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It’s often joked about in queer spaces that falling in love with your best friend is a canon event, and as a bisexual woman, I thought it was a funny joke — until it happened to me.Â
Falling in love with one of my closest friends was one of the most emotionally intense experiences I’ve ever been through. What I thought, at the time, was deep platonic love and a soulmate connection with my best friend was, in hindsight, confusion, conflicting feelings, and secret yearning. And while she wasn’t my queer awakening — I had dated a handful of women before her — falling for her was different than falling for anyone else.
Jenna* was my best friend for most of my college years, but I met her way before that. We followed each other on TikTok and became mutuals, eventually chatting and becoming closer friends. Pretty early on in our friendship, though, I started to develop romantic feelings for Jenna; she was so easy to talk to and sweet, and it was easy to fall for someone like her — especially because I had just been broken up with by my boyfriend at the time.
When I found out that Jenna attended the same high school as me, we eventually made plans to meet in-person between classes. Seeing her for the first time in-person still gives me butterflies when I think about it; I remembered the first words I muttered to her nervously were, “Your eyes are so pretty.”
In the years that followed, Jenna went from being someone I talked to on occasion to becoming someone I talked to every day for hours. No matter where we were in life, we reconnected, caught up, and talked to each other about everything.Â
The line between platonic and romantic love began to blur for me — especially as we got closer and closer.
Jenna and I also grew to be very emotionally close: We were there for each other’s darkest moments, held each other when we cried, vented to each other about life, and told each other things we swore to never tell anyone else. Jenna made me feel seen and understood in a way nobody else did. The safety, love, and understanding I felt from her was what led me to become very attached to her. My feelings for her grew more and more complicated the closer we got.
I knew that even if I did have romantic feelings for Jenna, there were so many reasons why I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to act on them. For one, Jenna was my closest friend, and I was terrified that if I did have feelings for her, it would ruin our friendship. Another reason I couldn’t was that Jenna was straight and had a boyfriend, Hector*. I didn’t want to mess up anything between me and Jenna or Jenna and Hector, so I pushed it down.
For a while, I thought what I felt for her was strictly a very deep, platonic love. I saw her as my platonic soulmate, constantly told her how much I loved her, and wrote her letters. We also shared sweet, special moments together, like holding hands when we were in line for a Clairo concert together. The line between platonic and romantic love began to blur for me — especially as we got closer and closer.
What I experienced with Jenna was genuinely the most emotionally intimate thing I’ve ever experienced — even more than the previous romantic relationships I’ve been in.
Then, after two years of friendship, Jenna and I just stopped talking. The worst part of losing her is that it wasn’t over a fight, argument, or huge falling out; it was just that we had grown apart as people, and she had drifted away. That hurt more than anything, because if we’re being honest, I’d rather we had ended our friendship for a concrete reason versus a vague one.
I missed her terribly after she left, and after months of thinking about Jenna, our friendship, and how close we were, I came to a realization: I was in love with her, and what I felt for her was never just platonic. Though I loved her deeply as my best friend, there was always a part of me that yearned for something more and pined for her.
What I experienced with Jenna was genuinely the most emotionally intimate thing I’ve ever experienced — even more than the previous romantic relationships I’ve been in. It felt like Jenna knew me better than anyone else in my life at that time did, and it also felt like I loved her more than anyone. Falling in love with her taught me that emotional intimacy can be just as intense as physical and sexual intimacy, if not more.Â
Loving Jenna helped me learn so much about friendship and love, how quickly the line between platonic and romantic love can blur if you’re not careful enough, and most importantly, about my heart and how I love. But loving Jenna was also a defining moment in my queerness — it taught me just how deep, and complex, queer love could be.
*Names have been changed.