Yahoo Lifestyle 14 Tales Of Unrequited Love That Messily Broke Apart Friendships
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who have ever lost a friend due to unreciprocated romantic feelings to tell us what happened. Here's what they shared:
1."My college best friend was in love with me, and I had no idea until I got a boyfriend (who is now my husband). I was fully aware she's a lesbian. She was fully aware I'm straight. She tried to sabotage my relationship a lot. She sent me anonymous messages on Tumblr, presenting as a man, saying that 'he' would be a better partner than my boyfriend. She sent me to the judicial board of our sorority for not being 'sisterly' because I was juggling a long-distance relationship along with school and being Vice President. She said that my relationship was toxic because I asked him to be in charge of my domain blocker because I had yet to be diagnosed with ADHD. She eventually turned my roommate-at-the-time against me, and she moved out with less than a week's notice."
"I opted to go early alum because she helped me realize I was putting so much time into the organization that it was causing me to fail classes, and after that, there was a split in my 'supporters' (the minority) and her 'supporters' (the majority).
My little ended up disaffiliating because of how the whole organization treated me. There was a tradition in the sorority that anyone graduating would get a copy of Oh, the Places You'll Go with a message from everyone on the inside. Everyone who was part of the drama and essentially cut me off ended up apologizing in their messages, except for my 'best friend.' She didn't sign it. I accepted the apologies of those who extended it. I follow some of them on Instagram and are friends with others on Facebook, but I don't go out of my way to see what they are doing in their lives. I can forgive, but it's very difficult to forget."
2."My best friend in college (besides my roommate) developed feelings, and they were pretty clear. We talked about it a couple of times, and I thought my feelings (or lack thereof) were clear. Apparently not. I finally had to put my foot down after I got a long letter from him for Valentine's Day. This essentially ended our friendship, which created a lot of negative feelings for him. So, he now hates my guts. I've mourned that friendship a lot and miss it."
3."I became friends with a guy in my nursing school, and we hung out very regularly. He tried to make a move early on, and I immediately shut it down. He continued to flirt with me and make advances, so I very clearly told him that he was a great guy, but it was never going to happen. We had some space after that, but when we started hanging out again, he continued the behavior. I put up with it because I didn’t want to lose him as a friend. One day, we went to a party together, and I ended up kissing someone at the party. He left the party even though we drove together and told me the next day that he didn’t want to be my friend anymore."
—Anonymous
4."I met this guy online about seven years ago, and I really, really liked him. He said he just wanted to be friends, and while I was disappointed, I got over it. We became pretty good friends due to the fact that we have the same job, but he is a few years older than me. When I started dating my now-husband, the guy from online was very supportive, like you would expect a friend to be. He dated other people as well. Then, I got engaged five years after meeting this guy online, and he confessed that he was now in love with me and that my marriage was going to ruin him. We still have the same job and are in some of the same professional circles so I see him occasionally, but I had to cut him off. I couldn't deal with that."
—Anonymous
5."He and I (female) were really good friends as kids/preteens. We openly talked about our crushes on other people, hung out during and after school, and had a very sweet, innocent friendship. Those kinds of preteen boy/girl friendships often involve crushes or other types of drama, but we seemed exempt. Our relationship felt super sibling-like; I truly didn't think he ever had a crush on me, and I never had a crush on him. We lost touch in high school when we ended up at different schools in different cities, and we definitely didn't keep up with one another in college. We were connected on some social media platforms, but that was it. Well, imagine my surprise when he decided he wanted to start sending me lewd photos out of the blue in our mid-20s."
"Essentially, we didn't speak for over 10 years (other than occasional Instagram story likes or replies), and then he woke up one day and decided he wanted to start sending me suggestive photos of himself. There was no build-up, no reintroduction, nothing — just sudden bizarre Snapchat messages. He even added me to a private story that seemed to contain other partially nude (or worse) photos of himself...I didn't open it. I could see the little thumbnail image, which was enough for me!
I really didn't want to confront him, so I just quietly removed him as a friend on Snap. A couple of months later, he tried the same thing on Instagram! At this point, I no longer followed him and didn't even realize he still had an account/followed me. We hadn't talked on Instagram since early high school. He sent multiple 'hidden' images to my DMs, and when I didn't open them or respond, he'd unsend them and try again. He did that for a while before pretending his 'app was glitching,' and then he saw me open the thread and tried it all again. When I still didn't reply, he sent, 'Hello?' and 'Are you there?' It made me feel so gross. I blocked him on everything.
So, maybe this doesn't qualify as unrequited love so much as lust? And perhaps it didn't ruin an active friendship, but it definitely tarnished the sweet memories I had of us as kids. The whole thing was cringey and dehumanizing."
—Anonymous
6."R and I met via a mutual friend in passing during high school. I was a first year and he was a sophomore. He was suuuuuper cute and always nice. We became friends, then he got a girlfriend. She was very nice, too. He didn’t like that I walked home, so he'd drive me the mile, often with his girlfriend in the car. We all were kind of close, but just at school. We didn’t hang out at all after school or even call one another. During my junior year and his senior year, they broke up over the summer. He and I shared a class. We did it, and then he never talked to me again. I was so hurt. He graduated. The end."
—Anonymous
7."I lost a friendship around the time I graduated high school. I had this friend who was a great guy — funny and cute — but I just wasn't attracted to him at all. He made it clear that he had feelings for me, but he never pushed me on my feelings or tried to turn our friendship into anything more. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for our friends. They were always rooting for us to get together and telling me I needed to give him a chance. I'd always tell them that I cared about him platonically, not romantically, and I didn't think it would be fair to him for me to get into a relationship where I had to work to be attracted to him while he was head over heels for me. They wouldn't stop pushing."
