I Told My Straight Friend I Loved Her

TO FREEDOM from the friend zone!

Hey y’all,

Have you ever had a platonic friend reveal romantic feelings towards you? I have, and chiiiiile. While for some, it’s a welcome revelation, as there was always a will-they-or-won’t-they air to the relationship, but for me, it has typically led to an unfortunate unraveling of a friendship.

Before I went on an intentional dating journey a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to make more platonic male friends. And I did! It was refreshing to finally have close male friends who I could hang out with alone, plan friend dates with, and get advice from. But over time, one by one, these same platonic—or so I thought—male friends revealed they saw something more than just friendship in our relationship.

The first time it happened—it was flattering. He was always complimentary about my personality and looks, but I figured that was the cost of being friends with men who liked women. Then, one night he got blackout drunk and called me. Over the next 45 minutes, he “unconsciously” tried to convince me to date him. I was shook. I told him that I wasn’t interested in him in that way, but he was pressed and wasn’t taking no for an answer. I hung up, and we didn’t speak for a while after that. He eventually apologized, and we’re cool now, but of course it’s not the same. We don’t talk remotely as much, as I didn’t want any friendliness to be perceived as interest.

This happened a few more times. Over and over, I lost my platonic male friends. The schism between a seemingly innocent relationship with a person and their underlying ulterior motives can be jarring. I know hetero women and men can be friends up to a certain point, but to which point, I’m not sure. That’s an essay for another day.

This Week’s Story

While my experiences have been with platonic, straight male friends, what if you start to develop feelings for your same-sex best friend? One who is definitely straight? Amahle Dingani, this week’s author, shares how similar seasons of heartbreak brought her and a new friend close, so close that she caught feelings. Should she tell her friend the truth or find a way to be happy in the friend zone? You know my answer 😅 After reading, let me know what you would’ve done in the comments!

Take care,

Anayo Awuzie
EIC of Carefree Media

P.S. - Happy pride month to all the theys, gays, and gals! ❤️

Drunk Words, Sober Feelings: I Told My Straight Friend I Loved Her

by Amahle Dingani

“I think I should just end the friendship,” I said to my sister. “Then maybe being in love with her wouldn’t hurt so much.”

I had always had a naïve, whimsical, fairytale-like view of the friends-to-lovers trope. I mean, how hard could it be? Especially when you consider romantic relationships and friendships to be inextricably intertwined. What I conveniently ignored was that the risk of a potential happy ending was gut-wrenching anxiety and the possible ending of friendships.

Elaine and I met at really dark times in our lives. Both of us had just come out of relationships that were almost perfect, but marred by major incompatibilities that could not be swept under the rug. It is one thing to heal from a relationship in which you were wronged, but it is another thing to heal from a relationship in which no one is the villain—it makes it that much harder to let go.

When you’re going through something, you either distance yourself from those around you, or you rely on them more than ever. The latter was how our friendship started.

We went from being mutual friends to having long midnight phone calls, sharing the most vulnerable parts of ourselves, and confiding in each other about the kind of love we wished for. We took turns crying over our exes and reminisced on the ways they could have been better. It was through all of this that I realized just how similar we were.

At times, it felt like I was talking to a different version of myself—someone who understood my thoughts before I voiced them, who shared my quirks and fears, and someone who laughed at my deadpan humour. Our bond outgrew our heartaches.

Elaine and I settled into an easy rhythm marked by intentional, meaningful gestures. We checked on each other often and gave each other space when needed. When she was upset about something I had done, I listened, apologized, and promised to do better. She consistently stepped out of her comfort zone to show up for me in ways I needed—something I later realized didn’t come naturally to her.

Within that, we slowly started getting over our heartbreaks as we settled into our newfound friendship. Our bond contained the kind of closeness, devotion, and care that many often associate with romantic relationships.

