Introduction / Quick Summary
This is the story of my love for a girl I still love to this very day.
During our friendship we had grown extremely close and I fell in love with her.
But during this friendship she got together with a different guy.... twice.
In this take I will show you how I was able to get over the pain of her ending up with a different guy, but not just that. I managed to be happy for her and her boyfriend and even play some video games with them without being hurt.
Some consider my point of view about love to be controverical or they disagree with my views completely. If you are not open minded about someone's view of love then this take is probably not for you. If you can't deal with someone trying to share his view on what he believes love is, this take is certainly not for you! The My View of love section can be skipped as it could have been a myTake on its own, although it does explain the thoughts behind my ways of thinking and how that made me able to do some of the things i did.
This is not a take on trying to force my beliefs on you, i merely want to share my experiance accopanied with my view of love so you understand the situation better. I am not saying this will work for anyone but it certainly worked for me.
Finally i want to ask some understanding before you comment, this take is very open about my last effort with a girl and calling me stupid/gay over it if you believe so won't do anyone any good. Because yes some of you are probably going to find me stupid for sticking around her so long but i still believe it was the right choise.
My view of love
Now that the warning is out of the way let me share a life spoiler to you i truly believe to be true. It was something i learned from my experiances before her and something that truly came to light in our friendship.
Love is not a feeling, its something beyond.
Ever get that underbelly feeling and think your in love with someone? I believe that not to be love at all. Certainly it can play a big role in your love for someone but i do not believe that to be the case. While i never found the proper words to explain what i believe love is it is the act of loving someone for who they are part of which is the bond you have gotten with them.
Why do I believe this?
One day i had found an article some gagers on here will be familair with. It described how to fall in love with someone in 30 minutes, i also knew that you can get feelings for someone you fancy just by fantasizing about them a lot. This is because your subcontious can not tell apart fantasy from reality , ever imagined getting extremely angry at someone or taking revenge and then have the adrenaline and anger rush trough your body? Its the same thing with feelings. After this article i had a distinct idea that this could not be true, love should not be that manipulatable and certainly not just be a feeling that certainly goes away after a while. I started digging. I learned a few things. First of all obviously that to me love is not a feeling, the feelings just make it more pleasent. Second of all i discovered you can separate your feelings from (your love for) someone (This is something very important later in the take).
So for those of you who ever wondered, why am i in love with this person?! I don't even like him! That is the pure proof that your not actually in love and that everything is just a feeling.
The beginning
The friendship
In the half year that followed we had grown towards each other. She was the most amazing friend i had ever had and i fell in love with her as a person (Not the feeling way but the i love you for who you are way). Still no matter how close we where i tried not to let my feelings for her develop. Sure it was the most pleasurable thing to do but i knew that would only turn out bad if i did it to early. I planned on asking her first and once we where together i let my feelings loose. If that wouldn't work i wouldn't be to hurt about it and it still allowed me to keep my eyes open without becoming love blind.
Boyfriend number 1
It was time to ask her as i had finally build up the courage to do so. When i did it didn't turn out as i had hoped. She met this other amazing guy on the chatting side a week before and she fell completely love blind. It was lust on first sight. Her feelings for him had gotten so strong so fast she believed he was the one for her and got together very quickly. When i told her how i felt she told me she had gotten together with him 3 days prior and that she was still searching of a good way to tell me. She did say that she had feelings for me before but i failed to notice and it was to late now.
This is the point in the story where most of you would probably stop bothering with her. Game over, a friend lost, love wasted. I however did not want to loose my great friend and decited i wanted to remain friends. The problem being that even though i had kept my feelings from developing for so long i apparently had not succeeded as much as i hoped. I still felt heartbroken and incredibly sad. I set a goal for myself, i wanted to be able to be happy for her that she had such a nice boyfriend. I also had this rule in my life that always seemed to be true, my feelings would fade after 3 days. Turn's out that does not apply to broken hearts haha. Luckily for me having minimized the feelings prior the hurt lasted about a week before it was completely gone. After this i could see her as the true friend she was and be around her without any problems. I wasn't on the point yet where i was happy for her or could deal with seeing her together with her boyfriend but the friendship continued.
But what turns out? Blind feelings are never a good thing and she should have seen this take before she got him haha. This boyfriend was threating her like trash. He never called no matter how much she asked him to be there for her. He never cared about her enough. And with them being long distance just like our friendship she never had the time to see him.
Who did she came to? Me. And of course being such a close friend to her i was happy to help. We had plenty of nights where she felt horrible and missed him a lot. i would keep her company over Skype so she did not have to feel all this hurt. These conversations where fun and could last the entire evening to the point where she fell asleep peacefully at the end of the evening.
