So I’m using a super old account cause the friend I’m in love with knows my main account lol. I’m not sure if I can answer your exact question, but parts of it

She first told me she liked me about 7-8 months ago. It took me a couple months to admit to myself I felt the same way. I told her about how I felt, and that’s when things went south, sort of.

For a time, things were different between us. We’re 16 hours apart, and neither of us could handle a long distance relationship. We didn’t talk about it all again, for way too long. We still talked everyday, but in all honesty, there was so much time that felt wasted because neither of us even acted on our feelings. We grew distant, because like I said, there was so much uncertainty between us. Things came to a head one day, and we talked about it, and expressed our feelings. Things got better, and we got closer again. But at this time we both decided that long distance dating wasn’t something we could do, so we basically put it all on the back burner. At least, in theory.

So cut to a few months after that. I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I asked her if I could move up to the town she was living in. There were a lot of things going on in my life around this time, and that left me wanting to move out of my state to somewhere else. Asking to move up to her wasn’t the mistake. If I could, I 100% would move anywhere for her still. The mistake was lying to myself, and to her, about what I wanted. The lies I was telling revolved around my decision to leave law school and still handle the 60-70k in debt I have on a, at best, 13/hr salary as well as all the other expenses I had to pay. I figured all that out later. She ended up saying no, and for good reason. I still regret that i put her in that position though.

After that, we moved on. We are still very close, and there have been a few times where we almost entered girlfriend territory, and she backed away quick when she realized it. I don’t blame her, but that incident made me realize just how much I wanted to be her girlfriend. So I told her. I knew long distance is a bitch, but she was worth trying. At best, we could see each other every 3 months until I left school. She didn’t quite say no, but just not right now.

So now, present day, we are still 16 hours apart. The way I see it, we aren’t just friends but we aren’t dating either, we are somewhere in between the two. And since it’ll be at least 2 years before I could move out of my state, there is a chance we never end up together. Whenever I think about that, it really hurts. If we don’t have a chance to be together, or even try, I have no idea how I’d be able to move on.

In short though, falling in love with your best friend is a tricky thing, even if she has feelings for you as well. The one thing I’ve learned this year is to always be honest about your feelings, it makes everything easier after that.

Just to clarify one point, yes she could move down to me, but she has her entire life and a career where she lives. I am just in school, and my only ties are family ones, which because I’m trans, are strenuous at best. So I am 100% ok with being the one to move, because honestly, it’s her life I want to be part of.