Did my Lesbian friend have feelings for me?

From the moment we (29M and 28F) first met at my former work place I remember just being taken aback by her eyes. I kept holding eye contact with her purely because I just couldn’t get enough of looking at them and, to my surprise, she often held that same eye contact back. It felt like she was enjoying it as much as I was. Like we both didn’t really want to stop looking into each other’s eyes.

Time passed and we got to know each other more and more and we’d just talk and joke around and there were several times where I’d foolishly compliment her and think, “Oh shit, I just crossed a line. She’s my coworker.” But she’d just smile, act flattered, even jokingly flick her hair and, in a manner that seemed a little flirtatious, say thank you. She always seemed very happy with the compliments. Feel free to judge me but I’d sometimes just test the waters and make them fairly often and it never once got anything but a very happy reaction. Smiling, blushing, thanking me and sometimes it genuinely seemed like it picked her up at that moment or something. Nothing ever raunchy or weird, though. Just telling her she looked great that day, complimenting how smart her outfit looked or saying hair looked nice or often even telling her she was great at her job which she absolutely is! Eventually she invited me to hang out with her outside of work and I really enjoyed her company. We became thick as thieves pretty fast after that. Her, me and my cousin who also worked with us. But he was in a relationship and would often ditch us so it would often wind up being just us and I noticed she’d invite just me at times as well. Movie nights at her house and cinema nights every Tuesday after work for months.

I still remember this one time in the midst of all this where she came to my section of the office to say good morning, something she often did and she said, “Hey, youuu!” Reached toward me with her hand and tapped me right on the nose with her index finger, squishing my nose a bit as she did so. The old man I worked next to gave us a puzzled look like he thought something was going on between us. That was the first time I seriously wondered if she liked me. The prolonged eye contact and her liking all the compliments I paid her made me wonder too but who knows? I figured some people just like holding eye contact and being complimented. And I didn’t make too much of the morning visits as she did the same thing with my cousin whom she’d known for longer and sometimes one or two other people, but I’ll admit she was visiting me like that maybe within less than a month or so of knowing me.

We kept hanging out all the time and eventually Ramadan came around and I’m of a Muslim background and try to practice so I was fasting the entire month and one night our plans were a bit chaotic and I wound up coming over for a movie night around Iftar (fast breaking meal) time but I didn’t even tell her it was Iftar time or what Iftar was about and figured I’d eat some tiny snacks, drink some water and prepare myself a proper meal at home after I left her house later that night. But, to my surprise, I show up at her place and she’s made me a full course meal for Iftar and not just that but a meal that adhered to a particular diet I’ve been on for years. And keep in mind that it wasn’t even some prior plan that I’d be at her place when I was. She knew maybe an hour or so in advance and just got all that together and they were really thoughtful meals. I was shocked and so thankful.

She’s a very thoughtful person by nature and would do thoughtful things for other friends like my cousin so I didn’t make too much of it but we hung out one on one so often and it surprised me when she more than once told me that Friday night was “my night” and that she’d reserved it for me as our movie night on top of Tuesday nights also being when we’d go to the cinema together every week after work. People in our office seemed to notice and some wondered if we were a couple and, funnily enough, a conversation with one coworker revealed to me that she was gay. Coworker was confused at our vibes because she knew she was gay. I must have known her almost half a year when I found this out. I was surprised given some of our interactions but all this really did was convince me that I guess she really was just nice and liked me a lot as a friend.

But then she just kept being sweet in ways that would surprise me. One time it was finally summer so I didn’t really wear jackets or hoodies and forgot to bring one when we went out to the cinema and it was pretty cold and I remarked on that but pushed through. We didn’t wind up going to the cinema the week after but did the week after that, so 2 weeks later and right before we got to the theater I realized I hadn’t brought a hoodie or jacket again and was like, “Ah, damn it! I forgot to bring a jacket!” Only for her to pull a hoodie out of her bag that she’d gotten specifically for me because she remembered what had happened 2 weeks prior. I was stunned and just blurted out, “Can I actually marry you?!” And to my surprise she turned beet red, smiled wide, just giggled for a while and changed the subject.

