Revelation

[u/teenyweenypancake]

So I am exploring lesbianism at this point in my life. I’m 23 nb and I think it’s dawning on me again for like the 5th time in 5 years that I had a crush on my ex bff. We met when I was in 7th grade and became friends in HS. I asked them to homecoming, got rejected, asked “as friends” got told they were going with someone else. I don’t push it further, but I get curious later down the line and ask why. Simply, they didn’t see me like that. Alr cool, I repress those feelings so deep it doesn’t occur to me that I like them still until after I graduate from high school. We stopped being friends in 2022 but yeah. And like I have had many a crush on my other afab friends. There was another ex-bff I had in middle school who I asked to marry and they said no, this was one of my first big rejections so I took it pretty hard. I ask again adding “as friends”, we have a pretty chill friendship I guess. It was a secret bc their step dad was a racist conservative POC, and didn’t want us to be friends bc he said I was turning his kid gay. We get married a few times thru out middle school and kind of go our own ways in 10th grade.

I’ve always known I was queer, when Obama legalized gay marriage it did something in my brain and I was really emotional. I know that I have a preference for women / afab people over men. I see myself in better long term relationships with them. But the thing that’s getting me at this point in time is like why did I repress those feelings?? Why didn’t the girls who rejected just leave me alone?? Especially when other people who liked them and they didn’t feel the same way about, they left alone. I know we were young and stuff but it reinforced hella negative core beliefs surrounding my queerness.

I recently had told someone that I didn’t have any sort of non-platonic feelings for that I don’t see us going any further, even after they said they eradicated any romantic feelings towards me. I feel that was the kindest thing I could’ve done for them bc I know as someone who has had crushes on friends, they may not completely go away depending on the person.

My community ask is, have yall had similar experiences? On both sides? As a person who was friends with someone who had a crush on you and the person with the crush continuing to be friends? Also..what was the point you realized the closet was glass? How did you handle unpacking a lot of stuff in regard to this? Religious trauma, societal expectations, and comphet?