my friends keep falling in love with each other

[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?

[MondoBilby]

I've had a similar experience with both my friends. They both got into relationships and I just felt like I was being ignored. I felt like that the most with my best friend Snake (code name), who is very important to me. Because I'm aro, I see friendships as the most important non-familial relationship, but my friends are allo and romance is just automatically more important or "special" to them. I do sometimes get the assumption that I'm being ignored or something, but Snake puts in a lot of effort to hang out with me, and I'm also well aquainted with his partner which helps. I just stayed positive about it, and I can tell Snake really cares about me. There was a lot more tension with my other friend though, because none of us really liked his girlfriend and he was quite obsessed with her. Things have calmed down recently though, which is nice.

Here's some advice from my own experiences:

I would try to keep a positive outlook about it. I completely understand your assumptions, as I have had them myself, but I've learnt that those assumptions just caused me unnecessary anxiety when in reality my friend wasn't ignoring me at all. I don't know your friends (duh) so I have no idea how obvious it may be that they're leaving you out or only hanging out with you to see their crushes, but  it's no use to worry about something you're not even fully sure is real. Maybe try to talk to your friends about how you feel if you think they'd understand. Otherwise, just go with the flow and see what happens.