Getting Friend-Zoned

The first time I was friend-zoned was bittersweet.

I fell in love with a friend who was about thirteen years older than me at one point in my life. I was in my early twenties, and just really, really lost in life. All the while, I just longed to be loved by someone, anyone. My bar was so low. Anyone could've walked in whispering a word or two to me and I would've melted into a puddle at their every word.

...And that's exactly how it happened.

A friend introduced us together as strictly platonic friends. He was in a dark spot, as was I. She thought that we could help each other out with us both being in such vulnerable states. I won't go into details about his life, nor mine - but we all had our own unique brands of burdens and struggles in our day to day lives. Depression was a bitch, and we all struggled with it.

I didn't feel anything for him at first. He was just an awesome person to be around. We found kinship over art, hiking, foraging and nature. We also shared a love of taxidermy, specifically animal sheds and skulls. He and I spent a lot of time out in the community forest of our town, looking for all of the wild edibles we could try. I remember staring at him utterly confused one time as I examined the contents of his giant Ziploc bag full of foraged goodies. He was a very creative individual, and it was always interesting to see what he came up with. Time had passed, and we'd become closer. We'd help each other out with our life struggles, and lift each other up. It was a great friendship, and I was honestly relieved that it didn't feel so lonely anymore.

When you've been degraded, hurt and torn down all of your life...Men saying really nice things about my heart and mind was a really attractive trait. Now that I've grown and experienced life a bit more, I see it was the bare minimum. That he really was just trying to be a good friend. But at the time, the bare minimum looked a lot like "Wow, someone actually really loves me."

I didn't realize just how far gone I was until one day he told me about a certain tattoo he had. While it's not on a scandelous part of the body, it's still on a part of the body I wouldn't be able to see without certain clothes being removed. I remember the curiosity started off completely innocent, and then there I was at work - daydreaming about tracing the linework with my fingers and doing some non-sexual vanilla shit to make him feel loved. Please don't judge, I was a very sheltered individual. That was scandalous to me at the ripe age of twenty-two.

I kept it to myself for a while, because I did not want to fuck up the friendship. I didn't tell the mutual friend who introduced us. I didn't tell anyone but an online friend, who worked up the courage in me to talk to him about how I felt.

When it came time to admit feelings, we both recognized that we cared deeply about each other. But for him, it was only ever platonic. The age difference was another thing that turned him off of me, and that's honestly okay. He's the only one I've ever thought about breaking my age limit boundary for. But the other fact was, we were both very, very vulnerable and depressed. We were feeding off of each other. He didn't want to hurt me, but he then cursed himself for not noticing the signs before. I didn't blame him. Unrequited love is a bitch, it took me a bit to get over him.

There is not a day that goes by that I'm thankful that he rejected me.

It took me some time to see it, and a bit of healing. But, I still kept my friendship with him in the end. I still care about him, just not in the way I once did. My feelings for him have grown to be strictly platonic. I admire him a bit, actually. Some of the artwork he's made lately has been absolutely stellar. We don't talk as much as we once did and honestly, that's okay. We both have our own lives to live. I've grown so much since I was that doe-eyed twenty-two year old, who fell in love a little too quickly for the price of someone just being nice to her.

I still have the pieces of gypsum rock we found in the creek, and they live in my bowl of pretty rocks I've collected. I take them out once in a while when I feel alone to remember that people do actually really care about me, even if it's hard to see it at the moment. He was a great friend. He actively chose what was best for him and myself in that moment, and at least let me down gently. If he could do all of that while maintaining our friendship - what's stopping others from loving me and caring about me the same way? Or in the way that I intensely craved?

He was the first person to make me see that I was worth something more than the bare minimum. I just didn't understand what he taught me at the time.

We had some good memories that I will cherish. Like when a few of us were out on the trail, and we all made a giant dick made out of clay to plaster on some unsuspecting tree for other people using the trails to find. I still have pictures of that thing somewhere. Still makes me laugh.

Friend-zoning isn't always bad. In fact, it doesn't even have to be volatile like most people make it out to be. Rejection sucks, and it hurts a lot - there is no point in sugar-coating that. It is one of the worst emotional heartaches you can feel, but you do bounce back. It just takes time.

You need to grieve the loss of what was, and what could be. All while accepting the situation for what it is. Just another aspect of the Human Condition that we must face while navigating our journey through love and relationships. He wasn't intentionally leading me on, nor was he promising that we'd ever be something more.

I simply fell in love with a soul, and it didn't work out. That's just part of life. Nothing I can do other than heal myself and then move on.