The Guy (20M) That I (20F) Was Smitten With For Years Said He Wants to Give A Relationship A Try and I Am Confused

Alright so there’s a lot here, so bear with me.

“Jon” and I met when my parents moved me to private school in 8th grade. We hit it off as friends almost immediately, but I developed a crush on him at some point in 8th grade, and I liked him through 9th grade.

I thought he didn’t like me back (he would talk to me about other girls, treated me platonically, etc) and I forced myself to move on at the beginning of 10th grade because I felt like it was a lost cause and it wasn’t worth the energy, even though I still liked him. I started talking to someone else in our grade “Luke” soon after and he ended up asking me to homecoming and I said yes. I’ve since found out that Jon started liking me the summer after 9th grade and was going to ask me out the day after Luke asked me out, and I wouldn’t have said yes to Luke had I known that. Jon got really jealous of Luke and tried to kiss me at a homecoming after party, but I stopped him because I was Luke’s date. Luke and I dated for 5 months and then I broke up with him because he turned into a pompous ass. Jon and I didn’t really talk while Luke and I were together because he was embarrassed for trying to kiss me and was jealous.

After Luke and I broke up, Jon and I started hanging out again, and sure enough, my crush on him came back (if it ever went away). At the beginning of Junior year, he asked me out and we had a great two months and were happy together, but then I lost my mom suddenly to a car accident. I was a mess after and handled it by shutting down my emotions. I dumped Jon almost immediately because I knew I didn’t have the emotional faculty to be in a relationship. He was understanding, but he definitely felt hurt. My dad put me in therapy soon after to work through my problems, and I attended sessions for a year.

Jon and I didn’t interact very much for the rest of our junior year, but we went back to being friends as senior year went on, but he never made a move because he knew I still wasn’t ready to be in a relationship again.

We ended up at the same college. It is worth noting we didn’t follow each other there; it’s the best state school and rather large, so several high achievers in my class that didn’t want to leave the state ended up there. We went our separate ways once we started college, and while I would see him around campus and occasionally at parties, our social circles hardly overlapped. We had one moment at a party at the beginning of our Freshman year where we kissed a little bit while we were both tipsy, but he stopped it from going further because he didn’t want to rush into a relationship with someone (who he also went to high school with) so early in our Freshman year, which is fair. At this point though, I started getting super frustrated with him and felt like our relationship was very high school/CW show BS and was done with it, and decided it was time to let him go. Soon after this, my roommate set me up with one of her friends “Will” and the two of us hit it off. We were together for nine months and I loved him. It was a great relationship and when I was with him I can say I never thought about Jon romantically once. That, combined with how little I saw him, made me feel like our story was finally done. While I was with Will, one of my friends “Kerry” told me that Jon asked her out and wanted to know if it was okay for her to say yes, I said I was fine with it because I honestly didn’t care.

We are currently Sophomores. Will and I ended up breaking up mutually after nine months this summer because we wanted different things that were irreconcilable. We still cared about each other, but the problem was becoming an ever-larger elephant in the room and we agreed breaking up then would save a much uglier, bitter break up further down the road. I spent the rest of the Summer and the Fall grieving the relationship and wasn’t ready to start dating again (and covid made it kind of hard to find anyone anyways).

Jon and Kerry were still together through the Summer and Autumn and I assumed they were happy. My closest friends are all out of state, so I didn’t get to see them at all over the summer. Jon was one of the only people I knew well who was local and we hung out of few times because I wanted something to do. If my feelings for him ever came back, I suppressed them because he was with Kerry so he was off limits.

I’m home until February right now and I got a text from Jon asking me to go for a walk yesterday. I was bored so I agreed. When we met up, he said there was something important he had to tell me. He explained that him and Kerry broke up a few weeks ago but weren’t telling people. He went on to explain that for the past six years, his love life has always gone back to me, and something has always gotten in the way of us being together. He then said that he didn’t want anymore bs and just wanted to give us a real try. I was taken aback and told him I had to think about it. He said I could take as much time as I need, and we went our separate ways.

Now I’m confused. One part of me feels like I’m getting dragged back into high school/CW BS again and wants to say no. Another part of me wants to give it a try, but I’m also a romantic and I could be letting that cloud my judgment. Intelligent thought tells me the boy you were smitten with for years in your teens isn’t your soulmate, but I keep thinking that if I say no, this could be my biggest “what if?”

Am I being crazy, or should we give it a try?

TL;DR: A guy who I have liked a lot in the past and might still like now said he wants to give a relationship a try, and I don’t know what I want out of it.

Submitted November 29, 2020 at 07:37AM by Summerg202020 https://ift.tt/3oaiPjq