Scarleteen

i've got a really close friend at uni who i've had feelings for for a while and since we've been apart over the christmas holidays we've been texting nonstop and have told each other about our mutual crushes on each other. we've not explicitly talked about what we're going to do or what's going to happen when we see each other again irl in about a fortnight and i'm a bit worried about what's going to happen.

i'm aroflux (i think) and so my feelings on romance change a lot and my feelings towards him change from romantic to platonic and back again pretty much day to day, and i've decided that i don't want to date him, i'd rather have a qpr. i've not explicitly told him this because my romantic orientation has been pretty difficult for me to understand & i want to have a proper irl coming out conversation with him when we can see each other and properly talk about it face to face, but in the meantime i think he feels fully romantic about me and assumes i feel the same way about him (which is fair enough). i've told him there's something important i want to talk to him about when we can see each other so the conversation is definitely gonna happen but in the meantime i'm worried that he's thinking we're gonna be a couple when we see each other again and i feel like i'm misleading him.

knowing him he's not going to be too angry or upset about it when i do tell him, but i'm still worried about him feeling hurt or disappointed. also, we've been talking about meeting immediately when he gets back and i think he's assuming we'll be physically affectionate or intimate when it happens, but obviously i don't know in advance how i'm gonna be feeling about him/romance on the day so i might be really not into him romantically and then i would feel very uncomfortable with all that. i want to talk to him about being arospec before we do anything anyway, but he's so excited about us seeing each other in person and getting to be together now that we both know we like each other that i don't want to ruin his excitement by telling him i want to talk first and then having that coming out conversation that i know is gonna be difficult for me no matter what.

i have faith this is all gonna work itself out in the end because he's lovely and i'm sure he'll react well, but in the meantime i'm just stressed. any advice?

Hi Periphery!

I know it can be so stressful when you have a conversation coming up but don’t know what will happen during the conversation or how someone will react to what you have to say. It also sounds like you really care about him and don’t want him to be disappointed. First, I want to say that disappointment can happen when what we expect doesn’t happen, but his disappointment is not for you to manage or take on, you know? I think, too, because it sounds like he’s a really close friend, coming out to him might actually be a moment of increased closeness for you both in what could be a developing qpr. There’s also a good possibility that he’ll be grateful to know you in a deeper way, you know? I want to say, too, nobody should be expecting anything physical or emotional from you. You’ve told each other that you have crushes on each other, so you’re still in that early phase of figuring out what your relationship will look like, but further than that, what you want to do with each other physically hasn’t been discussed yet, and it’s okay to take the time to come out to him before doing anything physical.

It also sounds like you want to talk to him about your identity, and also talk to him about boundaries for your relationship/defining what you’d like to do and not do together physically. Maybe separating those two conversations in your head might help with feeling less overwhelmed by the conversation? Just a thought, but it might help to remind yourself, too, that while he might have some feelings and wanted to be physical, that doesn’t mean that he’s disappointed in you for your identity. How does that sound to you?

One last thing! We also have this guide on coming out that might be helpful to read if it would ease some anxiety to prepare for coming out to him: https://www.scarleteen.com/read/identit ... coming-out