arcticanorak

And generally, not in the way that works out either. Honestly, this isn't a situation I'm unfamiliar with since I've know I was aro for essentially all of high school and going well into university. But since I've started university, I've been having an easier time making friends, which means that naturally my friend groups seem to overlap quite a bit and ,, the inevitable keeps happening. For a bit of context, (I'll be using code names since I feel a little weird kind of just talking about them on the internet) my friend Bamboo has had an unrequited crush twice now that have steered well into hyperfixation (we're also both neurodivergent, so I get that part at least) which she has kept me up to date about generally the whole time. On the other side, I have had three separate friends develop a crush on Bamboo that ,, you may have guessed, were not reciprocated either. Overall, most of this has happened in the course of the last year and it was alright until one of my closer friends, Radish, recently told me he had a crush on her as well (which I had been suspecting for a while now, ngl.) And I do enjoy listening to my friends talk about their relationship issues, because it gives me a sense of feeling included even though they do know I'm aroace. I also just like supporting them in general and am genuinely invested in whether things work out or not. It just feels like this time is different,, Not only are Bamboo and Radish two of my closest university friends,, they both act the same way when they're crushing or pining: they fall extremely hard. They're not slow burn kind of people,, they get obsessed and really attached to the other person. And even though knowing I'm genuinely a good friend to both of them,, it kind of makes me feel terrible that maybe Radish has only been wanting to hang out with me so often because Bamboo is around. The way that Radish talks about his crush on Bamboo as well is pretty overt,, not anything explicit it's just intense and really frequent. Which, once again, I understand,, I just feel like I'm getting left behind somehow (and also that history is repeating,, and not for the better. This has *happened* before with the second person who crushed on Bamboo.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that my pining friends are giving me the ol' aro angst: the kind of concept that, even if they're not in a relationship, that their pining is so strong that they'll always be consciously or subconsciously choosing their crush interest over me and I'll get left behind. It's quite funny actually, because I have a lot of friends who are already in a relationship and they've honestly done a better job of making me not feel like the third wheel when I'm hanging out with them. Does anyone have any advice for dealing with this emotionally or maybe similar experiences and how you dealt with it?