Scarleteen

so hi! im aromantic so stuff like this is an extremely rare occurrence. i wanna be with my friend so badly but some things make me worried

1: we only know eachother online and im worried they think of me as less and not as real of a friend/potential boyfriend than someone they know “irl”, bc thats what a lot of people seem to think. (if my wording makes sense its hard to find the words)

2: we’ve only known eachother for like a few months and im worried thats not enough time and that we dont know eachother enough

3: i also keep worrying about the future and about how long its gonna last and stuff, as again we only know eachother online and i also wanna try to meet more people in person, or that its gonna end badly

kinda unrelated but i also kinda get jealous sometimes when they (or any of my other closer friends) talks about being friends with people that i dont know, idk why. like i dont take it out on anyone and i know its a me problem but idk for some reason when they talk about hanging out with other people i get jealous and worried that they like them more than me or that they’ll replace me or something. idk

idk i could be overthinking this but i just dont know what to do and im really stressed about that stuff. so yeah, any advice?

Hi SillyMcGoof_,

This may sound overly simple, but what if you just took the direct route and told this friend how you felt to see if they were interested in having some kind of more romantic relationship with you? I know it can be easy when we have crushes to try and predict how it will go if we tried dating that person, or to run through all those other what-ifs you mentioned, but the truth is that we can't predict every single beat of a relationship. What we can do is make the choice to share our feelings or not, and if the other person is interested the choice to be open to just seeing how the relationship goes, rather than trying to troubleshoot it from the start, you know?

With those worries about jealousy, it might actually help to give this piece on how to navigate jealousy, and what it can tell us: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/rela ... ed_monster

hiya!! thanks, i’ll definitely try that and see how it goes. i guess im also worried that like because i only know them online that they dont act the same in person and that i dont actually know who they are ig?? idk. that and the whole thing about them possibly thinking our relationship doesn’t have as much value or isn’t as real as an in person one are my main worries ig. should i just talk to them about it when the time comes?

also i’ll definitely take a look at that article and get back to you!! thanks :]

Yep, I would say talking with them is the next step! Since you know them best, you'll have the best sense of when it makes sense to bring this up with them.

ok will do!! also i looked at the article and i’ll definitely try the things it says. ig for me its a mix of jealousy and anxiety, so im not 100% sure how to navigate that. i guess i could talk about that to them aswell but im worried. idk why bc they’re very similar to me in that regard but yeah idk. also im not 100% sure if what im feeling is romantic or just alterous or something else, although im not tryna dwell on that too much bc yeah.

I really do think this is one of those situations where talking and just giving yourself permission to roll with things as they come in this relationship are going to be your best friends. Since these feelings, let alone the process of asking someone out, are really new to you, I'd give this advice column a read two; Mo does a great job of breaking down how to do something that feels so basic and so intimidating at the same time: https://www.scarleteen.com/article/advi ... _a_guy_out

ok that helps a lot!!! thanks!! :]