There is something very self-indulgent about blogging. I know to write that in a blog is fairly hypocritical or maybe it is just self-aware, I don’t know.

I think it is because I find the assumption that what you have to say is so important that the world needs to hear it. It is amazingly arrogant and I think most of the blogs you read on a day to day basis back that up. Journalists rarely are offered the chance to write opinion pieces early in their careers because they need to first prove that their opinions are worth hearing but with the evolution of blogging a forum has opened up for anyone who wants to be heard to be able to voice their opinions no matter how valid to the world.

That’s like a disclaimer, you know so that anyone who reads what I am about to write and feels the same way will not judge me harshly.

My blog isn’t about my opinions on the world, although it does obviously include my opinions on blogging.  I suppose I should just start… you know get it out there… I am telling the world this because I can’t tell the person, the people who really matter.

Recently, well I suppose not that recently… over the last 6 months I have fallen in love with one of my best friends in the whole world.

I met James (we’ll call him James, that’s not his real name though) when I was 12, we were in the same class a decade and a half ago and he has been, it feels insulting to my other friends to say this but its true and they won’t read it, he has been my best friend in the whole world pretty much ever since. Until this year I didn’t love him, well I did but I wasn’t in love with him.

Back in April we went to, lets say Prague (it wasn’t really Prague… but it was a European city)for four days and while there we went out dancing, this guy came up to me in the club and was coming on quite strong. He wasn’t unattractive but he was kind of greasy or something, you know just a bit to slick. I like my guys in faded t-shirts and worn out jeans, silk shirts just aren’t my style. I didn’t realise it yet but the way I would have described my perfect man from the time I was about 15 on was actually a description of J. So Greasy is coming on way way way too strong, he also smelled a little of BO and garlic, not my favourite combo and J was at the bar grabbing us beers (side note: Czech beer is really good you should all try it sometime, if you make it to Prague all the better… that’s why I chose Prague) So J arrives back with the beers, my back is to the bar and I didn’t see him coming. He must have seen the guy, he would have known I wasn’t interested and that Greasy had me pinned into a corner (metaphorically) So he came up behind me and put his arms around my waste, kissed me on the neck and said “hello my love, I missed you” I turned to him, Greasy pretty much bolted immediately and I could see (cheesy as it sounds… in his eyes) that this was just an act to get Greasy to go away and my heart sank. I got butterflies in my stomach and I suddenly felt uncomfortable looking at him directly. We had done this god knows how many times before, you know acted as decoys to get rid of people we weren’t interested in but something had shifted this time, something was different.

Don’t get me wrong when I say I’m in love with him, it didn’t all just happen that day. That day I realised that I was attracted to him. A feeling that plagued me every time I saw him, the attraction coupled with the fact that he’s my best friend just kind of evolved into him being “the one”. I suddenly felt weird around him. He lives in a flat in town and I live a bit further out so when we go out together I would often crash in his bed, suddenly this has different undertones. On Sunday mornings we go for hikes and I find myself doing my hair and this is so out of character, shopping for cute exercise outfits…  I feel uncomfortable eating around him all of a sudden.

I don’t want advice here; I mean that, this is me putting this out there I don’t want random strangers who don’t know me or him telling me to go for it…  I know he doesn’t feel the same way. He dated my best female friend for a year or two and I think there is still something there between them, even if they never get together again he is out of bounds because of her. Logically I should just distance myself from him until the feelings go away but he’s my best friend so that would be weird.

I have no one to tell all this stuff to because the two people I would normally tell are the two people I can’t tell…

Ok so it’s out in the universe now. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem right?

PS. I've gotta go shower and fix my hair because I am meeting him for a pint in five hours... spending five hours getting ready to be around him is just the way my mind works now... love sucks