This is a follow-up to this post.

As a TL;DR for context: my best friend from high-school, for whom I'd developed the first batch of unreciprocated romantic feelings in my life, reached out four weeks ago, after almost two decades of not being in touch. I started falling in love hard again, and I thought it was a bad idea.

Well, right now it seems as though I was right about that. I came clean about two weeks ago with the intent of backing off. Told her I'm falling for her again, hard, and that I don't want to do another stint of carrying it alone. I apologised profusely, told her this wasn't on her, no hard feelings, and wished her well.

She replied and told me that she really didn't want to lose this, because she started looking forward to our conversations and was excited about potentially meeting up next month (relative to the present moment), but that she didn't want me to suffer in any way, so she'd understand. She said that I'm definitely not indifferent to her, but that she's struggling to figure out her feelings - later on, this turned into "[I'm] very dear to [her] and [she] missed [me] so much without even realising it."

I, being the moron that I am, decided to stick with it for her, as she's clearly not having an easy go of things at the moment and thought that this was one thing I could do to ease her pain.

Trouble is, I started spiraling around the thought that I've just set myself on a trajectory of pure pain, again. I've had two episodes since then, let her know both times as I could tell it was affecting my "just chatting with a friend" mode. The first time, she stuck with me and gave me hints that there's a chance that pain is not inevitable. The second was last night, and it was significantly stronger. We ended the night with quite a bit of tension between us (she told me she's more of a "taking things as they are in the now, not defining anything," while I'm the kind of person who needs a bit of clarity in my life as an anchor point). We'd discussed where each of us stands in relation to continuing this interaction between us: I told her I'm choosing to stick with it even with the looming inevitability on my horizon, she avoided answering entirely, citing the aforementioned "taking things as they are in the now," and this just served to further fan my destabilisation.

It's clear to both of us at this point that there is a major mismatch of investment. My side is significantly more defined than hers (I'm not judging her, btw, every person has their rhythm and that's ok), but I genuinely see no way this could end up somewhere along the lines of where I'd like it to end - a mutual romantic attempt. This is for a number of factors, such as:

• we live in different countries - I would have no issues uprooting myself and moving for a relationship, but I most certainly won't do it without anything clearly defined; she told me she needs something "real," a.k.a. no long-distance; establishing myself in her country would most certainly not be an easy process, with zero guarantee of success;

• while we do get along in general (very well, I might add), it's clear that we have two very different approaches to this whole "relationship" thing, which is only amplified by the aforementioned mismatch of investment;

• I'm not getting any concrete intentions from her in... well, any direction, to be honest; actually feels like it's a bit of a rollercoaster, with some days being almost lovey-dovey, and others being brief and devoid of any such elements - I'm not talking about just not discussing it, I'm talking about things feeling distant; as an example, one day she even told me I'm very dear to her and reacted positively when I hinted that I would love to hug and kiss her, now she's avoiding even saying anything concrete as to whether or not she'd want to continue interacting (not "let's give a relationship a chance," literally just "do you want us to still keep talking");

I'm genuinely suffering. It's painful, because I'm not only carrying the intensity of things as they are now (and they are intense in their own right, with every interaction just further solidifying everything), but I also have our shared history piling up on top of that, making everything significantly more intense - I've realised my feelings for her are on a continuum spanning from the first day I saw her and up to this very second, while she barely remembers anything from back then. She tells me that my being certain that this'll end up with pain on my end will serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy, while I genuinely see no chance of success.

Right now, I'm leaning toward cutting it all off. The pain will be guaranteed as-is, but I'm thinking that I will at least not let things grow any more than they already have, thus avoiding an even greater amount of pain, not to mention avoiding doing any more splash damage than I've already done. The tension at the moment isn't world-shattering, or anything, but it's noticeable - we both ended the night relatively upset. On the flipside, there's a dumb and stubborn flicker of hope which popped up after the first time I tried to pull away, and it's yelling at me that I'll lose her from my life again and that backing off is certain to end... whatever this is for good.

At this moment, I'm stuck oscillating between a rock and a hard place, my reason went out the window, and I'm severely emotionally compromised. I could do with any insight anyone might have and I thank you profusely for it.

