5.1

OH NO

Remember those friends I made? It's taking a really, really unexpected turn.

First of all, good news: semester's over. I finished my math minor and am on track to be done with all my classes in the fall so I can just do my internship in the spring. I'm probably the only music major in years to get a math minor done so that's pretty cool.

Second thing, I've been hanging out with one of my buddies a lot lately. We're gonna call him B. We've spent an ungodly amount of time together this past week studying and getting finals done. He was even on one of my big recording projects (fucking awesome player if you were wondering, since that's somehow not a guarantee at a music school). He's a really close friend so it's been all good.

However.

We were out getting drinks earlier this week and near the end of the night I was pretty cooked. I bring this up because there was a nano-fraction of time where I wondered if I had a crush on him. The thought entered my mind as quickly as it left it and I very quickly told myself, "no, you're drunk." 

I didn't think about that moment for days despite how much we were hanging out. We got food again Wednesday and even though I drank nothing like that ran through my head.

HOWEVER.

I felt really weird when I woke up Thursday. I didn't go back to campus because I got all my projects/exams done the day before so I just hung around and watched Youtube aimlessly for a few hours. Finally out of nowhere my brain nuked me with Wednesday night's dream: I was very deeply and mutually in love with B. Besides the obvious, the dream wasn't too weird, thank god. We were on some sort of casual date, and it seemed like we had been dating for some time at this point. I was in love for some time in 2025, so it was really fucking odd to feel that again for a different person, especially in a dream. Why the hell did my brain do that? It all felt way too real. 

This bothered me for the rest of Thursday up until tonight, where I went out to see a gig that he and many of our friends were playing. I was so anxious to even get out of my car for reasons that make more sense in hindsight. I was kinda trying to shove down all the confusion the dream left me feeling and it was absolutley manifesting into anxiety. Luckily the gig was great and we had a lot of fun!

HOWEVER

The second B ended up sitting next to me, all the confusion I had felt throughout the week felt microscopic compared to the emotions I was feeling then. To my utter dismay, I felt all the warning signs.

I've come to realize that I subconsciously do little things differently when I'm around someone I like: I tease them more. Holding eye contact is hard if we're close to each other. I even smile differently. Something in my chest just feels different.

To my utter dismay, it was all there tonight. When he hugged me I had to Irish goodbye everyone else because if I stayed any longer I was going to start crying in front of the whole restaurant.

 Well, why don't you just tell him how you feel if you're such good friends? Maybe there's a chance.

Well, here's the kicker: 

He's not into dudes.

I have spent my entire life wondering how the hell gay people catch feelings for straight people. I've always heard that this is a canon event for queers, and I thought that, as someone who's known they're queer for about 9 years, I somehow skipped over that event. I have never been so wrong. 

So that leads to exactly right now: I'm recovering from sobbing and sobering up while all the embarrassment, shame, confusion, and honest-to-God fear I'm feeling eat at me. And I'm not crying because I'm bummed he could never feel this way. It's because I really don't want these feelings to be here.

I'm really scared of how this could affect my friendship with him. It's likely I'm gonna run into him AGAIN tomorrow and I don't know how that'll go with how nervous all this is making me. He's one of my closest friends and I don't want something as dumb as this affecting us. I somehow feel like these feelings are all my fault, even though they were sprung at me out of nowhere with no warning. I keep spiraling, worrying that they're gonna get worse, and to the point where I'm gonna have to confess to him and cut him off. That's the absolute last thing I want or need to happen right now. The other alternative is that these feelings leave as quickly as they came, which is the outcome I'm rooting for. I really don't know how he'd react to this information so I'd rather that I never have to tell him.

I've been trying to sleep for hours, holding my phone speaker against my chest as if Nude by Radiohead is gonna subliminally exorcise me of this bullshit. What a bizarre fucking way to start my summer.

Expect updates in the future on this unfortunate matter.... -G