I'm a Gay Man But Have Feelings for a Female Friend

Have you ever had odd feelings towards someone of a gender you’re not attracted to?

Straight friends have told me about greatly liking and admiring a person of the same gender. A hetero dude friend called them “man crushes.”

But rarely do I hear gay folks talk much about opposite gender “crushes,” maybe because it feels like a betrayal to our gay tribe.

Some folks would argue that “you’re not really gay, you’re bi or pan.” While it’s valid to identify as bisexual or pansexual even if you rarely feel attraction towards a certain gender, the label — gay, bi, pan, queer, or something else — is for the person themselves to decide.

What’s extra complicated is that I’m on the asexual and aromantic spectra. So my feelings aren’t quite the same as most people’s. One thing that frustrates me is the assumption that if you have feelings towards someone, it must mean you want to be in a relationship with them, provided you’re both available and interested.

But what if you have “feelings” yet you have no desire to be in a romantic relationship, regardless of your availabilities? I thought about a queerplatonic relationship, which is basically a non-romantic but emotionally intimate and committed relationship. It can be sexual or nonsexual, monogamous or non-monogamous.

Yet for the friend I’m thinking of, I don’t think I want to be queerplatonic partners with them, either.

So what kind of relationship do I desire?

It’s hard to say, since my wishes seem to fluctuate depending on my mood. A part of me wants an intimate relationship, though I had imagined it to be with a man or a nonbinary person on the masculine spectrum.

Nevertheless, this friend I keep thinking about, is female. While my feelings towards her aren’t “romantic,” they still seem more intense than my usual platonic friendships.

Let’s call her Clarissa, though her real life name looks nothing like Clarissa.

One day, I randomly thought that, if I were to date a girl, it would be Clarissa. I was surprised at my lack of doubt. Not that I have any confidence that she would be interested. She is straight but I was already out to her as gay, though not as trans yet.

If Clarissa did ask me out or confess to me, I would be incredibly flattered and even happy. I would probably have to say no, though. My ego is flattered but I can’t give her what she wants. Unlike me, she’s not on the asexual spectrum, and I’m still not really interested in sleeping with a woman, no matter how much I like her.

If we were to be “in a relationship,” we might look like best friends who are roommates, which isn’t romantic at all, though it is intimate.

So that leads me to something I do desire: intimacy. It’s not sex I’m after, for better or for worse. I crave emotional intimacy and maybe some hugging and cuddling. Not sure about kissing, though.

But I wish I could see her again and talk. Recently, we chatted again in private messages, and I felt a surprising amount of excitement and happiness. I think it truly goes beyond friendship.

It gets even more surprising

For a long while, even though my feelings towards Clarissa were significant, they still felt clearly platonic. I felt that she was exactly my type, except in gender. So if she came out as a trans man tomorrow, I would probably fall in love with her (him).

A part of me wishes that she would turn out to be trans male, so I could confess my feelings to him and hope for a miracle. She does have some notable masculine interests that few girls (especially straight girls) have, so who knows.

But let’s not assume anything. The last time I wondered if some cis-identified friends might be trans, I got scolded by two trans friends for disrespecting my cis friends’ identities…So I won’t assume anything.

Regardless, my feelings for her — even as a cis girl — have evolved. Lately, I started reading a web novel that’s a horror movie LitRPG. LitRPG is a genre of fantasy that is like a roleplaying video game, where the reader gets to see the characters’ stats.

In this story, the male protagonist has a crush on his neighbor. She is kind, brave, and the leader type. And she happens to have the same first name as my friend. I empathized a lot with the male main character, and hoped that they could be together.

Reading about the protagonist’s love for her, made me feel differently towards my friend, too. This might be the turning point where my feelings became a little less platonic.

Moreover, in a gay male romance I’m writing, one important character is a woman who happens to have the same first name as “Clarissa” too. In another coincidence, I watched an interview of a successful entrepreneur who also had the same name.

I felt so much admiration and respect for this entrepreneur, and a lot of fascination towards my female story character. It’s a common first name, but it has taken on a special importance in my mind now.

These strange feelings…

I would be thrilled if I woke up one day and heard her confess that she loved me back. Then I could say that I experienced requited love at least once in my life.

It’s perplexing and frustrating. But it’s also exciting to open up this new realm of experience in me. I wish that I could have something with Clarissa. Not a romantic or sexual relationship, nor even a queerplatonic one. “Just friends” somehow makes me a little sad, though I’d never push for anything more if she’s not interested, especially as I don’t even know what precisely I want.

