Reddit Stories - UNREQUITED Devotion_ My Years-Long OBSESSION With an UNATTAINABLE Friend_

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #unrequitedlove #obsession #friendship #heartbreakSummary: Delve into the emotional turmoil of unreciprocated love as a person recounts their years-long obsession with a friend who remains out of reach, leading to heartbreak and self-discovery.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, unrequitedlove, obsession, friendship, heartbreak, unattainable, emotions, personalgrowth, unrequiteddevotion, love, relationships, unattainablecrush, unreciprocatedfeelings, emotionaljourney, selfdiscoveryBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. I harbored deep feelings for my closest companion for a couple of years despite his lack of reciprocation. Following a period of emotional distress and reflection, I suddenly cut off all communication with him and my social circle. To be frank, this decision was necessary for my well-being. It's pretty straightforward. We met about two years ago and I instantly crushed on the guy.

I honestly thought our first few nights out were dates, up until the point of he went on a rant about a girl he had a crush on after a few beers. At that point, my thought process was pretty much oaky, not dates, got it and moved on with the intent of friendship. Except, funny thing, turns out he checks all my boxes. I've never gotten along with anyone this well. People are shocked to find out, or well, not anymore. But up until about a year after we became friends, we haven't known each other for years and years. We have the same human. We have the same human. like the same games and TV shows, agree on politics, want the same things in life, all well enough to get along, but still with enough differences that we can have conversations about it.

We discover bands together, we help each other with work and writing papers, I call them when I'm sad and we both think it feels weird to not see each other for a week. Problem is, I'm completely head over fucking heels in love with the man and it is starting to get to the point where I don't know what to do. I thought it'd go away, but every time I meet him it's like I'm falling all over again. My friends have gone from teasing me about it to shooting me pitying looks whenever his name is brought up. My sister wants me to just stop seeing him. I go a week without talking to him and I think I'm starting to get over it, but whenever I see him again, it all comes rushing back. I don't know what to do. It hurts and it's not fun anymore. I've been

on dates with some amazing guys who liked me, but my feelings for my friend is stopping me from falling for someone else. It's starting to feel pathetic and at this point I see no good option. He's my best friend, the best I've ever had, and I just don't want to lose him. At this point I think asking him out would achieve that, since it's been so long since we met. I know the only way, for me personally, to get over someone is to stop seeing them. But I don't want to lose my best friend. The finishing touch keeping me on the hook are these looks he gives me. I've had other friends confirm he does this, because I was honest to God starting to think I was losing my fucking mind. Whenever we're out in a group, at a party or the pub, whenever I look over at him, it seems he's

always looking at me. And these eye contacts last way too long to be normal. Like, a good six, seven seconds of us just looking at each other across the table, or the room, or the bar. And he does this little smile. I've never seen it on him in any other situation. I don't know what it means. I have no idea why we do this or how it came to be. But it's the final fucking nail in this coffin of hopelessness I'm buried in right now. I don't know if I'm crazy and over-interpreting things, which is very likely, or if I should just give it a shot and ask him out, even though it might ruin the friendship, or just stop seeing him, or to just carry on and hope this feeling goes away at some point of the distant future. I'm so frustrated I want to cry, and have cried.

A lot. I just don't know what to do here. Update, November 13th, 2024. So, hello. I made a post on this looking for advice on how to handle my incredibly painful unrequited love for my best friend. I'd honestly forgotten about this until making a password reset on another account. But as I read through the post, I remember how very comforting and terrifying the responses to my post was, being a more or less unanimous ask him out that scared my asses. to death. Sorry that this isn't really a happy update, but, I don't know. It felt weird seeing something I wrote in what feels like a different life, and the people who responded seemed so genuinely kind and trying to help. I feel like I weirdly owe some kind of update,

especially for that one, dear, sweet commenter whose account is now deleted. I so wish I'd have a way to reach out to them. Because that was one of the most thoughtful comments I think I've ever gotten. And just to recap, with hindsight, I really, really was in love with this man and I had been for about two years. Like, full nine yards in love. Struggling to breathe when he talked about someone else but still cheering him on because he deserved happiness levels of in love. If that sounds a bit like obsession to you, then that's because it probably was.

