luck. My advice isn't the best, and in the end you decide what's the best for him and you.

Be honest with him and tell him that you want him. Don't live your life with regret.

I have only one question: Do you think that their relationship will last?

I have only one question: Do you think that their relationship will last?

I'm not the OP but statistically it won't, both due to age and most relationships prior to uni end up crumbling because often the couple go to different unis so then distance becomes an issue and then you end up meeting so many different folk at uni that it's much easier to get with someone there than keeping up some long distance thing. And the pool of people you meet at uni is often significantly larger than at school and so the chances of meeting someone you click with amazingly is higher.

I don't know, that's between them. At the end of the day, it's not healthy for OP to be constantly thinking about someone else's boyfriend, they should try to move on.

Tell him for what? So he can reject her (as he should) because he has a girlfriend and he won't want to leave a girl that definitely likes him back over one that he got over because she indirectly rejected him ages ago?