Bisexual With Feelings Developing For My Straight Friend
TeenHealthFX asked our Teen Advisory Committee (TAC) for some input with this one. The members of our TAC had some concerns about your talking to your friend about your “more-than-just-friends” feelings for him, worrying that it might negatively affect the friendship, as well as compromise his comfort level with your sexual orientation if he now knows that you are interested in him. The members of our TAC absolutely felt for how difficult this must be for you – to have these kinds of feelings for someone who is not gay or bisexual – so they did feel it was important for you to be able to talk to someone about how you are feeling so you are not alone in dealing with these emotions, even if it is not to your friend.
What FX would like you to consider is that when you think about telling your friend how you feel, given that he is straight and therefore a romantic relationship won’t come out of the conversation, what do you hope to get out of it? And is what you hope to get out of it worth whatever risks there might be in raising the issue in the first place?
FX would also like to point out that obviously you know your friend better than we do (by “we” we are including the FX staff and the members of our TAC). Do you see your friend as someone who could handle that kind of information and be okay with it, or it might be too difficult for him to deal with? Part of deciding what to do involves thinking about the kind of person your friend is and what you imagine him being able to deal with.
Before making a decision on how exactly to proceed about this, FX recommends that you speak to a trusted adult or friend about how you are feeling. You may need the opportunity to process your feelings towards this person, as well as to discuss how you see your friend and the ways in which this kind of conversation could impact the relationship, before making a decision on whether to raise the issue or not.