The thing about unrequited love, the thing that really sucks about it, is that it's incredibly hard to move on from. but until you do move on, your brain keeps obsessing about it to the point where it can be impossible to get anything done. It had been two years of that when I made that post, two years of pining and pain and an ever-growing pile of crushed hopes, and I think I was going a little bit insane, constantly swinging between butterflies and love highs when I was with my friend and the crushing feeling of rejection every time he'd say goodbye. And the obsession over things like how long he'd look at me, how long he'd let a hug last, how fast he'd respond to my texts, things which

could either make or break my entire day depending on what the answer was. On to the actual update, after that primer. About a month and a half or so after I made that post, still trying to hike myself up to actually ask this man out, I accidentally became a head organizer for an event at the university I was studying at for the moment. Long story short, the person managing me was not kind, I was extremely overworked from the event on top of writing a thesis. I was equally stressed out in my private life due to the whole situation with my best friend, and I ended up going through a pretty severe case of burnout.

Add on to everything that I developed an addiction to alcohol to try to handle everything, and was also experiencing what was most likely a drug-induced paranoid psychosis. And I was a mess. I ended up moving back in with my dad in September, and spent about a year doing nothing but sleeping, crying, playing Skyrim and going to rehab and therapy. Start of 2021, I went back to school and slowly recovered. I've been sober since 2020, the paranoia hasn't completely gone away, but it's more manageable. I used to think my landlord listened to me through a radon measurement device, and at least that's over. And I think I've got a work-life balance figured out that helps me not overwork myself or go into free time lethargy

because I've got too much time off. It was long and painful, but I did it. If you're a wondering where my best friend was in all of this, I honestly don't know. I went back to look at our text messages, and from what I can see he tried to call me a few times in early September, I didn't respond, and then nothing until around Christmas when he wondered if I wanted to meet up sometime. I said yes, and then never followed through. He hasn't texted me since January 4th, 2020. Now, to be clear, I don't blame him for not reaching out more. My non-responding is what killed that friendship. I know, because it also killed every other friendship I had at the time. I don't know, alcohol addiction, deep depression and crippling paranoia may be a fair explanation

to one day stop responding to any of your friends, but I still deeply regret those choices. If I were to make a Relationships post today, it would be on how the fuck you word an apology after behavior like that, five years down the road. Sorry. I feel like this is starting to become a journal. I'm going to stop my reflections there. So, about my love for my best friend, with some years of hindsight and therapy behind me, I don't think I was in love with him. I think I was in love with the idea of him, and I think I was obsessed for sure, but looking back, I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think a part of me really liked the fact that this was a person who so clearly wasn't interested in me, genuinely, if he was, that would shock me to find out.

because he spent two and a half years ignoring the in hindsight very obvious attempts I made to deepen the relationship. Some examples include him saying he's waiting for the right person, me responding sometimes I feel like I already have. Do you ever feel like that? And him going, nah, I don't think so, me following that up with maybe you just don't know. The heart is weird sometimes in him going I'm pretty sure I'd know. One time we talked about why people fall in love, and I genuinely tried to convince him a deep friendship was all you needed. While he insisted that there needed to be a level of sexual attraction as well, I tried to get him to do that 36 questions that will make you fall in love thing with me, I kept trying to find excuses to hold his hand. Rest in peace, my palm reading career,

you were nothing but a thinly veiled attempt at finger touching, and him resolutely never going along with it, ditto, but with hugs, arm touching, and sitting. just a little too close whenever we went out so I could hear him better, which he normally responded to by going we should go outside so you can hear better if it's too loud in here. Very thoughtful, but very much not what the goal was. One night, when we were alone in my apartment after a club event, after a particularly long shared look, I asked him what he was thinking about and that kind of I don't want to break the illusion soft voice you put on when you're really fucking close to someone you like. And his response was, I don't know if I agreed that Gertz's metaphor

about blinking makes that much sense, actually, for context, we'd bickered about that earlier in the night, since we just read some article about it in class. I did not expect it to make a comeback at that point. Another night, when we were out together and there had been a lot of looks and closely leaned and laughing together, and he pulls me to one side by the hand to talk to me about something, heart racing. Only to ask me if I know if one of my friends is single because he thinks she's really fucking cute and might have been looking at him all night looking back. At least some of this stuff is sort of funny. I have no idea if he knew or knows now that I was in love with him.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of my old friends eventually told him, but of course he's never reached out about it. But yes, I think I kind of like the security of this person who clearly didn't like me back. Not that I was doing well with a heartache, but there's a certain kind of fucked up comfort that comes from pining for someone who doesn't want you back. Like, the highs I'd get when I got something that felt like confirmation made up for the lows of crying in my apartment stairway when I got home after a denial. Today, I mostly just feel so bad for him and ashamed of myself.

