tl;dr I'm a big dummy who's in love with his best friend, but I don't know how to tell her because it feels like we're already dating, but I guess we're not, and also I'm moving in with this person in 2 weeks.
First, a little context... I'm very close to this person, "Jane". I've known her for a little over a year now, but we got really close around 8 months ago, and we both consider the other person to be our closest friend. We met through work and have been working together every day ever since then (we're self-employed in a weird industry, so we definitely don't have to, but we do [it mostly ends up with us just hanging out]). She's had a boyfriend for almost the entire time I've known her, and that created a very clear line in the sand. I knew for sure that even though we hung out way more than they ever did, he was the boyfriend, and I never crossed that line. That never stopped our other friends from joking about how we're like an old married couple and every time we go anywhere together, people just assume we've been together for a long time (we did go on a "work trip" recently and kept telling people we were on our honeymoon). Anyway, around 2 months ago, she and the BF broke up after 2 years.
(the following paragraph is a long-winded break-up story that's not super relevant, but I kinda just wanna vent about it all so you can skip it if you want)
We had a lot of work to do the following day, I get to her house, text her, and she asks if I could handle it by myself because she was depressed. I asked if she wanted to talk about it and she said "not really, but we will when you get back". I go run the errands, come back to her house and she's gone. I call her and she says she'll be back soon. I'm waiting around at her house and her mom calls me and gives me the break-up news (she was very happy, not a single one of her friends or family liked the BF, they all thought he was terrible [and he was], but they always talked to me about it in a way that made it seem like it was me vs. him and it was weird). I keep waiting around and fall asleep on the couch. I wake up a few hours later and see that she called me a few times and texted me a few more. She decided to go over to our friend's house, I could come if I wanted to, but she kinda wanted to talk to her alone. I totally understood and said I'd see her later. A few days pass by and she doesn't say anything. I go to the aforementioned friend's house to get some work done with that friend, and *she* tells me the break-up news. Jane comes over to help out for a little bit, neither of us brought the break-up up. She left after a little bit to go meet the ex-BF to try to work it out (that didn't work). That night, she finally texts me and says "come over tomorrow". We're talking about work stuff and she casually drops "he would care about that, but I don't give a shit anymore, so we can." I say "Yeah, I heard about that. How are you?" She hits me with an "I'm fine." She briefly explains the reasoning behind it and we move on. This is roughly 5 days after the break-up and that's how she told me. I can't get upset at that, obviously. I just felt like we had a deeper trust, but I also may have had something to do with the break-up (he didn't like how much we hung out, and there was an incident between the 3 of us a few days before the break-up that really made the BF hate me and me hate him-- we were travelling somewhere with a group and we didn't get along particularly well, it's deeper than that but could be another post on its own), so I understand her being kind of uncomfortable at first. She eventually started talking more about the break-up. She still loves him, but she knows they're done.
So a few weeks pass by, me and Jane start regularly hanging out again, but it starts getting a lot less work-related and a lot more personal. The week before they broke up, she started talking to me about setting boundaries between us (because I was around almost all the time and it was a reasonable request), suddenly that conversation went out the window. She was calling me every day to just talk about her day or night if we didn't hang out. We attempted to go to the movies one night, but that failed. We already went out to lunch and dinner a lot before, but now it just felt different for me. We went on that previously mentioned "work trip" that was more of a week-long vacation with some work sprinkled in. She was depressed about her ex for a lot of it, but I did what I could to console her. She asked me for my honest opinion of him, and I finally gave it. Told her some things that I knew he did that I had been keeping a secret because I wasn't the right person to tell her when they were together. She thanked me for doing that (and has apparently told every one of her friends about that gesture). She's gotten a lot touchier. Playfully punching me in my arm, touching my shoulders and arm, laying her head on me, grabbing my phone from my lap when we're driving so she can change the song and we end up wrestling over it, etc. She was leaning over in the passenger seat last week fake-pouting and I rubbed her back, I've grabbed her arm several times in a playful way, rubbed her shoulder when she started crying one night. Stuff like that.
