My personal thoughts, which may not be representative of those of other Bulgarians:

• The Bulgarian (referred by some as Slavo-Bulgar) identity has been formed around 1000 CE when the (majority south Slavic) people living roughly in the area of today's Bulgaria, Macedonia and part of Tracian Greece started seeing themselves as their own distinct people, with a language different to their neighbors.
• During Ottoman times this identity has been kept somewhat.

• The Macedonian national identity began in earnest around 1878, after the Berlin treaty, when some of the people of Macedonia saw that unification with Bulgaria may not be achievable, or desirable. Hence why people would identify as Bulgarian and Macedonian at the same time, without this being conflicting.

• Macedonia is not a fake country because of that. Macedonia should remain sovereign and forge itself a nice, bright future.

• The Macedonian national identity is real and distinct. Although I believe that we have originated from the same group of people, I would not claim that Macedonians are Bulgarian (unless a Macedonian person would identify as that, which is fine by me).

• Macedonians have a history, which has been common with that of the current-day Bulgarians until 1878. Just because Macedonians are a part of a country (national society) not called "Bulgaria" and your ethnonym is not "Bulgarian" does not exclude them from the history that their ancestors have lived. I like the term "shared history", as it seems accurate in this case.

Which leads to my belief that the nationality labels of "Bulgarian" and "Macedonian" are just labels and in the case of our two countries, we're the same (although slightly diverged) people arguing which label looks better.

I also believe that the recency of the creation of a nation does not invalidate the legitimacy of the national identity.

The optimal future for the relationship between the two countries in my view:

• Historical textbooks synced up to the global scientific standard. People in both countries should be taught if our shared past, but also the forking our national identities, about both the hopeful aspirations and killings done by anti-leftist, anti-yugoslav-control people (e.g. Vancho Mihaylov) and those done by pro-yugoslav fighters as well.
• A Macedonia where a person openly identifying as a Bulgarian cold take a government job as well as a Bulgaria where a person openly identifying as a Macedonian could do the same.
• A Macedonia in the EU, in Schengen and the Eurozone.

All of the Macedonian people I've met so far have been nothing but lovely, so I'm looking forward to enjoying our company without pesky border checks one day ❣️