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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-11-15 05:02:01+00:00.
Original Title: My [23F] best friend [26F] of 10+ year’s boyfriend [26M] of three years has admitted to having strong feelings for me. Previously, best friend has told me if anything like this happened she wouldn’t want to know. Need help (long)
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/adviceeneeded
My [23F] best friend [26F] of 10+ year’s boyfriend [26M] of three years has admitted to having strong feelings for me. Previously, best friend has told me if anything like this happened she wouldn’t want to know. Need help.
TRIGGER WARNING: Harassment, obsessive behaviour, emotional infidelity
Original Post Sept 11, 2016
Oh boy, Reddit. Oh boy. I totally vented and rambled. Much needed Tl;dr at the bottom.
So, my best friend and I have known each other forever, and I love her with all my heart. We’re extremely open and honest with each other, about as close as two people can be without being romantically involved, though it’s a running joke that we’re ‘wives’. Because of this (and because of her meticulous nature), we’ve previously run over random scenarios and what we’d like the other person to do in said scenario.
Things like if a guy asked one of us out via the other one, if we both got feelings for the same person, even things like if the other one died. One of these was the dreaded ‘if I had a boyfriend and he had feelings for you’ scenario. The potential for this to happen has come up a few times in conversation over the years in varying degrees of seriousness, and while we agreed that it’d be awful and sucky, we didn’t agree on what we would want to know in the situation. I would always, under any circumstances, want to know, and she wouldn’t. She has been adamant about this every time it comes up, and no matter what question I hit her with or alteration to the scenario she always made it 100% clear that she would never want to know.
About 3 years back, she starts dating Guy. He’s been around, he’s kind of one of those ‘extended’ members of our group, so we both know him and I’d never thought much about him other than that he seems cool, nice, etc. Because of his proximity to her he joins the rest of our friends group and he hits it off with all of us. The boys love him, the gals are happy for Best Friend because he’s genuinely perfect for her. And most importantly, she is over the moon. All she’s ever wanted is to be in love, it’s a dream of hers, he treats her (and other people in general) with the upmost respect. Him and I get along well. We don’t hang out the two of us, but we’ll chat a bit (very basic stuff about music, our jobs, etc) and hang out the three of us. He had this small talk with some of our other friends too, and I always thought it was great because he was taking an interest in her life and the people around her.
I’ve always been a bit of the odd one out in my group of friends. I was put up a few years in school, and because of that all my friends are just a little older than me and I’ve been the ‘baby’ of the friends group my whole life (most of us went from High School to the same University). I’ve also always had a general disinterest in dating. I’ve had interest from guys, but I’m a bit of a day-dreamer, obsessed with my chosen field, and my future plans do not involve children and perhaps not even marriage. The idea of love always appealed to me, but I’ve just always been happy within myself and never in any kind of rush.
Because of this, there was a running joke in our friends group about me dying alone surrounded by nothing but dogs, etc. Harmless fun, and Guy joins in on these jokes as well over time. I noticed as he became closer to the group, he always seemed very interested in my love life, and encouraged me to pursue my dreams and take my time. Best Friend always did the same. I never thought much of it. Until…
About four months ago, I met a guy [25M] who completely sweeps me off my feet (we’ll call him Max, because that’s his name). Totally unexpected, just swooped in and we’ve had a very charming, fairy-tale like romance. Because of my inexperience in relationships, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to Best Friend about all the Feelings I’ve been having, etc. She’s happy for me, gives me advice, yada yada, Guy is in the same room when this is happening a lot of the time, so sometimes gives his input. Everything is perfect and awesome.
But then Guy starts acting weird. We’d be having drinks as a group and I’d be telling a story involving Max and he’d suddenly get really weird. He’d be ‘warning’ me, telling me completely normal stuff Max does is red flaggish. Max spontaneously showed up to take me out on a date star-gazing late at night (I love surprises, and I study/work in Astronomy) and Guy is going on about how dangerous it was for me to go alone, blah blah. Guy has always been friendly, supportive, nice to and about everyone. So much so that Best Friend starts to doubt Max and his intentions purely because Guy is “a great judge of character”, while all my other friends think Max sound great and laugh Guy off as bizarre.
During this time, Guy reveals to me he’s going to ask Best Friend to marry him. Hurray! Totally awesome. Have to keep it a secret for now, but I’m really pumped for them! He told me so he could get advice on the ring, and how she’d like to be proposed too. All good.
It finally reached the tipping point when Max met my friends, and they all really liked him. Everyone seems to be getting along and Max and Guy are chatting to aside. Suddenly, Guy just puts his glass down hard on the table and storms out of the bar. Best Friend is all “what?” and goes after him, and I go over to Max to see whats up. Max looks super shocked. He tells me Guy was doing a bit of the ‘big brother’ routine which he did get from a few of the guys in the group. Max said from most of the others it was playful banter type stuff, but Guy was a lot more serious. The point where he got up and stormed out was because Max had been talking about how serious he was about me (d’awh), no one had to worry, he would never dream of hurting me, etc. Later on, Max suggested maybe Guy was jealous or something, but I was pretty disbelieving of that. I cannot stress enough that Guy has never done, or said, anything that ever seemed like he had feelings for me. He’s treated me the same as anyone else in our friends group, the only difference being he’s gotten to know me more because I spend a lot of time at Best Friend and his’ place.
Deciding I had enough, I messaged Guy. First, I asked him if he was okay, then I went on to say that I hoped everything was cool between us all.
The following conversation reads:
Him: It’s not cool. I don’t trust that guy.
Me: Do you mind if I ask why not in specifics? No one else got bad vibes. _____ & _____ even invited him to the beach tmrow.
Him: He looks at you funny I can’t explain it properly. You’ve known me a while, you know I have your best interests at heart, trust me on this.
Me: I understand that you can’t help it if you get bad vibes, but no one else does, I’m sorry but I’d need more than ‘trust me’ to go on. Regardless, while I appreciate your concern I’m capable of making my own mistakes (and I do not think this is one). It’d really mean a lot to me if you could try and get along with him to make it easier to fit in. I plan on keeping him around for a while, and Best Friend wants to do double dates and stuff so you’re going to run into him eventually.
Him: 1. double dates sounds lame. 2. even if they it didn’t, I don’t want him to come.
Me: 1. Take that up with your lady, 2. Do you really not like him THAT much?
Him: Okay, he seems all right but kind of weird. how can a theatre kid be so alpha? It’s more that I’m jealous.
Me: I resent the notion that theatre guys can’t be manly, but also, Ik the group is really tight, but everyone really likes you, you’ve been one of us for years now. Max got a lot of attention tonight bc he’s the new guy. I’m sorry if you felt excluded, but I promise it’s really not like that.
(He didn’t reply for a while, and then sent this)
Him: Not of that. I’ve been thinking very carefully about how to phrase this message. I don’t want you to think I don’t love Best Friend, because I do. Very much. But… I am also in love with you, and have been for about two years. When I realised I thought about breaking up with Best Friend, but you were always so in your own world I thought I’d never have a shot anyway especially if I was your BFF’s ex. I pushed it down. Lived with it. It was hard, it sucked. I got over it, kind of. I thought that if I couldn’t be with you then at least I could have happiness with Best Friend and be near you. Then, you met Max, and watching you start to fall in love with him is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I know this is cliche and dramatic, I know it’s fucked and I should just not say any of it, but I literally feel sick when you talk about him. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to hit the guy last night, and then how bad I felt about it when I realised he was actually a decent guy. I think the only thing worse than you being with another guy is you being with anoth…
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1·5 hours ago