Regardless of whether he knew or not, and I'm trying to cling to the fact that he seemed to at least continue wanting to be friends as some indicator that he never felt creeped out or uncomfortable. My behavior was pretty fucking creepy. and in the end, once I did get that distance between us, the feelings went away after some six months or so. My therapist recommended not meeting this person again, for my own sake, and by early 2020 I wasn't so painfully in love anymore. A while later I'd end up meeting a guy I clicked with just as much, who actually liked me back and showed it. We've been together

for almost three years now, and are talking about starting to try for kids at some point soon. He'd like us to get married first, but is also insisting he wants to be the one to propose, so I'm just walking around waiting for the day. Even if it's not a huge surprise or secret, he just wants to get that moment of going down on one knee, and who am I to deny him? I'm slowly growing old and boring. I'm sober, I go to my boring, stable, middle career nine, two five job, I save for my retirement and traveling on the summers.

I help my dad out on his farm, I crush my job. little animals for my newborn niece. I come home to a man who plays his silly video games, I play my silly video games, we go for walks into the museum and bicker about whether to get fat on takeout or not. I have some regrets about how my early 20s ended up playing out, but by God, I wouldn't want to go back. Next story, daughter wanted to live with her deadbeat bio-mom who abandoned her, so I cut off her college fund. A week later she discovered her mom stole $10,000 from her. Hello everyone. I'm a single dad to my 18-year-old daughter, Emma. Her bio-mom left us when she was young, and I've raised her with the help of my wife, who has been a wonderful mother figure.

Recently, Emma started reconnecting with her bio-mom, and I initially supported this, hoping it would be a positive experience. However, it quickly became apparent that her bio-mom hadn't changed. Emma began making excuses for her and started exhibiting increasingly hostile behavior toward my wife. She would say things like, maybe I'll just move in with my mom and leave you both behind, and you're not my real mom anyway, so what do you care? It escalated to threats where she implied she would ruin our lives if we tried to stop her from pursuing this relationship. During a heated argument, Emma expressed her desire to move in with her bio mom. This was the breaking point for me.

Feeling that I needed to set boundaries, I decided to cut off her college fund and told her she had to leave our home. Since then, my family has been vocal about their disapproval. They believe I should have been more understanding and that I overreacted. Some even argue that I'm pushing her further away and harming our relationship permanently. They think I should have tried harder to support her rather than resorting to such drastic measures. I'd have for taking this step, or was I justified in cutting her off? Update 1, thanks to everyone who commented on my original post.

I didn't expect to have an update so quickly, but a lot has happened in just the past few hours. About five hours after I posted, I got a message from Emma asking if we could meet up. She suggested a nearby coffee shop, and although I was unsure of what to expect, I agreed to meet her. When I arrived, I could tell right away that something was different. Emma looked exhausted and stressed, not at all like the confident person who left our home. She told me that her time with her biomomom had been a disaster. Not only had her mom treated her coldly, but she also demanded an exorbitant amount of money

for rent, far more than Emma could afford. It became clear to Emma that her mom wasn't interested in having a real relationship with her, just in using her for financial gain. Emma was visibly upset as she apologized for the way she had treated me and my wife. She admitted that she'd made a huge mistake and asked if she could come back home. It was obvious she was genuinely remorseful, and she said she realized now how much we had done for her. I told her that I'm willing to work on rebuilding our relationship, but it's going to take time and effort on both sides. We discussed setting some boundaries and working through the issues that led to all of this in the first place.

She agreed, and we left the coffee shop with a plan to move forward, one step at a time. It's not going to be an easy road, but I'm hopeful that we can heal from this and come out stronger on the other side. I'm still processing everything, but I'm relieved that Emma wants to make things right. Update 2, hey everyone, I've got another update, and things have gotten even more intense since my last post. A day after Emma and I reconciled, her bio-mom showed up at our house. I didn't expect her to come here, but she was furious, screaming about how I had taken her daughter away and how I was trying to turn Emma against her. She was completely out of control, and it quickly became clear that she wasn't going to leave

peacefully. I tried to calm her down, but nothing worked, so I had no choice but to call the cops. When the police arrived, Emma was visibly shaken. As they escorted her mom away, Emma asked me to press charges. She was done with her mom's manipulations and wanted to protect herself from any further harm. While we were dealing with the fallout, Emma mentioned that her bio-mom had access to her credit card. We decided to check her account, and that's when we discovered something shocking. Her mom had taken out $10,000 without Emma's knowledge.