I should have cut it off when I felt it was too much. I shouldn't have accepted that damned connection request in the first place...

I don't know what I was thinking. Every single time we've interacted, the same damned thing happens: I fall for you, you don't feel the same, then I end up vanishing off the face of the Earth again because I can't take it, we don't speak for decades.

I'm a fucking moron for loving you the way I do. I'm a fucking moron for accepting interactions with you, because I just end up hurting both of us. I'm a fucking moron for ever harboring a hint of hope that you might, juust might, feel the same way about me. And I'm the biggest moron I know for thinking I have any control over how I feel, for believing I can handle it. I can't. I simply can't just be your friend. Never will, and I'm sorry. So why the fuck did I accept your request this time...

I should've deleted myself off the internet entirely the last time we went through this pathetic circus. I should've stayed vanished...

You're back. I thought I'd never talk to you again, not after all this time.

I don't even know what words to produce, even though I feel there's so much I'd want to say. It feels like it's been simultaneously almost two decades and barely a day since we last talked. I mean really talked, about anything and everything. I'm vibrating with excitement at the thought that I have your perspective, your thoughts in my life again.

I'm still ashamed of how I presented myself that one time we met up. I spilled a lot of my instability on you and you deserved better from someone who considered you their best friend. I think it'll take a while longer before I'll get over it, especially considering you're still you after all this time. But it's all falling into place like nothing's changed. I feel intimidated by your vastity of knowledge and complexity of thought, motivated, even slightly embarrassed thinking that maybe I'll say something dumb, or too simple, or... I don't know... And then we talk. And every ancillary thought dissolves, leaving nothing but the here and now, with you. You make me feel ageless, boundless.

At this point, my trajectory is clear, whether or not I like it. Think this wasn't even a question of if, but when it'd happen. It doesn't feel new, it's just what was always there being let out in the open. Yet it brings with itself the same weightlessness I felt when I first saw you, when I got to know you, when you let me close to you. And is it vigorous! It's honestly taking me by surprise, never could I have expected to still love someone so decisively after such a long time apart.

I'd be lying if I said this whole thing didn't terrify me, though. It's almost too much. Too soon. It reminds me of the times when my codependency drove me, of how I clung to the faintest shred of affection as though my life depended on it. It reminds me of the pits of limerence in which I fell several times over the years, it reminds me of everything I've worked so hard to overcome, to balance out, to keep in check.

But there's nothing there, as hard as I look. It's not limerence, it's rememberance, it's being flooded with the moments we shared together in our youth, it's the discoveries we made, it's the songs we shared, the coffees we spilt, the long afternoons in your kitchen. It's you, strewn over me on your couch as I was stroking your hair. It's me, holding your hand and giving you the most timid kiss on the cheek in my life. And I'm not clinging to you. I want you in my life, yes, voraciously so! But I can't cling to you, I couldn't even conceive of restricting you in any way. I wouldn't want you in any other way than you would want yourself.

And it makes it even worse. Because this may be the real deal on my end, and that scares me beyond belief. Add to that the fact that you're dealing with something complicated on your end, and I'm horrified. I genuinely don't know if I can carry this one alone. And I can't allow myself to hope that you'll ever feel the same, because I have to prepare myself for the worst. I don't even have a choice, really. If I still feel this way about you after all of these years apart, that means it's highly unlikely to go away any time soon. As I said, my trajectory is clear with or without my liking it.

I wish I could say all of this to you, because hiding it makes me feel dishonest. But it's still too soon, and it's too much, I fear. And I just don't want to hurt you in any way, even if it's just by further complicating things which are already difficult enough for you.

I'm truly sorry for... everything, I don't even know. I just know that I feel ashamed of... this, of myself.

Update 2: nevermind, apparently!

Update (for myself more than anything): I called everything off. I can't do this thing anymore, and it's clear that's where things were headed. Nothing's changed on my end in 20 years, not going to change any time soon.

This is a weird deal even for me, so I apologise beforehand if anything ends up being unclear in the text.

