Long time friend (30/f) finally showing very real romantic interest in me (30/m). But it makes me very sad the more i think about it.

I need to preface this by saying that for the majority of my life I was overweight. Overweight as a boy, morbidly obese as a young adult. I had a rocky childhood with my father, and used food as a coping mechanism. One of my best friends (let's call her Jenna) and I have known each other since the 8th grade. We were in theater together, we worked at the zoo together throughout High School, I sat and listened to her relationship troubles, and she mine. We went to different colleges but reconnected after graduation. I wouldn't say I had strong feelings for her, but they were definitely moments when I thought to myself "why not us?" We never spoke about it but it was probably obvious (women just kind of know these things lol).

Jenna made it pretty obviously though that she did not reciprocate. If we were eating out at a restaurant and the server came & asked "are you together?" (very obviously meaning are you paying together or separately) she would blurt out "no he's not my boyfriend we're just friends." At a wedding she was stumbling around, extremely intoxicated, I go to hold her hand to help her walk and she quickly withdraws her hand. She hugged other people like 30 or 40% longer than me. Basically a lot of moments where she was like "ok we cool, but there is zero chance."

About 5 years ago I had a boss that was honestly life changing. I work in sales, and he came to me and told me very bluntly "i like you, but you will never reach your potential until you drop about 150 lbs". But then he paid for me to see a nutritionist. Paid for crossfit classes. Paid for a cook to send me healthy meals. After 93 very long weeks i dropped 173 lbs, about half my body weight. Work became much easier, I was able to focus more, didn't have to constantly go to my car to change sweaty shirts, so in turn my earning potential skyrocketed. A quick trip to a body Contour surgeon and this was a very different me.

Jenna noticed. And at first i thought it was cool, "holy shit, this awesome girl who knows everything about me is being very overt about her intentions." Then i thought a bit more. Allow me to present some then/now

Then: my mom was sick, in the hospital, Jenna gives me the typical "omg lemme know if you need anything" but never really does anything. Now: my mother is sick and she takes a half day from work to go sit with her. Then: I tell a joke around friends and she doesn't really say anything. Now: I tell literally the exact same joke and she laughs hysterically. She compliments me on my eye color. She posted something on Facebook about how people should marry their best friends and tagged me. She likes literally everything I post on every social media platform, whereas before maybe she liked about 60% of those things. Texts from me that used to get one sentence responses an hour or so later now get paragraphs immediately after I send them.

I get it, if you have a nicer physique and more money, women notice. And I am the last person to imply or assume that being friends with a woman makes me entitled to anything more. But dude, the more I think about it, the more I think that now, she actually treats me like a human being. Maybe we weren't such good friends before. We went out drinking right before quarantine and she kissed me. I returned it, but came home and started crying. I can deal with my parents being nice to me now, they both suck. But this is the one person in the world I thought might actually love me unconditionally, and maybe I was just someone she was friends with before because I did everything for her, was there for her emotionally, financially, spiritually, Etc. I don't know what to do. As things open up now she wants us to go out and do couple type things. I want to tell her that this new interest makes me mad but i don't want to lose a friend. What should i do?

Tl;dr- longtime friend is showing romantic interest after a glow-up, but it has kind of exposed her as a crappy person.

Submitted June 21, 2020 at 03:37PM by mayorshadymaple https://ift.tt/2YkCpzl