We were both stunned and heartbroken. After reporting the theft to the police, we started doing some digging of our own. We found out that Emma's bio-mom was drowning in debt. She'd been using Emma as a financial lifeline, which explained the outrageous demands for rent and the recent theft. She was desperate and willing to do anything to get her hands on more money. We provided all the evidence to the police, and they're now investigating her for fraud. Emma is devastated but also relieved that the truth is coming to light. We're working with the bank to try to recover the stolen money, and I've hired a lawyer to help us

navigate the legal process. This whole situation has been incredibly tough on Emma, but she's been strong through it all. We're focusing on moving forward and rebuilding trust. I'm grateful that she came back home when she did because who knows how much worse things could have gotten if she'd stayed with her mom any longer. It's going to take time to heal from all of this, but we're on the right path now. Emma knows she has our full support, and we're committed to helping her get through this. I'm just glad we caught on to what was happening before it was too late. Comments where Op. On his wife's role in his daughter's life as a stepmom slash maternal figure. Boop. My wife has been her maternal figure ever since she was three so she has a say in it and also

the bio mom has never raised a finger in raising. I raised her and always gave her what she wanted to a certain extent though. Commenter one, Udi you are in your feelings and not being understanding and a parent. You are upset because she's rejecting your wife. You are disregarding her feelings when she says you loved your wife more instead of asking why does she feel like that. You may think your wife is this great person but she may not be to your daughter. You're protecting your wife because your daughter is rejecting her. Allow her space to navigate that relationship. W. her mom without you punishing her.

Oop, I have seen firsthand how my wife treats my daughter. To be exact, she did all the work for my daughter as my wife is sterile and would help in Holiday H.W. Maths and even hug her and my daughter would always praise her when I asked her if she had any problems with her comment or two. Yes, you are being petty. She's an adult now and she wants to establish a relationship with her mom. For you to punish her for choices that have nothing to do with her college education is incredibly irresponsible and makes you just as bad as her mom. Oop, her mom abandoned her and never looked back until she was 18 obviously am compelled. Commenter 3, just let her figure out that her bio-mom is a piece of shit that's the best way to go about it. Update 3, September 24th, 2024. Hey everyone, I've got another update, and this one has been extremely difficult for our family. After we pressed charges and discovered the theft of $10,000 from Emma's credit card, her bio-mom started harassing us non-stop.

It started with constant phone calls and text messages, both to me and Emma, begging, demanding, and threatening us to drop the lawsuit. She even began showing up at our workplaces. At my office, she caused a scene, screaming at the receptionist to let her in, calling me a thief and claiming I was ruining her life. Emma's job wasn't spared either.

Her bio-mom went there too, embarrassing her in front of her coworkers and even threatening to expose personal details about our family if we didn't drop the charges. We tried to block her out, but things came to a head when she showed up at our house again. This time, she was even more out of control. She started screaming and calling my wife all kinds of vile names, including a nasty whore, claiming she had stolen Emma from her. We tried to get her to leave, but she refused. And then it happened, she physically attacked my wife. She shoved her into a wall and started hitting and scratching her. Emma and I were in complete shock. My wife was just trying to defend herself, but her bio-mom kept

coming at her. Seeing my wife terrified and hurt was my breaking point. I immediately called the cops. When the police arrived, they arrested her for assault. My wife is now traumatized from the incident. She's been struggling with anxiety and can't sleep well, knowing that she was physically attacked in her own home. She's seeing a therapist to try to deal with the emotional scars left from this nightmare. Emma is devastated too. She never imagined her bio-mom would go this far, and seeing her attack my wife has left her shaken. We're doing everything we can to support each other, but the impact has been immense. Now, with her biomomom in custody and facing multiple charges, including assault and harassment, we're hoping we can finally find some peace.

It's hard to believe how far this situation has escalated, but I'm glad that, at least for now, we're safe from further harassment. We'll be taking legal steps to ensure a restraining order is in place moving forward. This has been a painful chapter for my family, but we're determined to get through it together. Thank you again for all your support during this time. It's been a lifeline for us.