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This was a few years ago. I met an amazingly wonderful person around 10 years younger than me. I'm 35. At the time, I was struggling with being a black woman whose also into women because I knew the history of my people and that anyone with any slight defect was killed off in the past to keep the bloodline clean, clear, and preserved.
I began struggling with who I was when I found out that information. It's not that I was confused, I just didn't understand why I was allowed to be alive when in the past I would have been put to death.
During this time, I wasn't being sexually involved or dating anyone. I met this amazing girl/woman. I know now that she was 100% into me and wanted something more than friends, but out of respect, she never told me at all. When I realized I was actually into her, I told her, like maybe, 6-7 months later into our friendship. I'm not like her and most people; the type of person to just meet people and *** and blah blah blah, it takes time for me to get to know someone. She said she was not interested and that she wanted to get to know a person first and become friends and develop slowly and that a relationship was the furthest thing from what she wanted. I respected that and wanted to continue being friends, hoping we could get to know each other more and become something. It was tough for me to handle because it takes a lot for me to share my feelings.
Like within 2 weeks of time, she got into a relationship with someone else. I was broken. I did the best I could to still be that best friend and really struggled to hang around her and this person. They moved very quickly with their relationship; moved in together to "save money" within a month, she paid for everything mind you, we were overseas and in a poor country, so she paid for everything because we can go there and make way more than any local in that country. So, my thoughts are that she was fully manipulated into this relationship.
Over time, our friendship dwindled. I felt like she was being taken advantage of and didn't like the *** personality of the person she was with, but I wasn't going to say anything because I was turned down, I respected my friend, and she was an adult, it is what it is, right? They had been together for like 6 months by now. One day, my best friend came to have drinks with me and some other friends. When the others left, she said that she thought she chose the wrong person to be in a relationship with, but that she was going to be an adult about it and stay in it. At that point, I had been so tortured, you don't even understand. Having been the "best friend", and watching her go through so many people on ***, all these dating apps, even *** the weed delivery guy, etc, etc, then this relationship with this *** person, I just was broken and a hurt little "heart on my sleeve" in the corner. You could almost say I had no confidence that she could ever be into me, so when she said she thought that she chose the wrong person to be with, I definitely did not think she was talking about me being the right person. She would have had to be open about her feelings if she wanted to pursue anything. Me making any further move was not going to happen after all of that. After thinking back about all of it, she wanted me to say something and sweep her off her feet but I did not, because I felt like there was no way she could be into me, even knowing and seeing all the signs she gave me. If you tell me NO, that means NO, that's how I thought about it.
That was the end of our friendship for me. I told her I couldn't watch them be together anymore and that this friendship won't work. She said she had been focusing more on her relationship anyway and that she didn't have much time for friends.
Long *** story shortened, I saw her twice after that in the following year. The first time we had brief conversation when hanging with friends, I pretty much ignored her, she just kept glancing over at me. 6 months after that, my Father died and I had no choice but to leave that country, I wanted to give her all of my *** so it didn't go to waste. When my Father died, I was really *** up and a local friend of mine tried to comfort me and I was obviously weak and we ended up in a relationship that I knew should have never happened. When I invited my former "best friend" and her now fiance over to pick up all of the goods; when she saw that I was in a relationship, she broke into a million pieces. I could see it on her face. She was devastated. And I was so surprised, to be honest. The next day on the plane ride back to America, I cried the whole way missing her, not my girlfriend.
My girlfriend wasn't experienced in life enough and it didn't work out. When that relationship ended, suddenly all of these feelings rushed over me for the former best friend. Like, I knew I was into her, but I didn't know I was into her that much to suddenly feel a fever of love for someone I hadn't even seen in 8 months at that time, who is probably now married. I tried to ignore the feelings but they just got worse and worse and I couldn't properly function outside of work. Even while working, it was like a virus of "love for best friend" just smothering me mentally, physically, and emotionally. So, I felt like I needed to tell her what I was going through. I did and she told me that she was happy with her current relationship, but that if I was more vocal about my feelings before, things would be very different right now.
That was Spring 2022, I still feel the same right now. Much much worse actually. After finding out that she was completely into me, I have just been stuck wondering why everything went the way it did. Why didn't she tell me how she felt, why didn't I respect her feelings less, and tell her how I felt more? Why why why. I am not sitting here wanting to feel like this, it just started happening and I don't know how to stop it. I haven't been able to work for 2 months now because I can't get the thoughts or depression or sadness out of my mind.
I'm the type of person to work 12-15 hours a day and that is it. I haven't really slept with anyone since 2017 because I don't really count my relationship and her lack of experience. I don't do anything but work, and then my whole family died within 3 years of each other, forced back into this *** country because of it, there's a lot going on. I don't know how to remove the thoughts of her and just get back to life.
If you read all of this then I commend you for being a caring person.