Me & my 2 best friends like the same guy
Hello. So this whole story takes place quite recently and ever since then I don't really know who to talk to about my inner feelings and thoughts. I've felt quite disconnected since then. I will try to keep it as short as possible but I tend to get carried away while writing. I also hope it's readable and makes sense.
(All following names are fake.)
About a week ago I accidentally bumped into a person I knew- Mike, and we started chatting. Somehow the conversation stirred towards my friendgroup and one of the male friends- let's call him James, who Mike also knew. Mike said something along the lines of "Hey, was it Alina that liked James?" and I looked at him, confused and said that he's probably mistaken since I'd have known.
He then proceeded to call another friend he knew from my friendgroup- Alex, and ask him directly on speaker. Alex was quiet for a moment before calling him an idiot or something and hanging up.
After I got home I texted him and long story short it turns out that Alina did in fact like James.
I was so incredibly shocked to be honest because whenever we've hung out I have never gotten that vibe out of her and I thought she would tell me about it.
The other reason I was shocked is because I genuinely thought James liked me. Me and him have always been touchy, always joking around and we even ended up cuddling on Mike's couch once when we were hanging out. At one point I started questioning if I was just incredibly delusional.
Nevertheless I promised Alex not to tell anyone and just tried to gather my thoughts. The next day however I was texting my best friend- Gina, and I said "Girl, I so want to tell you something but I promised not to" and she was like "Yeah I get you, I have something that I can't tell you either" and we pretty much figured out we both knew the same thing.
She told me that one of our friends- Tanya, told her after Gina texted her that she's starting to like James. The thing is that since Gina is my best friend I knew she liked him since she started doing stuff she doesn't normally do and it was obviously noticeable to me.
Then I told her that I also kinda liked him. We then spoke for a while and obviously agreed that we backed off since friendship is more important. I also told her that she cannot tell anyone that I liked him and to this day only she knows about it (or at least I believe so).
Alex then told me that Alina and James didn't work since Alina is an avoidant attachment person and ended up pushing him away. The next day Tanya told Alina that everyone knows what has happened at that point and I felt the need to text her and apologize that I didn't tell her that I know.
After that I started encouraging her to try and fix things since she really does like him. Since I am also an avoidant person I tried to give her advice while keeping in mind how hard it is to be an avoidant.
She was contemplating texting him for a while but we got nowhere at the end. 2 days latee Alex told James that everyone knows and he was fine with it.
Then yesterday me, Alex, James and Gina were hanging out along with another friend- Kate.
After a while of walking Kate mentioned how Gina and James seemed to have tension which ended up in me and Alex having to explain the entire situation to her. I should also mention that I do not think Gina and James could work.
As much as I love Gina she is still with a childish idea of love. She is always talking about how she wants someone and how she wants her first kiss, but she never thinks of how it also requires clear communication, actually giving attention to someone daily and that it's overall not all like a romance book. I also know how she'll probably get tired of having to constantly having to interact with someone on a deeper level and not have her personal space all the time. She also gets very strong moodswings and unconsciously makes stuff about her when someone is trying to share something personal and it's just so exhausting sometimes but she's like my child and I try to make her more aware of stuff even tho sometimes I have to be direct which ends up with me sounding mean but oh well.
Anyways so I get home tired since we walked for almost 24 km and my feet are killing me. Then around 12 AM James texts me and asks if we could talk in about an hour to which I said sure.
1 AM comes and I'm getting very tired so I text him and he asks to go on a voice call. After that he expresses to me how he still likes Alina but he thinks she just doesn't know what she wants and he's questioning if she even ever liked him. I then proceeded to tell him how she's just scared and that she did want to text him just didn't know what to say.
I explained what avoidants are and gave him a guide of what to do and say to make her feel better. After that we said our goodnights and now I entered another dilemma.
I didn't know if I should tell Alina and assure her that all will be well since he is a great guy or if I should just let them be. If I told her I could try and help her get over her fears but I'd feel bad for outing James however if I didn't tell her there is a chance she will let her fears get ahold of her and this whole thing will just be forever gone. I want them to be happy and yet I needed to decide how to proceed while still dealing with my own hurt cause after all you can't just stop liking someone out of the blue.
I also need to mention that I'm not some fake ass friend and I'd never try anything with James but it does suck to not be able to talk to anyone about what more there is to the whole story.
So here I was not knowing what to do while still having to bottle up all my own feelings. So I turned to Gina since only she knew I liked him but she was no help at all since she just sucks at giving advice or relating.
I ended up telling Alex what happened without the part that I liked James and ultimately decided not to tell Alina since I didn't want to get caught up in the middle like Alex did and get blamed for stuff.
So yeah that's pretty much the whole situation as summarized as possible. I really don't want to make it about me but it honestly paining me a lot because I don't have anyone to share to what I'm feeling, I hate how cruel life is because it is now the second time I've set up a crush of mine with a friend and I'm not mad at them of course- they didn't know, I'm just thinking about how stupid life is sometimes and how none of my big crushes have ever liked me back despite me thinking that there were signs like flirting and touching and shit but maybe I am just super delusional.
Also since I feel like people will ask "How the hell did the 3 of you fall for the same guy?" the thing is we usually have different types but there is always someone who matches for all of us. There is a guy in my class at school who the 3 of us liked again but in different timelines.
James is a nice guy, fun, charismatic, nice style, tall
and overall very likable.
Anyways I honestly don't know what I expect and I don't know if anyone even read all this but...maybe share your thoughts if you have any. I hope yall are doing good! Byeeeee!