I fell in love with my best friend in high school.
Trouble is, she was always dating someone else. (and she once told me, in conversation, that she would feel uncomfortable around a friend who confessed his love for her, so I Kept My Damn Mouth Shut.)
I even attended her wedding to someone else and thought, “Well, that’s it, I guess, I’ve lost her forever,” and went away to university.
When I came back after four years, I had grown, and experienced and I could quote Shakespeare better than she could. In short, she saw me in a different light and started to see me as more than just a friend. I, however, Never. Stopped. Loving. Her.
She left her husband (who had been abusing her, by the way. Reuniting with me reminded her of who she used to be, and how much she’d since become a quieter, more frightened version of herself.) and we were married two years later. Our daughter, born three years after that, is in university now.
I wish I had the courage to tell her sooner, or things had worked out differently and we’d gotten to spend more of our youth together, but honestly, we both had growing up to do.
We had to learn what we didn’t want to understand what we had.
She maintains that if we had been a couple back then, Young Her would’ve taken Young Me for granted, used me up, and our romance might’ve ended there, and possibly our friendship too.
To make a short story long, maybe some distance is needed.
Find out who you are by yourself, before you try to be with someone else. Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have until we’ve lost it.
…
Or, you know, carpe diem and damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
What works for one person may not work for another. Your mileage may vary.