Hi! My (24NB) situation with my friend T (25M) is confusing as all get out. We've been friends for a year now, and nearly all of this time has been tumultuous as to what we are to each other, at least in my mind.

Here's the rundown: Met March 2023. Hit it off as friends, chatting up a storm. Second time we meet is a drunken night on the town with T and mutual friends. T was casually hooking up with N (23F) at the time (noncommittally), I found out that evening. After everyone kissed each other casually except me, I asked if I could kiss T. T agreed to it, prefacing with "I am poly." Totally good with that, as long as it is actual poly. Didn’t know a lot about poly at the time but I did know there was a difference between true polyamory and using it as an excuse to hook up with a bunch of people. T didn’t strike me as the latter.

From there, N encouraged T and I to hang out, even in a romantic, exploring sexual connection sense. We start to have these "dates" where we watch movies while holding hands, chat for hours on end in such a way that T later said he was "smitten" with me, and make out. T and N become more serious and she sets rule of "no sex" for the time being. Again, totally good with that, as I wasn't looking for sex as a demi-sexual person. T and I continue to make out intensely whenever we hang out alone together. Never goes past occasional boob grabbing and a little grinding. N starts to feel weird about all of it as she isn't used to polyamory or nonmonogamy and asks to make her and T exclusive. T obliges. We never kiss again. That is, until they break up a few months later in late June 2023. (Most of the reasons they broke up for have nothing to do with me, but T said he was emotionally cheating on N with me and it did contribute a little). T says they don't want to date anyone for the time being following break up, focusing on himself. But he doesn't pull away from me, if anything they get closer to me during that time.

T and I start becoming more and more intimate over the span of the following months, culminating in me asking them in Fall 2023 if we can call this "dating" by this point. That is where it gets sticky.

Despite spending ample time talking and texting and kissing and eventually having sex, they don't call it dating. We go to the park and on drives together and hold hands the whole time. We make dinner together and make out while the rice cooks. We talk for hours over facetime (I think our record was 5 hours on Valentine's Day). (I know I said these things before but I gotta emphasize we do these things at least weekly) He has had feelings for me since we met. While I don't want anything to change in how we interact with each other, and I am more than okay with nonmonogamy (starting to look into it for myself), it just feels weird to call this "friends." T says that dating looks a lot different to them than whatever we are doing. What the hell does that mean? How much more serious does this need to be to be casual dating?

Eventually, when I couldn't handle the idea that I can't say "I love you" to one of my closest friends because our genitals touch, I wrote a handwritten letter in Feb 2024 saying that I love them and while I don't want anything to change, it would be good to be honest about that. He responded immediately after reading it by saying I had already voiced the "love" word essentially. The next night he says "I love you" to me. We decide to stop having sex a few days later for reasons mostly on his end, and I am happy to support that, even if I will miss being intimate with them like that. No sex also meant no making out, just light kissing. We still say "I love you" to each other easily and readily.

That brings us up to present, when he fingered me a few nights ago and slept in my bed. That weekend, we then went to a nursery far from our town. He was being extremely touchy, wrapping his hand around my waist in public, holding my hand or thigh throughout our drive, and kissing my shoulder without warning. T offered to drive my car when I got stressed by traffic. T offered to show me around their hometown that was semi-nearby. T half-jokingly asked me if I wanted to meet his parents while we were there. While I know their parents don't know about me, it was surprising to hear that from them with not as much jest as I expected.

Overall, T and I have really good communication about what we want from relationships currently, but this is just a topic I can only broach so many times before I feel like I'm going to set off alarm bells. We are on different pages when it comes to what were looking for, but I can't help but think we fell into a relationship whether he wants to call it that or not. I'm likely to move for work at the beginning of next year and while I think they and I will be okay in communicating long-distance, it is extremely scary to lose the physical presence of this person that I have come to love so much.

T has been okay with the use of situationship as a term even if I dislike it because it sounds minimizing and like weird gen Z slang. It's been months of this though. What the hell is this? Am I being insane to stay in this - whatever IT is? Is he being ridiculous for not calling this dating? Am I going to get hurt?

Polyamory isn’t the issue currently, if anything it makes me feel more excited about being with them and I’m starting to learn about it for myself.

TDLR: Really long story about a messy beginning going into a situationship that develops with people that love each other, but there is a lot of confusion about what a relationship "is." What would you define as dating, and am I in a semi-traditional relationship with this person?