I think I ruined my relationship with one of my friends
Starting off, I’m a fresh-out-the oven adult And I’ve had this friend who is around my age for a while. I have never met them before, but I developed a crush on this person, and when they confessed their feelings to me in return like a little over a month ago. I was so happy and thought “finally, someone in this world genuinely likes me.”
Because we now confessed to each other, we tried to get to know each other more. We live very far away, so we promised not to get into the actual relationship aspect of it and ask each other out once we finally met each other. It was a solid plan, and we also made some plans to travel the world together. And as we started texting, getting to know each other on a personal level, we would talk cutesy, complimenting each other, saying how much we love each other and all that jazz. Every day. For me, everything was great. For once in my life, someone finally understood me, someone who cared about me. But I just had this… weird gut feeling. I brushed it off, thinking it will just go away once we spend real time together, but apparently the chances of meeting are very slim due to money issues, parents not approving, the fact that 18-year-olds can’t rent a hotel room until 21 in the U.S. and my on-and-off decisions about whether or not I want to go to college.
And the more we would talk about it, I just trusted that things will fall into place and it will happen. We wanted to meet so badly, trying to plan it as soon as possible I guess before we do our traveling thing.
Everything felt fine, except my gut feeling. I genuinely felt like I was in love with this person, so I said what anyone would say. “I love you”
But I feel like, even though we didn’t agree to become partners until we went out, I felt like things were moving too fast. It’s hard to say who was taking it too fast, I participated in it Because I was just overcome with pure euphoria and happiness. And I promised to support them through all their struggles since they had a lot. I care for them a lot so if talking to me made them feel better, go right ahead. I am listening. I would vent too, and we would comfort each other before reassuring we love each other.
yet my gut feeling just never went away.
The thing about my gut feeling is that it has never lied to me. Every single person I got a gut feeling around has either hurt and betrayed me, and wasn’t a good person to be around.
So I got immediately anxious and nervous. I didn’t want to lose one of my best friends. Not again, not when someone finally sees me and doesn’t judge me for who I am.
And in the last few days, everything just turned upside down for me. I suddenly lost feelings for this person and it’s criminal of me to go about it like nothing is wrong, and make this person whom I’ve never met who is deeply in love with me believe I still feel the same. I mean, it’s only been a little over a month since I’ve been confessed to after all.
I lost feelings one night when they were venting. And just… the things were said disturbed me, worried me, and was very concerning. For privacy reasons I will not disclose what was discussed. I remember them saying that before this, they wanted to be the best version of themselves for me because they loved me so much. And then during this vent session, they said they didn’t want to change, to seek help, wanting to give up, and to “let the voices in out of curiosity.” And that is what really just… disturbed me I guess? I can’t explain well what happened afterwards, but it was just a long rant that genuinely terrified me, and how they must be “losing it” or something like that. Which I understand. This person had quite a harf life, and for them I was their light in that darkness. So many things were said that I can’t remember.
But no matter how much I loved and supported this person even though I was blatantly disturbed, there are a lot of things this person has said to me that I was unsure if it was true or false. When it comes to long distance, it’s so much harder to tell if what someone says is true.
And just, the next day, the gut feeling was unbearable, and I just remember feeling absolutely nothing. It was the worst feeling I had in my entire life. I didn’t even know I could loose feelings for someone that quickly over a vent session. As said before, I was a therapist friend and I had a lot of emotional burnout when people would vent to me about certain things, and overtime it’s just made me apathetic because I genuinely dont know how to handle or comfort these people when I’m already having on and off depression every month.
I don’t know what’s happening to me right now, so I was just vulnerable with them in that moment and said that I am not too ready for a relationship at the moment, and a bunch of other stuff. But to summarize it, I said I wanted to resolve my issues before pursuing a relationship, and that I don’t even know what I’m even going to do with my life, my career, or my future. And to be honest I was too afraid to say that for this I have a commitment issue. Mostly because we’re long-distance, and it’s hard for me to express and be my true self around someone because I’m more of a physical love person (not in a freaky way) instead of words. I feel like I did the right thing by telling them that we should just hold off for now instead of keeping it a secret and pretending to be in love with them. I don’t like lying to someone, and I recognize that my emotions and thoughts can be all over the place and could hurt someone if I don’t tell the truth about how I feel. Even then, they were still upset, and ended up blaming themselves which hurts me, because I don’t believe that any of this is their fault. To them, nothing is my fault, and I can’t do no wrong. Still, I feel like telling the truth to them hurt them, and I feel very guilty. In the end, I just promised them that we can try again once my mental state gets better. But in truth, I physically can’t see a future with this person, and don’t think they’re truly the right person for me even though I was daydreaming it for months. But I also have a history of childhood trauma, minor childhood abuse, anxiety, and chronic illness which has been the source of my depression for many years.
I don’t know what kind of person this makes me. And my family lives paycheck to paycheck so therapy is out of our budget, hence why I’m coming to the good ol’ somewhat reliable Reddit.
I feel like a bad person, and that I lead them on. Our relationship with each other feels stiff and awkward. I know they’re upset, and I’m afraid they’ll spiral back into their pain. I loved our friendship and I don’t want to let it go because I cared for them so much even before I developed feelings. The hardships they went through hurts me, and no one should ever experience that. So I’m at a loss, and that what I said and how I reacted ruined everything for the both of us.
I am also a date-to-marry type of person, so sometimes they would bring up if we would get married someday. And even though that’s what I hope for, I just… felt uncomfortable.
Maybe I’m crazy? who knows. But I don’t want to be in a relationship if there is something wrong with me. It puts us both at risk.