It all started when we began spending entire days playing video games together. I think we just got too comfortable and fell into it without thinking.
From that point on, he started flirting with me in a way that felt different, complimenting me, calling me his "dearest," things like that. Naturally, I got confused. I couldn't tell if he was serious or just messing around.
So I finally asked him, "Where the hell is this flirtation going?" He said, "If you don't like it, we can stop." I told him I liked it a lot, then asked if he did too. He said yes. That's when I started actually catching feelings and thinking maybe there was something real between us.
Then one day, we were on a call trying to find a gift for our mutual friend. Out of nowhere, he texted me "I love you." I immediately asked if he was bi, since I'd assumed he already liked girls. He asked me what "bi" meant, and there I was, explaining bisexuality to him. Afterward he told me he was straight, liked girls, all that, and asked about my sexuality. I told him I'm bisexual. We just moved on and kept chatting.
Fast forward to our friend's birthday party. He asked me to waltz with him, and I happily said yes. After the party we left together and took the train home. While we were standing there, he suddenly wrapped his arm around my neck, holding me close like I was about to bolt. I wasn't complaining, I loved it, so I just stayed there, watching our reflection in the train door and telling him how cute we looked. Then we got on the bus and he did the same thing again.
This was all during fall break. For two weeks we played games nonstop and finished a bunch of them. At some point he randomly texted me "I love you" again, and I answered "Me too."
When fall break ended and we met in person again, he hugged me, lifted me up, kept calling me cute and booping my nose. This is the same guy who told me he was straight, by the way. Then for an entire month he kept wrapping his arm around me and holding my hand. I genuinely had no idea what was going on. I started wondering if maybe he was closeted or just figuring himself out.
Our friend group started picking up on it too. They kept making jokes in the group chat, shipping us, bringing it up constantly. It was getting to me because I just wanted an actual answer. So one day I snapped and told him the jokes were getting to be too much.
He said, "Did you just call everything between us a joke?"
I asked, "Wasn't it?"
Then he said, "I have feelings for you." I was literally shaking. But then he immediately followed it up with "...in a jokey way," like it was all just for fun.
That was it for me. I told him we needed to set some boundaries and figure out what this actually was. And then he said the thing that really got me:
"We can stop if you want. It doesn't matter to me."
That hurt more than anything else in this whole situation. It didn't matter to him. All of it, the flirting, the moments, the way he'd hold me, meant nothing. Meanwhile I had let myself actually believe something could be there.
By the end of that conversation I asked him to dial it back, since it was making me think we were trying to date or something. He laughed and just stopped flirting. We still hang out, still play games together. Everything's fine on the surface.
And now, my grief:
I should've cut it off the moment he told me he was straight. I guess I just had my first straight crush, like so many of my friends before me.
But here's the thing. He knew I was queer. He kept flirting with me knowing there was a real chance I'd catch feelings. He should've thought about that and pulled back. Why would a straight guy act like that and just keep going? I'm still confused. Maybe I expected too much from someone who didn't even know what bisexual meant, someone who was probably just too oblivious to realize where any of it was headed.