As a queer person, I have always approached my friendships differently from how I see heterosexual friendships being carried out. I crave a deep sense of platonic and yet intimate attachment in my friendships. I am more vulnerable, more expressive about my love, and more attentive to my friends’ needs and desires. This also carries with it a certain level of physical intimacy. I do not shy away from hugging and cuddling my friends or holding their hands when walking in public. To me, friendships are just as meaningful as romantic connections, if not more, so why would I approach them as anything less? This is also why falling in love with Elaine didn’t feel like a sudden shift. I didn’t realize I was falling in love with her because love, in all its forms, was already woven into the way I cared for her.

I knew I loved Elaine when, one day, she mentioned having feelings toward a certain John Doe. To my surprise, jealousy hit me—not of her, but of him. There was no sudden lightbulb moment, no grand realization. Just a slow, sinking feeling of panic as it dawned on me that these emotions were not only real, but I could never act on them.

The feelings she had eventually blossomed into a short-lived relationship between them. I am not proud to admit it, but I wasn't the most supportive during that relationship. At the time I thought that hiding my jealousy over their relationship was good enough. However, looking back now with a clearer perspective, one not distorted by my own emotions, I also could have been actively supportive of her relationship. Instead, I became most supportive when Elaine broke up with John Doe. I knew how to fill that void, selfishly speaking.

Elaine is as straight as they come. Having grown up in a predominantly conservative country where being gay is more than illegal, there was no chance in hell she would slide an inch on the spectrum of sexual fluidity. People raised in conservative communities often, naturally, adopt a conservative way of thinking. It takes years, even decades, to deconstruct such an upbringing. It was a miracle she never expressed any negative feelings about my sexuality, but being an ally was as far as it went for her.

At first, my love for her, as intense as it was, was easy to ignore. I had entered her life at a time when she needed stability, predictability, and a friendship she could rely on. I knew that confessing my feelings would effectively end our friendship. So, instead, I focused on showing up the way she needed me to in that season of our friendship. I was also keenly aware of how selfish it would be for me to burden her with feelings she couldn’t reciprocate. How unfair would it be to confess my love to someone who was, by all accounts, very heterosexual? What could she possibly do with that information?

For a while, I focused on how great our friendship was, how much I appreciated our connection. That subdued my emotions temporarily. The problem started when she actively began dating. Each romantic connection she explored hit me hard. After a particularly failed connection, we were taking a casual walk when she turned to me and said, “Sometimes I wish you were a man. You know how to love me so well. You and I get each other so well that in another lifetime, I think we would have been great lovers.”

And that was the beginning of my unraveling. How could she be so close and yet so far from the truth? Because I did love her. I did want her. I strongly believed I could be a better partner to her than any man ever could.

From then on, I contemplated ending the friendship to put an end to the emotional anguish. My sister shook me out of my spiral. “You can’t end such a meaningful friendship without so much as an explanation,” she said. “You would have to tell her the truth [eventually], so you might as well tell her.”

So that night, after a couple of glasses of red wine to give me courage, I called Elaine. My voice shook. My carefully crafted speech forgotten as I stumbled over my words. In a last-minute attempt to save myself, I spoke of my love for her in the past tense, as if it was something I used to struggle with but had now moved on from.

When I think back to that moment, I am reminded of why I love her so much. Elaine listened quietly as I spoke. When I finished, she asked for a couple of days to process everything I had told her but assured me that this was not a sign of our friendship ending. She acknowledged how hard that must have been for me to share and applauded my courage.

A week of silence passed before she wrote to me.

“I don’t hold anything against you for having had romantic feelings toward me. While I am flattered that you regarded me in that way, I do care for you only as my friend. Since this is in the past and you consider me your friend, I don’t think it should have any bearing on our friendship moving forward.”

We are now four years into our friendship, and it is as strong as ever. There are times when I regret not telling her the whole truth, which is that while my romantic feelings for her have mostly died down, there are moments when I look at her and wish I could love her in that way. But I have accepted that robbing her of our friendship would also mean robbing myself of an amazing friendship—one that many others can only dream of experiencing in their lifetime.

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Amahle Dingani is a freelance writer with a focus on health and wellness. When she is not writing, you can find her surfing the internet.