The last week or two imparticular have felt extremely boyfriend-y. We went on another work trip where our work ended up being going to an art museum and ice skating in a park. On the way there, we stopped for a bathroom break and I got a text from one of her friends (I guess) warning me that Jane and her ex hooked up one night around Thanksgiving, but they decided they didn't want to get back together after that. It hurt, but I expected it to happen, so I wasn't particularly shocked. I got very depressed because even though I knew we weren't dating and she's totally not in the wrong at all, it felt like it enough to really bum me out. She instantly noticed a change in my demeanor the moment she got back in the car and started prying. I obviously didn't want to tell her, although I came really close. I told her that I was afraid everyone was using me because I'm good at my job, and no one is actually my friend because no one wants to hang out with me unless I'm helping them do something (which I know for sure isn't necessarily true, but it is a very deep insecurity that I have). She assured me that I was her best friend and she hopes I'd say the same about her.
A few days after we got back, I straight up asked her out to a movie, but I don't think it came across in the way I wanted it to lol. I told her she deserves a break from work and it was my treat. She said she'd love to. I get to her house, says she doesn't feel like going to see a movie anymore and wants to go hang out with her friend, but also there was a secret show that night for a big artist that she got invited to through a mutual friend and she wanted me to go with her. So we go hang out with her friend for a few hours, we leave to go get some sushi before the show, I pay (I do that a lot, almost every day for the last few weeks, but I know she's trying to save up for the move and I don't mind), and we go have a great time at this show! We met some great people, I take her home, smoke some weed together, talk for a while, then we fell asleep on the couch watching some old Disney movie. We woke up a few hours later and I went home. The next day, she told me to come over, I was confused because we don't really have anything to do. I get there, we get in the car (we spend the majority of our time together in a car), and we go shopping... and then to lunch... and then to get her nails done... and then that's it, she has to go babysit for a friend. It was very confusing. I get sad again (I struggle with depression and I'm an emotional wreck, okay?) because while we were at the nail salon, I get up to go the bathroom. When I get back, Jane says the lady asked how long we had been together. She joked that she said 7 years, but then said she told her that we weren't. The lady apologized and Jane said, "No, it's fine, we get that all the time!" I fake laughed and it got awkward for a second and she said "I'm just going to start telling people I'm dating your brother." I said, "What?" She joked, "I mean, not your actual brother, but like, your fictional 27-year-old brother. You're too young for me, kid!" It felt like a really weird thing to say. I laughed it off, but it kind of stuck with me the rest of the day. She texted me after I left her house later, thanking me for hanging out with her and saying that she could tell I got sad towards the end (she never wants to talk about this stuff with me in person, she always waits until I've left to try to talk about it). I told her I didn't wanna talk about it, but she kept insisting, and I kept saying variations of no. She said, "You don't have to tell me, seems like that's what's stressing you out" I said, "I wish I could, but I don't wanna stress you out any more than you already are." The next morning, I picked her up to take her to the airport. I get her bags out of the car, and rather than doing our usual high-five, which she went up for, I went in for the hug. She said, "Oh! Okay! Big hug!" I told her to be safe, she said she'd try, then she left. We've been talking a lot while she's been gone, but it's mostly been about her trying to find a place to live for us, which brings me to the main problem...
You may be saying "tell her how you feel, idiot!" I agree, but this more recent development has made everything even weirder.
We had been talking about moving together for a large part of the year, but it kept getting pushed because she didn't know if she wanted to do a long-distance thing with her BF and he didn't want to go (another reason for the break-up). Once the break-up happened, another friend joined us, and rather than waiting for next year, we decided it's now or never. So we're loading up a truck and moving across the country at the end of the month. Her and our other roommate have been finding a place for us. Suddenly, last night, the other roommate is told by her job that she has to move to the other *other* side of the country! So now, Jane is struggling because she doesn't really want to live with just me, she wants another female roommate, but she doesn't want a random person, and our other friend that is looking for a roommate doesn't really want to leave her nice place. That person wants Jane to move in with her, but she assured me she wasn't going to abandon me and apologized for stressing me out by saying she won't get a 2bd with me. I called her last night to talk about it, but our signals were bad, so she said she'd call me back later, but she never did. I'm torn because I want her to be happy, and if that means moving in with that one female friend and leaving me to figure something out, I want that for her. The last thing I want to do is stress her out But at the same time, the whole reason we're going out there is so that we could get a place together and be a hyper-efficient work machine. She's been sending me 2bd listings all morning, but I don't really know what to do about anything... I feel like I should tell her how I feel about what we've been doing before we leave, but I'm afraid it'll mess something up. There are a lot of moving parts, but I really do deeply care about her. I'm throwing her a surprise going away party with all of her close friends this weekend, and I kinda thought about doing it after that, but I don't know, man... I'm stuck.
Submitted December 11, 2019 at 07:16PM by TheLargePomegranate https://ift.tt/2Pe57gV
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