Me [24M] and my best friend [23F] have been very close for around 5+ years. We’ve always had a really emotionally close friendship i.e talking daily, calling often, telling each other everything about our relationships/dating lives etc. Honestly she’s usually the person I’d go to for advice about situations like this.
A couple weeks ago we ended up sleeping together for the first time.
For context, I worked at a hotel and we were there late. She originally kept saying she should probably book a cab home, but eventually said she’d just stay there instead because it was late. We ended up laying in bed watching a movie and she started cuddling into me. Before anything happened she kept asking things like “are we gonna regret this?” and saying it might be a bad idea, but things still escalated from there.
Afterwards we spoke about it and she basically said that if anything romantic were to ever happen between us, it would have to be much further in the future because there’s too much baggage on both sides right now. She said it’s probably best if we pretend it never happened and keep things normal.
The confusing part is that some things have become even more intense since then.
To be fair, some behaviours already existed before this happened because we were already very close friends
- calling often
- falling asleep on FaceTime occasionally
- spending lots of time together
- deep conversations
But now there’s been extra things that didn’t really happen before:
- she asks me to stay on the phone while she walks home
- she invited me over to her house whenever because my wifi has been bad (even though her room is tiny and realistically we’d basically be laying on the same bed)
- we spent 2–3 hours sitting in my car talking after I dropped her home
- she came to watch my football game
more physical touch than before initiated by me (touching faces, spoon feeding each other food etc.)
At the same time though, she still acts casual about everything and hasn’t directly treated it like it “means” something romantically.
Meanwhile I’ve realised I’m getting way more emotionally attached than I expected. I catch myself constantly thinking about her, checking for replies, checking her location sometimes, wanting to see her every day etc. I actually don’t like feeling this way because I feel like I’m slowly losing balance mentally.
I think part of why this feels so intense is because usually she would be the person I’d talk to about this kind of thing, but obviously I can’t really process this situation with her because she’s involved in it.
Specific advice I’m looking for:
How do I create healthier boundaries and emotionally reset a bit without suddenly acting cold or damaging the friendship completely?
Length of friendship: 8 years
TL;DR:
Slept with my best friend of 8 years after staying over at my hotel workplace late at night. She initiated a lot of the physical closeness and afterwards said we should keep things normal because neither of us are in a good place for a relationship. Since then we’ve actually become even closer and more physically/emotionally comfortable, while I’ve started getting emotionally attached and obsessive about the situation. Looking for advice on how to reset things without ruining the friendship.
(Will probably delete this later because I honestly just needed somewhere to talk about it since she’s normally the person I’d speak to about stuff like this.)