feelings for my best friend and I am lost - please help me

[Mushroom]

Okay, I am 17 and just about to graduate from high school. I have always seen the whole boyfriend gilrfriend dating thing as quite silly particulary while still at school. I have had the attitude that I will never marry or even having a boyfriend or fall in love. I've also been not afriad to make this clear to my friends. That's not to say though I have never had a crush on a boy before though. It doesn't happen often but when it does I've been able to fight it off in my mind every time. Early last year I had a crush on my best friend (same age as me) which was only slight and I was able to fight off. The two of us have been practicaly inseperable since we became friends about 4 years ago. He has another close female friend a year older than us who was his first girlfriend for about 5 months last year until she dumped him. He was heartbroken, he didn't tell me but I could clearly see it as we are so close. Late last year he told me that he still had feelings for her which I assume he still does now. I rarely see her though as she graduated from school last year. This year, our friendship has grown even stronger. Yet during that time that crush I felt has returned with a vengence that I am beginning to realise I can't fight off. He is constantly on my mind and I even sometimes dream of just spending time with him (doesn't that sound like something from a teenage chick flick? pathetic right? - something I hate).

Now I am so so confused and lost. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should just keep fighting these feelings and watch as he grows older and he gets married and has a family (as he wants and I have always feared happening to me) or if I should one day tell him how I feel despite that it goes against everything I've been telling my friends for years, or if I should just hint that my fears about love and all that are changing and see what happens. I don't know if he even thinks of me that way. I know he likes me a lot but I don't know if he thinks of me just as a close friend or if he thinks of me more than that. I want to keep him as at least a friend for as long as I can. A life long friend if possible. But I fear if when he marries one day and I am still having this battle with myself that we wouldn't be able to stay friends or if he'd still have room in his life for me. I don't know if he does feel something for me but my issues about marriage and family are making him fight the feelings as well if he even does feel that way about me. I don't even know if someone is trying to flirt with me or not... I really know nothing about this sort of thing but I know that it will start making me lose my grip on my sanity.

Please help me. I don't know what to do. Does he think of me that way? What are the signs? Please give me some advice and ask me questions about me or him or anything that could help. Please and thank you.

[IncognitoSir]

I think its not about you going against what you've been living by and telling your friends. I think maybe you're afraid of getting hurt or rejected like so many high schoolers do. (we all went thru it) To be honest, you should pursue the guy. Why continue to deny yourself? Sounds like you guys have a pretty concrete friendship. Throw him some hints and see if he bites. A lil flirting can go a long way. You dont wanna be 30 years old with no relationship experience. Get it while you're young, who knows, you just might fall in love.

[Agape]

Now I am so so confused and lost. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I should just keep fighting these feelings and watch as he grows older and he gets married and has a family

Then you should tell him, it will bring closure . . . btw, what makes you think you'll be around him and in contact with him in the future?

[Mushroom]

Then you should tell him, it will bring closure . . . btw, what makes you think you'll be around him and in contact with him in the future?

I can't see any reason why we wouldn't still be friends. We will both be starting uni next year but we are still very close. I wouldn't want to lose him as a friend and I don't think he wants to lose me as a friend either. We've even planned our dream trip around Europe to do one day together.

[Mushroom]

I think its not about you going against what you've been living by and telling your friends. I think maybe you're afraid of getting hurt or rejected like so many high schoolers do. (we all went thru it) To be honest, you should pursue the guy. Why continue to deny yourself? Sounds like you guys have a pretty concrete friendship. Throw him some hints and see if he bites. A lil flirting can go a long way. You dont wanna be 30 years old with no relationship experience. Get it while you're young, who knows, you just might fall in love.

I don't know if I sould. I know my parents wouldn't aprove of me having a boyfriend (they are very protective). However, if it's him and they know him quite well, then maybe they would. I fear though if he doesn't feel the same way about me then it would just be awkward between us from then on and would never be the same between us again. I'm so confused.

Thanks for the advice though.

[DDD]

I've always said I want to wake up every day to my best friend!!! That's who I want to marry. :-)

[Mushroom]

Thinking about it I have noticed that over the last few months he has started acting a little differently around me. Firstly i need to say that a lot of what we say and do are inside jokes that wouldn't make sense to anyone else and that we, me in particular isn't really a "normal" girl. For example, we can be quite violent or even boisterous towards each other and often try to insult each other (eg. intelligence, etc...) Lately he tends to call me, "my dear" quite a bit, and when we are mucking around and if he accidently hurts me he will apologise and ask if I'm alright. Although this will sound weird (ties back to the joke insults thing) he frequently tells me how ugly and unattractive I am (does this mean that my appearance is on his mind?) I’ve also noticed that he has generally been smiling a lot more (changed from most of the time to all of the time) around me recently and that when we are talking he always stares directly at my eyes and will often throw me a few glances in class or when we are around others that I will return. I don't know if I'm just imaging it because of how I feel but do you think maybe he may feel similar feelings about me?
Also, in regards to his ex girlfriend he had last year he recently has been mentioning things about her that are although true are negative about her when earlier in the year he would only say the positive things about her. Only today he mentioned how she really isn’t all that smart (which surprised me that he admitted it) and how it annoyed him that she had recently decided to get her lip pierced.

[Agape]

So you have a friendship of mutual teasing and belittlement?

I had friends like that then I realized it was bad and I eventually cut them out of my life

[Mushroom]

So you have a friendship of mutual teasing and belittlement?

I had friends like that then I realized it was bad and I eventually cut them out of my life

It is all in good humour though and we can actually be serious. What we say is all sarcasm.
We tell each other everything and are inseperable.