I have a friend, lets call her N. We have been friends for basically 4 years. The beginning of our friendship was a period where we 'liked' each other (this is before I even fathomed possible homosexual tendencies, so I guess I still thought I liked girls at the time...), but we had several differences and a rather serious outlook on relationships that seemed to eliminate any possibility of just 'dating'. I realize now that I guess I liked her for her personality, but even then I feel like I sort of tricked myself into thinking I liked her. Its all kind of a haze now, I do know I was never sexually attracted to her (no wonder I thought it would be so easy to never break any of the rules regarding sex and whatever...). Basically we decided to be friends, I thought that would be the best thing.
Well what a complex road that set me on. We became best friends and everything was great, until a mutua best-friend, V, got a boyfriend. N got very jealous of V, and I was stuck somewhere in the middle. N and Y sort of stopped being best friends, and V and I maintained our friendship. In fact, it grew stonger. When N saw this, she grew jealous and pulled away from me even when I put in an extraordinary (insane) amount of effort into maintaining our friendship. N never responded to my attempts, and then I decided enough is enough. I drew back. Then she realized she basically lost what she had once had (ALL by her own doing) and she tried to back paddle. Too late...
All of this set off a chain of events that made me see N's true colors, and N claimed to be very innocent all the while, she has been caught in some suspicious acts of trying to see who of the two of them I am closer with, and if I was talking about N behing her back. I have lost much, much of my trust for N.
N claims to be in 'love' with me. 4 years later. She told me this tonight. She told me that over a year ago, in another dramatic instance. But N cannot be in love with me, N does not know there is no chance. I am gay, how can 'my best friend' not see this?? I do not love her like that. In fact, the prolonged drama between her and I has driven me to the point of telling her that I simply cannot be close to her anymore, even as friends. I cant do it, I have been hurt too many times by her.
And I feel that I should tell her so at least she knows a part of why I act the way I do. Maybe she will understand better then. Maybe THEN she will be able to move on. The problem is that N is sort of a fragile person and she cannot handle any bit of information that is bad, regarding me. She is rather conservative and has said some very hateful things about gay people in the time I have known her. I dont want her to go crazy and at the same time to get very upset over the news I have for her. I dont necessarily trust N. I dont know what to do. But I want her to be 'over' me, and I want her to be my FRIEND without looking to the past which is now long gone...I am at a loss as to what to do on this one. I sort of feel like she 'needs' to know. But at the same time her past sneaky behaviors have lost her most of the trust I once had for her. Why should I tell her that? I dont know if she deserves to know, as it is something that I feel is a big deal and that I dont tell to just anyone. There are too many factors and too many thoughts swirling around like a whirlpool in my head.
Help!
P.S.: I was trying to keep this very short...the story is SO long and complicated. How do you roll four years into one blog entry?....
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4 comments:
I think you should do whatever is best for your own well being. If that means saying something to N that may be difficult for her to handle, then so be it. You need to avoid adding to your already high level of anxiety.
Although I'd ordinarily recommend that people be open about their gayness when possible, the combination of N's conservatism, antigay bias, and fragile emotional state make me think your coming out to her might not be a good idea.
Maybe you could just say, "N, I really like you and value our friendship -- but I don't have stronger feelings for you."
I don't know; it's a tough call. Err on the side of doing something that will add as little extra drama to your life as possible.
If you're not ready to have other people know thet you're gay and you think she'll tell others then don't tell her you're gay. If you value her friendship though I think she needs to know the truth about you. I didn't end up telling my closest friends until we had grown apart becuase I knew they wouldn't be able to handle it. I made new friends first that I knew accepted me for who I was.
P.S. I'll be in D.C. this week!
I'd tell her. If you need to tell her, do it. Ultimately, she will have to deal with it, and with God's help she will be able to.
Unbelievable.
The similarities are amazing. I dated a girl for four or five years and she thought she was in love with me. She finally said she couldn't be my friend any more because it was too hard knowing we would never be more than friends. She didn't know WHY I had never stepped things up. She just realistically concluded that if nothing had happened after all these years it probably never would. She was bitter.
I, on the other hand, wanted to stay friends. I tried. And I pissed her off. I never did tell her about being gay. That is, until after she had been with someone else for a while and then we were thrown back together by chance. I thought I had nothing to lose as I was heading to med school in a different state in a few weeks. I told her and she was accepting. But she has very liberal views on the topic in general and that sounds different than N.
Anyway, I have no advice for you, but thought it was interesting how similar our experiences were. I ended up marrying her. [I assume this has NO significance in your case, just an FYI!]
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