Note to everyone that i seriously wanted her to be happy with her boyfriend at this point. Infact i was a little to focussed on that idea that i kept hoping that relationship to turn out good while i should have told her a little earlier that he was no good for her. None of this was an attempt to steal her away from him or get in her panties, i genuinely wanted her to be happy with the guy she had chosen.
Hope
Boyfriend number 2
Things where going nicely between us and she was healing from the break-up. She slowly started to get interest in guys again. This is where the other guy took his chances (Apparently he was good at manipulating people as she recently told me) and went for her convincing her he was the right guy. This girl seemed to fall for people she met online as he was even further away then i was. But this guy could do something for her i couldn't. He moved countries. Knowing how much she needed affection form her boyfriend it helped me understand why she picked him over me.
So the scenario repeated itself , she got together with a different guy. She found the courage to tell me about it. I was left heartbroken and she was going to be happy this time with a guy she didn't suddenly get a strong crush on but with a guy she genuinely loved. Our bond was still as strong as ever, coming to show as she had to cry because she felt my pain at that moment.
So what could you do at this point? There is this perfect girl who clearly is not going to fall for you. She is a genuinely deeply valued friend you do not want to loose. And despite all efforts you still got feelings for her even though thanks to the efforts of not letting them develop they where easy to overcome as i had proven with the previous boyfriend situation.
I think most people here would drop out, take there losses for granted and move away from the girl loosing her in there lives forever. It would seem like the only choice you could do without being hurt further. However as the stubborn guy i am i still believed it was possible. I believed i could still be her close friend without being hurt. Infact i believed i could reach a point where i wasn't just not hurt by them being together. But a point where i could be happy for her and her boyfriend (Yes thats right, be happy for her boyfriend he got such a nice girl). And more importantly be able to do things together as a group of friends. I think if someone oversaw that thought and started a betting competition to vote if that would work almost nobody would have put there bets on me. Yet i managed and here is why.
The Conclusion
Those who read the My view part know that i do not see love and feelings as one. Love doesn't hurt, feelings do. This means in order to stay together with someone you had grown such an incredible bond with you seem stuck because you can't forget about them and you can't continue like this after all it hurts immensely. What people do not realise is that in order to let the feelings go you don't have to let the person go. Luckily for me doing this action she had destroyed any hope of ever getting her as my girlfriend. This means that any idea's or fantasies about me being her boyfriend where out of the question. Instead i figured that in reality nothing but hope was lost. I still had my amazing friend, she still cared about me and loved me as a person. The only thing she would never do is love me on a romantic level. And you know what? I was completely fine with this! The reason being that was how the past year was like with her and i found that friendship to be amazing.
So my focus became different. Instead of hoping for her to be my girlfriend some day, i shifted those thoughts. As you know when your in love with someone he or she keeps popping in your head and as long as they are around there is no way your going to prevent that from happening. Infact i believe that if you prevent that it only gets worse. So what i did was changing those thoughts. If she popped up in my head as a memory or just simply the thought of her as a person. I would think at the moments she was a good friend to me, and what else would be fun to do with her AS A FRIEND.
My mind followed quickly, just like before the hurt went away in about a week. And after about a month i had achieved my goal. I was genuinely happy for both of them. I thought he was one of the luckiest guys alive to have such a nice girl as her and i was happy for her she had found such a nice boyfriend that was even prepared to move countries. We had moments where i risked doing an activity with her together with her boyfriend, and you know what? It was fun :D. I got along with her boyfriend very well and he trusted me not to steal her away from him. So instead of this hostile scenario where your hurt, hate the boyfriend and want her back where the only true victim is her as she has to make a choice nobody wants to make this turned out as a small circle of friends where everyone was happy especially me (And her for having her best friend and boyfriend get along so well beyond any of her expectations).
So the moral of the story? It is completely possible to turn your love back into the strong friendship it was if you can let your feelings go. I still love her deeply to this very day and it doesn't mean at all you can't do the same. Loving someone won't hurt, having feelings for someone does. Finally i learned hope is the worst enemy in the scenario as it keeps you dreaming about the future so it is best to assume they will never ever love you if they rejected you once, it will only be a pleasent surprice if it turns out they do.
I hope you have learned how i did it and why this scenario worked for me, and i also hope you learned about the great reward at the end of it, the strongest friendship you will ever have.
I truly hope this take will help some of you over that painful situation of having your feelings rejected by your best friend or have it prevent the pain in the future! I do not know how well this works without minimizing the feelings beforehand but feel free to let me know :).
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