For a bit of context, she and I used to be high-school class mates and got along very, very well. Used to hang out constantly, became very close, she even became my first significant non-familial, non-platonic affection (dunno what else to call it given when it started developing). Didn't go anywhere due to circumstances at the time (and mostly because I didn't even know what to do with it) but we remained close friends and grew even closer.

In our last year, though, I started dating my first long-term SO, and I drifted away from my best friend (ex was very jealous, so I stupidly reduced all contact with the people I knew would trigger that in her). We then both left for Uni (I moved to the other end of the country, she went abroad) and stopped communicating entirely.

It's been almost two decades since then. We'd met up a decade ago and chatted for a bit when she spent some time over here, but it was very awkward and, honestly, irrelevant as far as where we'd been before that. I was an emotional mess at the time, so basically nothing more than a steaming heap of vaguely anthropomorphic meat.

Last week I got a connection request from her on my professional profile, completely out of the blue - for added context, my presence on Socials is minimal-to-none, mainly only accounts which don't carry my real name. I accepted it thinking nothing of it, then shortly after she sent me a message. Told me she started having a reocurring dream in which I was always present but wasn't talking to her because I was upset with her, and she got worried that it was the same in real life (I repeat, we haven't talked for pretty much two decades). I told her honestly that I had no reason whatsoever to not want to talk to her and that I wasn't upset with her in any way (never been).

We switched apps, then continued to text semi-regularly. It was awkward at first, lotsa' long pauses between texts (1-2 days) as we've both been busy, but yesterday we both caught a break and spent pretty much the entire day texting. Chatted about a lot of random things, about life, swapped a lot of music (I always loved her taste), basically got back in the old groove.

And that's the problem, apparently. I got very excited, she did, too. Also got flooded with memories of our dynamic from back then, because it seems to not have skipped a beat. Same dry yet goofy sense of humour, same wonderfully complex conversations, same feeling of it being safe for me to be open and honest with her. Conversations with her really are a treat, she always made me want to be better, to think harder and deeper, to be honest with both of us. We'd both remarked how much we've missed talking to each other even though neither of us had thought about it until now.

I woke up today at 4AM with a flutter in my chest and I suddenly realised I'm falling in love with what I'm now "seeing" of her. It's a lot of forgotten familiarity which still applies, apparently, but also the ways in which she's been shaped by these past two decades. We've both gone through a lot and did a lot of growing, but we're still very much the same people we used to be when interacting with each other. Feels kinda' like some old seeds finally managed to hit dirt and take root.

I don't think I want this, though. I see it as yet another hopeless romance on my end, and I'm very tired of these... I don't know how to proceed with the situation, to be honest. If circumstances were different, I'd probably shoot my shot and be done with it (i.e. be honest about my feelings) after letting things settle a bit, but given we're several countries apart with no plans of moving any time soon and relatively established lives, I don't see how anything would even be possible between us. I'm talking hypotheticals here, with the biggest one being that I don't even know what's going on on her end (although my naturally pessimistic tendency is to say "absolutely friggin' nothing, you dumb idiot") - still a bit blindsided by the sudden reappearance, yes, but I simply have to think things through clearly, which is why I'm considering every aspect I can think of. It does feel really nice having her in my life again, though, and I can tell she feels the same way about it. Plus she literally told me that.

To clarify, I'm not jumping to any conclusions, I'm not daydeaming about it, I'm actually in Hypervigilant Problem Solving Mode, because I really don't want to hurt myself with things like this anymore. This is a reaction related strictly to what I feel right here and now.

I ask and thank you for any possible thoughts, advice, anything you have for this.

P.S.: as another potentially relevant variable, unfortunately, I get over Love™ slowly, and it's usually a difficult process for me. I tend to pour all of my heart into the people I love (I'm passionate, this is how I feel it, not complaning or looking to change it), so it's hard to recover even after brief/light episodes. I usually need to play things tactically, and the only thing which has worked so far has been cutting all contact.

P.P.S.: I wasn't even looking for romance, ffs... I just want to get my life in order...

Bonus: the original version (the whole album's so damned good...)

Formerly known as Thee Oh Sees.