Two besties might have been into each other. And then, quarantine.
Our elder maps out a plan to get these two talking again.
Dear EWC:
I think that I am in love with my old best friend. She and I have known each other since middle school and we are graduating high school this year. We used to be insanely close and we would talk through text for hours and spent all of our time at school together. Stuff started getting weird towards the beginning of 2020. One night we both sorta got drunk and she started saying stuff.
Now for background, I am a lesbian and I’ve been out of the closet for a while now. She doesn’t know what her sexuality is and does not like to talk about who she likes or is interested in, whereas I am the complete opposite. But while we were drunk, she started talking about an old friend she had who she was obsessed with. She was talking about writing her name with hearts and everything and then her sister found out and she completely stopped. I didn’t think much of it until recently where I realized that she is probably also into girls.
When quarantine started, we stopped talking. We just stopped texting each other and I took a break from social media. We haven’t properly talked since March, which was about 2 months after the drunken conversation. This week I decided to reach out and send her a mailed letter. I don’t know why I chose a letter, but it felt like the most personal way to talk to her again. As I sat down to start writing, I felt very overwhelmed. I put off writing the letter and started to think about our relationship.
We are very close and I love her quite a bit, but I don’t know if my love is platonic or romantic. I care for her and not talking to her for a while is really tough. I didn’t reach out sooner, but I was upset that she stopped talking to me. I want to talk to her in person and hear her voice and just be around her again. I sent the letter trying to reach out and I am waiting for her reply. I don’t know if I should mention that I think I am in love with her. I also don’t even know what I feel. Any advice?
Kind replies:
I’m so glad you wrote. You haven’t seen your friend in a long time, right? And until you recently sent her a mailed letter, you haven’t properly talked since March, almost a year ago. So it makes complete sense that you are not sure if your love for her is platonic or romantic or how she feels about you, given that so much time has passed without you being in touch with each other.
I think it’s neat that you reached out to your friend. I hope she responds in some form. If it feels right to be in touch, then you will just have to find out how things evolve between the two of you. It’s nothing that you can know or figure out in your head by yourself. More interaction is necessary for you to understand what your feelings are.
When we don’t have the chance to see or be in touch with someone, it’s very easy to construct all sorts of fantasies in our mind. That’s very normal.
If your friend responds to you, and I hope she does, I would be bold and tell her just how you feel and that you would like to be in touch to see where things go between the two of you, if that is what you want. If you don’t hear back, I would reach out one more time. Then if you don’t hear back again, I, if it were me, would take the silence as a form of communication and back off. There has to be balance in a friendship or relationship of any sort for it to work.
If you could be back in touch with her, then you would get to know her better as she is today. And then you would be able to answer your question, “Is my love platonic or romantic?”
Hope this has been helpful. Take care of your special self!
Dating/Relationship
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