Would I like her to be an older sister to me? (Even though she’s quite a few years younger.) Surprisingly, no, that doesn’t sound like what I want.

But whatever it is, I think I’m a little in love with her.

It would be great to have some sort of “togetherness.” I fantasize about us hanging out, travelling together, and having fun. Maybe I could hug her and cry on her shoulder.

Oddly enough, I got a clue to my feelings from a Lord of the Rings’ song, “May It Be.” Years ago, I told a friend that this song is my idea of romantic love. My friend said, “Ew! Romance isn’t about chocolates and flowers.”

But Lord of the Rings’ “May It Be” is not about chocolates or flowers. It’s about being brave, pushing through the darkness, and persevering until you find the light. Having hope, and having faith.

When I play this song in my head, daydreaming about Clarissa and I, it feels very pleasant. This connection only makes me more puzzled than not.

The Shocking Discovery

I can be such a silly billy, but I decided to check out Clarissa’s Facebook profile and timeline. Yes, we’re already friends on Facebook, but I never actually checked her page before, believe it or not. We only used Facebook to message each other.

At first, I wondered why she had changed her last name. And later…I saw that she was married.

Wow. I was stunned by how sad and heartbroken I felt, though this is unreasonable, since I wasn’t looking for anything romantic or sexual.

After a lot of internal conflict and angst, I reread some messages from (the right) Clarissa, in both private messages and group chats. It comforted me to read them.

In a memorable conversation, she told me that being emotionally sensitive is a good thing, and that I should embrace my sensitivity instead of suppressing it. She also encouraged me to speak up about my honest thoughts, since there are bound to be others who secretly feel the same way.

She truly is a kind and warm-hearted person. I’d rather have a crush on someone good and kind than on someone mean and cruel.

In any case, I think I had taken her friendship for granted, or at least, I didn’t feel it as strongly as I do now.

Furthermore, I thought: Hey, why should her husband be any impediment? I mean, if what I feel is not romantic or sexual, and not even a queerplatonic thing, then why should there be a problem?

There are people who are queerplatonic partners with someone who already has a romantic partner, and yes, it is all consensual and transparent. It’s not quite the same as an open relationship, as a romantic relationship isn’t the same as a queerplatonic relationship.

It would be cool if we could hang out again, chat, and maybe listen to more Lana Del Rey songs together. I remember us listening to “Born to Die.” Somehow, I felt very moved when I shared my love for Lana Del Rey’s songs with her.

But maybe I’m too easily moved, and the moment probably affected me more deeply than it did her. I would call myself a hopeless romantic, except this isn’t even romantic…

New Categories of Love?

Feelings are so damn complicated. Just the other day, I read an article about people using their creativity to earn a lot of money online. Usually I would be interested in that, as I really hope to become financially independent from my parents, and that’s hard to do when you live in an expensive city like Toronto.

But when I read that article, I thought, “I don’t want any of that money. I just want to hug and kiss Clarissa.”

Hmmm…that’s so weird. Well, I do have rare moments where I fantasize about kissing a friend on the lips, even if I wasn’t romantically or physically interested in them. (The friend is usually male, though.)

My theory is that my mind creates dramatic images to express an emotion, e.g. the thought of kissing them on the mouth, symbolizes a rush of affection and fondness for my friend. I wouldn’t kiss them in real life, of course.

As for Clarissa, my crush on her is like an emotional snuggle bun and maybe pecks on the cheek. But the feelings are still deep enough to call it a “crush.” It doesn’t feel as cute as a “squish,” either, which is the term some aromantics use for a platonic crush.

Thus, what I feel for Clarissa exceeds platonic friendship but is not romantic, not a squish, nor even queerplatonic. Maybe this is a new category that is adjacent to romantic love, shoulder to shoulder, but is still separate.

Often I wish for my relationships to be given equal importance and status to romantic love. Sometimes I’m tempted to just do the romantic thing so that I can get that social validation and respect. But it’s dumb to pretend when it would just burn me in the long run.

What’s interesting is that my feelings for my previous crush seem to have receded. Let’s call him Lucas. He was a friend I crushed on for four years, and when I confessed to him, he told me he was straight…

Now I don’t know if my feelings for him have truly disappeared at last, or if they are just temporarily suppressed. But what I do know, is that I’m more in love with Clarissa than with Lucas right now.

If I could find a guy like Clarissa who loved me back, that would be a dream come true. I would live a life with no regrets!

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