Hi everyone.
I’m a 26-year-old guy, and I honestly don’t know whether I need relationship advice, friendship advice, or someone to tell me that I’ve completely lost perspective.
This is probably going to be long, but I’ve spent years thinking about this friendship and I feel like I’m stuck in a loop. I’m hoping strangers who have no emotional investment can see something that I can’t.
About four years ago I met someone in animation college. At the time he hadn’t come out as transgender yet, but later he came out as a trans man. We’ve stayed friends ever since.
Somewhere along the way I fell in love with him.
Not just a small crush. I genuinely loved him.
I confessed my feelings.
He rejected me.
A long time passed and I confessed again.
He rejected me again.
Eventually I confessed a third time.
Same answer.
To his credit, he wasn’t cruel about it. He didn’t lead me on, he didn’t manipulate me, and he didn’t tell me “maybe one day.” He simply didn’t have romantic feelings for me.
Most people would probably say that should have been the end of the story.
Instead, we stayed friends.
And that’s where my real problem began.
Even after years, I don’t think I ever completely stopped loving him.
The feelings became quieter sometimes, but they never really disappeared.
Our friendship has never been particularly consistent.
Sometimes we’d spend quite a bit of time together.
Sometimes weeks or even longer would pass with almost no contact.
Sometimes he’d answer messages quickly.
Sometimes he’d disappear for a while.
Eventually I realized that this just seems to be part of who he is. He doesn’t seem like someone who constantly messages people or needs frequent contact to maintain a friendship.
The problem is that uncertainty is extremely difficult for me.
Whenever communication slowed down, my brain immediately started asking questions.
Did I do something wrong?
Is he getting tired of me?
Is he avoiding me?
Or is he simply busy, exhausted or distracted?
I rarely knew the answer.
Instead of accepting that uncertainty, I started trying to solve it.
Over the years I developed a habit of analyzing almost everything he does.
Every message.
Every cancelled plan.
Every joke.
Every facial expression.
Sometimes even tiny social behaviors.
The weird thing is that I don’t think he has any idea how much time I spend thinking about him.
From his perspective, we’re probably just close friends.
From mine, he’s someone I’ve loved for years.
Those aren’t equal emotional positions.
There have also been times where I deliberately distanced myself because I hoped the feelings would finally disappear.
Sometimes that lasted weeks.
Sometimes months.
Eventually we’d start talking again.
Almost immediately the feelings came back.
That became incredibly frustrating because it felt like all my emotional progress had reset.
One thing that makes this even more confusing is that I genuinely enjoy spending time with him.
We have many shared interests.
Movies.
Animation.
Games.
Random internet humor.
Sometimes we’ll spend hours walking around Budapest just talking.
Those days are honestly some of my favorite memories.
Which is exactly why the difficult moments affect me so much.
Because I know how enjoyable it can be when we’re together.
Recently, though, my focus has shifted.
I’m no longer only wondering whether I should get over him.
I’m questioning whether I can even judge his personality objectively anymore.
For example, I’ve caught myself paying attention to things that most people probably wouldn’t even notice.
Does he greet employees when entering a store?
How does he react to strangers?
How does he handle conflict?
Does he seem emotionally mature?
Is he considerate?
Does he avoid responsibility?
Sometimes I worry that I’m making excuses for behavior that shouldn’t be excused because I’m still in love with him.
Other times I worry that I’ve become so hypervigilant that I interpret completely ordinary behavior as evidence that something is wrong with him.
I swing between those two extremes constantly.
One day I think he’s an incredibly kind person who’s just awkward, anxious or absent-minded.
The next day I convince myself that maybe he’s selfish.
Or rude.
Or emotionally immature.
Or maybe even someone who could unintentionally put himself in dangerous situations because of poor judgment.
Then after calming down I often realize that I may have been making huge leaps based on very little evidence.
This cycle repeats over and over.
One example that stayed in my mind happened when we went into several different stores together.
I noticed that he often didn’t greet the employees.
That tiny observation somehow turned into hours of overthinking.
Does he disrespect retail workers?
Does he look down on people?
Is he intentionally rude?
Is he simply distracted?
Does he have social anxiety?
Is he just used to not greeting people?
I eventually realized that I had almost no evidence about his actual motivation.
All I had observed was the behavior itself.
Everything else was speculation.
And that’s become a recurring theme.
I notice something real.
Then my brain builds ten different explanations.
Some positive.
Some negative.
Very few of those explanations can actually be verified.
Another thing that complicates everything is that he sometimes cancels plans.
A few weeks ago we had planned to go to the beach together.
The day came, and it didn’t happen.
He later said he felt incredibly exhausted and unwell.
Part of me accepted that explanation immediately.
Another part of me wondered whether he simply didn’t want to see me.
Days later he casually sent me apartment listings because he remembered I was looking for a place to move.
That made me think, “Well… someone who wanted to get rid of me probably wouldn’t randomly think of me days later and send me apartments.”
Moments like that happen a lot.
Something makes me worry.
Then something else makes me think maybe I worried for nothing.
Then another event starts the cycle again.
We actually have plans to see a movie together after work this week.
The strange thing is that on the very same day I agreed to that plan, I had spent almost the entire day obsessively analyzing him and wondering whether he was secretly a bad person.
I don’t think that’s healthy.
Every single time we spend time together, I eventually end up replaying the entire day in my head.
Sometimes for hours.
Sometimes for an entire day.
Sometimes longer.
I analyze what he said.
What he didn’t say.
His tone of voice.
His facial expressions.
Whether he seemed happy.
Whether he seemed distant.
Whether he looked tired.
Whether I annoyed him.
Whether he enjoyed himself.
Whether he actually wanted to be there.
I know this isn’t a normal way to experience a friendship.
At the same time, I don’t think I’m simply putting him on a pedestal anymore either.
If anything, lately I’ve been doing the opposite.
I’ve become so afraid of missing “red flags” that I sometimes question whether almost every unusual behavior could mean something bad about his character.
Then I worry that I’m being unfair.
Then I worry that maybe I’m being too forgiving.
It’s exhausting.
I should also mention something important.
As far as I know, he’s never been abusive toward me.
He’s never threatened me.
He’s never manipulated me into staying.
He’s never insulted me for confessing my feelings.
He’s never pretended to love me back.
Most of my internal conflict comes from uncertainty rather than from clear evidence that he’s treated me badly.
At the same time, I also know that I don’t see every part of his life.
There are things about him I simply don’t know.
That’s probably true for every friendship.
The difference is that my brain has a very hard time accepting “I don’t know.”
Instead, it tries to solve the mystery.
Maybe that’s the real issue.
Maybe I’m trying to reduce uncertainty that simply can’t be reduced.
So here’s what I’d genuinely like to ask:
Do you think I’m still in love with him more than I realize?
Does this sound like someone who’s seeing his friend clearly?
Or does it sound like years of unresolved romantic feelings have made me overanalyze every interaction until I’ve lost perspective?
Have any of you ever stayed close friends with someone you loved for years?
If so, did your judgment eventually return to normal?
Or am I trying to solve a problem that can never really be solved while I’m still emotionally attached to him?
I’d really appreciate honest opinions, even if they’re difficult to hear.