Everybody loves a good "friends-to-lovers" story, so I recently asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell me about a time when they revealed they had feelings for a good friend.
The stories did not disappoint. From heart-warming to heart-wrenching, here's what happened when 17 people told one of their best friends they wanted more out of the relationship.
1. "I met this guy at the dog park. We started out just hanging out while the dogs played, and we didn't even know each other's names, but we knew each other by our dogs. This went on for, like, five months. Then, the pandemic happened. I started hiking frequently, and one day, we ran into each other on one of my hikes."
2. "I had been friends with a guy for about three years in college. He was three years older and definitely looked out for me a lot. We spent a lot of time together, and people often asked if there was something going on. One time at a college event, he kissed me out of the blue in front of a lot of people, but we both brushed it off. A couple of months later, it happened again, and we spent the night together (non-sexually but still sleeping in same bed)."
"I started to question if there was something there, and a few days later, when IM-ing him (in the days of MSN messenger), I brought it up and suggested we go out. He said that actually, in retrospect, I was like his little sister. So, yeah, no, that did NOT work out."
3. "I met my now-husband when we worked together at a restaurant 15 years ago, and I was still with my ex-girlfriend. My ex had been unfaithful to me a couple times, but I had taken her back (like an idiot). She cheated again, and I finally broke it off for good. I leaned into my co-worker friend group since she didn't know them, and started hanging with them more, including my now-husband. He and I started hanging out almost daily and even signed a lease on a two-bedroom apartment for the following month, as friends."
4. "We met in high school and became best friends immediately. Everything was platonic until college when we went to a party and saw both of our (recent) exes kissing each other. At the time, we were both still healing from these breakups and felt jealous. We knew our exes felt insecure about our friendship, and in an effort to make them jealous, we decided to make out. The kiss changed everything for us, we couldn’t deny the chemistry we had. We’ve been together ever since."
5. "One day, I walked into a record store crying because of something that happened at work and drama from a situation-ship. This nice, buff guy in scrubs came up and asked if I was okay and offered me a cup of tea from the cafe/bakery next door where his cute boyfriend was working part time. I became good friends with them both. Six months later, on New Year's Eve, the bakery boyfriend got tipsy, kissed me, and then, they both avoided me for two weeks. After that, as a couple, they asked me out. I said yes, and two years later, I married both of them."
6. "I fell in love with my friend at 15 years old. I felt electricity between us just being around him. When I went to college, we were pen pals. When I went to grad school, we would hang out every weekend, even sleeping in the same bed but never being intimate. I never told him how I felt because I knew that he was not ready to commit, and I felt I would lose our friendship. We had sex one time years after grad school, and what I had feared would happen did. He pulled away."
"I got married. Had three children. Twelve years later, my mom was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident. He reached out to me and came to the funeral. It had been 15 years since I saw him. He poured his heart out to me as he never had before — he had grown into a man. When I was cleaning out my mom’s things, I had a true epiphany. I wasn’t happy, life was short, I wanted to be free. I wanted to be in love and be loved. Getting a divorce was so difficult, but he waited for another year until I could get my life going again. He got sober and is a new man. We are now madly in love, and very happily married. He accepted my children and is a wonderful stepfather. Sometimes, I am so sad for all of the years we could have been together, but I know that things were supposed to work out this way."
—Anonymous
7. "I (female) fell in love with a woman I had known for a while but had just started seeing privately. After a couple weeks, I told her I had feelings for her. I felt ashamed and was crying uncontrollably. But I simply couldn’t not say it — I was so in love. She was shocked and wanted to remain just friends. Though I was heartbroken, I really appreciated how I was allowed to be sad about that with her. She didn’t push me away. We talked about it a lot. At first, I hoped her feelings would change. Eventually, my feelings changed. We are now best friends."
8. "I was his and his wife’s personal trainer. I realize how that’s gonna sound, so to start my story, there was NO affair! We were all friends! She stopped showing up to sessions and stopped talking to me. He continued to come to the sessions. This went on for about a year, and he eventually confronted his wife about her overall change in behavior, and she said she wanted a divorce."
"Fast-forward a few months later — he and I began hanging out more (still as friends). Eventually, we realized how much we had in common and said we liked one another. We talked about ethics and values and realized we’re more than compatible. Two years later, he proposed. Then, 10 months later, we were married in a Halloween wedding at a local haunted house. We even made the front page of the paper! It’s crazy how life works out sometimes. I found my person and someone who accepts me for who I am. I mean, clearly, we had a fucking Halloween wedding, lol."
