Well, I did the thing everyone says you shouldn't do and I don't necessarily regret it!

I've known my best friend for almost a decade, and we've always had a very intimate relationship. Shoulders cried on, embarrassing secrets shared, fears and worries discussed, etc. Earlier on in our friendship, I was closeted and deeply in denial about being gay. So when I inevitably developed a huge crush on my cute close friend, it sort of forced me to come to terms with my sexuality. I've now been out for ~6 years.

In the intervening period, I've mostly focused on moving on. He's straight, had a long-term girlfriend, and moved to a new city -- not to mention that I value our friendship immensely and didn't want to lose that. But over the last year, he broke up with his girlfriend and moved back within striking distance. We've been spending a lot more time together, and the old crush started creeping back in.

He'd also made a few stray comments that made me think there might be something more there -- he'd mentioned feeling confused about "us" in the past, alluded to finding the occasional man attractive, and was generally way more flirty with me than usual. After a while, I decided to just shoot my shot and see if maybe this guy I'd carried a torch for all these years was finally on the table.

And so, this weekend, around 2am after a long, deep talk, I asked him if he'd ever want to date. And he said no.

He said he was sure he was straight, that he didn't like dudes, and he didn't want to mess with a good thing. It wasn't awkward -- I don't think my feelings for him were necessarily a surprise -- and we continued hanging out the rest of the weekend without incident.

Part of me is proud of myself for going after what I want. Part of me is grateful to have a friendship that can withstand something like this. But most of me is honestly a little devastated. When it was ambiguous, when it was unsaid, I held on to the hope that maybe, one day, we would end up together and live happily ever after. Now, I have to begin the process of accepting that it's definitely, 100%, never going to happen. Now I have to move on, for real this time. And I'm just not sure how to do that.

I know I should put myself out there, date, fuck, find love, etc. But I'm not a good flirt, I don't have a ton of dating experience, and honestly, it's hard to find men I find as compelling or attractive or interesting as my best friend. He's sort of ruined other men for me.

If you've made it this far, thank you for listening to me ramble. Any advice or commiseration or jokes to make me feel better would be welcome :)