"There was never an abrupt friendship breakdown; we just started hanging out less and less, and now it's been years since we talked. I really regret losing his friendship. All I was trying to do was not lead him on, but now that I'm older and wiser, I know that I could have worked harder to maintain the friendship."
8."This happened around two years ago. He and I (female) were great friends, and people sometimes even joked that we would date. Early on, I declared I had no interest in having a relationship, but around 10 months after first becoming close (as in, we would joke with one another, talk often, and bug each other), he asked me out through a note. I told him no the next day, but he beat me to it by saying that he had forgotten about my initial statement. We stopped talking, and things fizzled out. I miss that casual closeness, but I doubt he entirely forgot what I had mentioned many times. I talk to his ex-girlfriend, though, and she's chill."
—Anonymous
9."I always liked him. We were friends first, then friends with benefits. I figured that could be a gateway to a relationship. Nope. After a couple of years of FWB, I decided to tell him that I wanted more, and if he didn't, we couldn't be FWB anymore. We remained friends-ish for a little bit. He tried to hang out still, but I wouldn't do it, so the friendship just kind of faded. He has ill feelings toward me (for no reason, I might add), but I don't feel anything. He is now married and has a baby on the way, and I am engaged to be married this year. Everything worked out just fine."
—Anonymous
10."I'm stuck in a situation like this right now. I can't see him as anything more than a friend, and I have never had feelings for him in that way, but I am too afraid to tell him that. Unfortunately, it took me way too long to realize that he had always liked me in that way, which I strongly suspect is part of why he initiated the friendship in the first place. He is very kind, though, with good intentions. He has always been very nice to me and everyone else around him, and I know that telling him this would crush him. I just don't have the heart to do that to him, or anyone for that matter."
—Anonymous
11."I moved to a small town after graduating high school and met a guy (early 20s) who stood out from the kind of guys in the area. He was worldly, smart, funny, and well-read. However, he lived in his parents' poolhouse, was in massive debt, and thought living his life like a character from Clerks was a noble pursuit. We still hung out a lot, as I figured we were all in weird places in life, but his place didn't scream 'ready to be in a relationship.' One day, he left a message for me on Myspace (remember when direct messages on Myspace were a big deal?), having written a short story about me and how I changed his life upon entering it, and he said he wanted me to be his girlfriend. While flattered, I told him I was not interested in him that way. He took this to mean TRY HARDER and tried to kiss me one night after hanging out. I pulled back and asked him to please not do that again."
"He went and told my mom, my sister, and the very small group of friends I had made that I led him on every single step of the way. He told them I provoked the unwanted kiss, that I made a scene about not wanting the kiss, and that I was going around sleeping with every other guy in this small town. They believed him.
Overnight, I lost just about every relationship I had. I spent the next few years getting out of that hell-hole small town and moving as far away as possible, blocking every single person from my time there. He reached out to 'apologize.' We all know this type of apology — the performative one — to make HIM feel better. He told me he was 'working on himself' and that nothing I could say would hurt him but that I should still accept his apology because of the courage he mustered up to do it."
—Anonymous
12."There was a guy I had a crush on, but he was dating a friend. Well, not wanting to be that person, I made sure when I did talk to him, it was polite and kind but distant. They ended up breaking up the same week I had met him. After they broke up, I still wanted to keep distance between us, so I kept doing the same thing. We saw each other a few months later, and our friendship grew. He would do things that made me think he also had a crush on me. For example, he remembered a small joke I had made THE FIRST NIGHT I MET HIM! He would hug me but only wave to other people I was with. There were a few other small things that made me suspicious."
"It was an entire year before we saw each other again, but we still had a great friendship, and I was happy about that. Throughout the three days we reunited, people asked if we were talking, dating, or exchanging numbers. I didn't want our friendship to seem like something it wasn't, so I told him about it. I told him there was no pressure for us to talk or anything, that I was simply trying to be transparent, and that we should know more about it later so people wouldn't get the wrong idea about us, but we could still be good friends. We never talked about it further.
It was a year and a half before I saw him again after that, and he wouldn't even say hello to me. He'd blow me off, wouldn't talk to me, and act like I wasn't even there. It wasn't even the fact that I had a crush on this guy; I missed my friend. This happened about five years ago, and although I have hunches and guesses, I have no clue what really happened, and I don't think I'll ever know."
—Anonymous
13."I am an autistic woman who is attracted to women, not exclusively, but that's beside the point. I have fallen for many of my friends, but only one took it poorly. We were besties for about a year, and then one day, I decided to get drunk at home alone and Facebook message her about how awesome she was and how I wished we could hang out platonically and sleep together sometimes. Admittedly, it was not my smartest move, but what can I say? I was quite drunk. After that, she ghosted me for like a week."
"Eventually, we were able to speak again, and she let me know how unsafe and violated that made her feel. I told her that I understood she was straight and it was just the alcohol talking. She accepted this, but I don't think our friendship has ever really recovered.
One day, she called me out of the blue and told me about what was happening in her life. Then, she just kind of said goodbye, as if it was the last time she would talk to me. It was the last time we spoke. I hope she's doing well; she was one of the best friends I have ever had."
—Anonymous
14.And: "We worked hard to be friends after we knew where we stood, but it ultimately became too much. I wanted more, no matter how much I tried to believe I didn't, and I emotionally suffocated him. Anxious attachment is no joke. I still miss him a year later and fear getting close to people."
—Anonymous
Have you ever had a friendship fall apart because one of you caught feelings for the other? What happened? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