9. "When I was 12, I met a guy at summer camp who I instantly had a crush on. Conveniently, my friend at camp had a crush on his friend, so we'd sneak around and watch them. Given that we were stupid 12-year-olds who had no clue how to manage our feelings, this resulted in a series of spy vs. spy shenanigans, secret codes, and us declaring each other as our mortal enemies at camp. Over the next few years, I still saw him at camp and still had some degree of feelings, but we weren't as engaged in hijinks as we had been that first year. Our last year of camp, when we were 18, we ended up becoming good friends. All the feelings I had had for him over the years were back full force, but I never confessed because we were only there for five days and lived in entirely different states."
10. "We met 10 years ago, but I was in my 'fuckboy era' and not quite what she deserved. We checked in every few years to catch up, but it was never the right timing. Ten years later, we were both going through a pretty difficult time and reconnected, continuing our friendship."
"I shared all about my addiction (I was one year sober at the time), and she shared how her brother was experiencing a similar story. We grew into best friends until suddenly we both realized we wanted more (much more lol). I am currently looking at rings, and we talk daily about our plans for the future and our someday soon-to-be family."
11. "Me and my boyfriend have known each other since we were 7 and 6 years old, respectively. He used to be best friends with my brother, and stayed the night at our place. I was friends with his sister and spent the night with her. He dated one of my friends off and on for years. During our early high school days, we finally admitted to friends we had crushes on each other, but nothing came of it."
12. "My best friend since I was 13 and I basically got along like a house on fire as soon as we met. She didn’t speak English natively, so I helped her with her English homework, and we started writing stories together to practice. Earlier this year, she invited me to a Discord server and forgot that I would be able to see convos from before I joined — namely the ones where she complained about being in love with her best friend for the past few years."
"There was lots of stuff about how she didn’t want to ruin the friendship. So, obviously, I pulled up with the screenshots and asked her about it, haha. We’ve been dating for a couple months now, and I’m pretty hopeful since we’ve been friends for SO long."
13. "We got married and split less than a year later. The man I had been best friends with for over eight years turned out to be an awful husband. He still speaks to my mum and has admitted he was not the man he should have been. He's much different now that he no longer drinks, but I don't have any desire to get back in contact. I thought he would be the one that stuck, but part of me is glad I took the chance since before we married, our relationship was great. He helped me realize I was worth more than I had been accepting."
14. "We were both in our early 20s when we were introduced by a mutual friend. We became fast friends and started hanging out all the time. We were both fresh out of relationships that we were pretty hung up over, so I would help him get ready for dates with new girls, and he would come drag me out of my apartment whenever I was too introverted for my own good. People would always ask if we were dating, but I just never thought either of us felt that way about each other. We did jokingly make a pact that if we were both single in our 30s, we’d just give up and get married. Mind you, he is absolutely gorgeous and comes from an amazing family, so in the off chance that our pact was fulfilled, it wouldn’t be so bad. Surprisingly, though, I just never had a crush on him — he was like a cousin to me."
15. "When I told him I had feelings for him, he told me he didn’t think it was gonna work out between us. After that, I didn't talk to him for a month — I was really heartbroken. He told me he didn’t understand why I wouldn’t talk to him because he thought we would stay friends. That really stuck with me, and I forced myself to start talking to him again."
"Obviously, the chemistry was still there, and we started hanging out again and eventually flirting. I convinced myself I had a chance, and I was right. About a month and a half after he told me it wouldn’t work, we decided to officially try dating. Now, we’ve been together for almost four years and living together for a year and a half. We’ve recently started looking at engagement rings as well."
16. "I watched a puppy for a friend of a friend, and kind of fell in love with the puppy, so I kept up with the owner to hang out every once and a while with the dog. Then, he ended up going away for a month, and I went to his house every Sunday to take his dog to the dog park. His mom was so grateful, and I got along with her really well. Then, when he came back, my tradition of coming over every Sunday kept up, and before we knew it, we were best friends with each other."
17. "It was 2006, and we met under 'strictly platonic' on Craigslist. He was new to my area and looking to meet new people, and I was over dating and just wanted some new friends. He was a few years older than me with a lot of baggage: kids and ex-wives. I was single, never married, and had no kids so I thought friends is all we would be. And that's all we were for six months. We spent almost every day together just hanging out and being cool. No pressure."
"And then, the sexual attraction/tension kicked in. One night, nature took its course. For a few months, we were friends with benefits, but then, we realized we both wanted more and didn't want each other to be with other people. So, we made it official. We were still spending all of our time together, so we eventually moved in together. After that, we moved across the country with each other. And now, in 2023, we've been happily married for 13 years with two great kids, and have been together about 17 years total!"
—Anonymous