She isn’t an affectionate person by nature and is a bit of a germaphobe with OCD she’s medicated for but I’ve noticed that when she drinks during a few of our movie nights or when we’d go clubbing she’d get weirdly more touchy. I even pointed it out and she acknowledged it. This one time I remember she was seated on the armrest of her couch and I was on the edge by the armrest and she kept purposely falling on me and looking me in the eyes as she did it. One more night after this when she was a bit tipsy I remember this interaction that always sticks with me because I wonder if I just imagined it. We were watching a movie on her couch when we got to talking and made strong eye contact for a bit as we often did and I could have sworn that she began to look at my lips and it seriously felt like we were about to kiss until she very suddenly turned the other way and started talking about something random like, “Anyway….”. I still wonder if that was some weird hallucination on my part. But she’d be a bit touchy maybe one or two other times whilst at least tipsy. This one fairly recent time I had been getting into pretty good shape and had developed visible abs and had shown her, then weeks later myself, her, my cousin, and his girlfriend were celebrating his birthday and discussing costumes for Halloween when she remarked that I should go as this ripped character from a film we’d watched together and that my cousin and his girlfriend were familiar with and, well, to demonstrate that I’d supposedly fit the part she just suddenly grabs my T-shirt, lifts it up and shows my cousin and his girlfriend my abs. I still remember the flabbergasted but thankfully amused looks on their faces.

But by these points I knew she was gay so it all had to be nothing. Nevertheless, we’d just always hangout one on one and basically behave like a couple in everything but name and intimacy. Most people seemed to assume we were a couple until we pointed out we weren’t. She’d sometimes make funny remarks like, “I make the decisions in this relationship.” Or I’d jokingly say she was my work wife and we were a lot like a couple or compare us to couples and she’d never remotely push back. There were even a couple of times where I remember someone assumed we were together and she didn’t even bother to correct them.

And on her being gay I did find it interesting that she almost never referred to herself as gay or a lesbian. Took almost a year to even hear her use the terms, but when we finally talked about it one night after a weekend day where we ran around town together from like 12PM to 3AM I asked when she knew and she said she didn’t actually know until she was in college. She actually tried to date or kiss guys in high school but said she just didn’t feel anything with them then she tried with women in college and it got a reaction out of her then she just seemed to figure she was always gay. She’d also, at this point, had never been in an actual relationship with anyone, man or woman. Other than that, one thing that really stuck with me from this interaction was that she remarked that she’d always have guy friends and was a bit of a tomboy as a kid and that the guys would get crushes eventually when they were teenagers and that these were the one to three guys she’d try to date or kiss and when she said the part about them having crushes she looked into my eyes and it felt almost like she was aware I had feelings for her and was perhaps telling me she didn’t feel that way.

I have to admit I did fall for her. If I’m honest with myself, it’s through her that I get what people are on about when they say they felt this electric pull toward someone the moment they met them. The instant eye contact across the room and all that. But her looks, as absolutely gorgeous as she is, are just window dressing compared to how wonderful of a human being she is. How thoughtful and kind she is, how domineering and independent. She’s the second daughter among 4 siblings with a younger brother and sister and yet she’s basically the leader of the lot and herds her siblings around. Even gave her elder sister a bit of a complex as a result. A born leader if I’ve ever met one. She’s always on top of her work and so organized and intelligent and when we watch films together I must say I’ve never met someone who always seems to have this tendency to notice things I didn’t. We’ll finish watching a show or film and she’ll have this completely different and out of left-field perspective on it and we’ll get very argumentative and spirited and even raise our voices a bit but it never gets disrespectful and if anything we kinda laugh at each other. I adore watching anything with her just to have those discussions with he after.

And the thoughtfulness! I can’t emphasize it enough! One time myself, my cousin and another friend of ours went on a cross country trip with her to meet her mother and stepfather and she took the time to prepare little trip bags for us filled with little games and snacks to keep us comfortable during the trip and got each of us blankets and some other things I can’t even remember because she just pulls out so many stops. And the way she is with her dog… she has a nanny cam for it! I used to see her smiling at her her phone while at her work-desk sometimes and asked her what was so amusing and she’d show me her dog lounging around in the living room. She wants to have children someday and you can just tell she’d make a wonderful mother in so many ways. I’d always joke to her that whoever married her someday was truly blessed and that would always make her smile.

I do love her, from head to toe and inside out. I even love her dog so much and she loves me right back. Gets so excited whenever I’m around, but it dawned on me eventually and especially after that “crushes” interaction that I just turned 30 and do want to settle down and start having children over the next few years and, well, she found me at a transitional point in my life where I could afford to just take it slow and not concentrate on relationships. But now I didn’t really see the point in putting all of my time and energy into a friendship that would never become something romantic. I mean, I’m still her good friend to this day and we hangout sometimes but I just felt like what we were doing where our Tuesday nights, Friday nights, Saturdays and sometimes even our Sundays were dedicated entirely to each other was just not sustainable if I wanted to wind up in a relationship with someone so I got more serious about meeting someone and eventually met someone wonderful and began seeing her.

She noticed me hanging out with her less and less and didn’t want to be pushy but would keep asking me what I was doing on the weekends which I didn’t realize at the time was, according to her, her way of asking if I wanted to hangout without being pushy. Though there were a few times where she would just decide we were hanging out one day and be like, “See you then.” Or tease me into joining her and my cousin like, “Look at him! Too busy for us now.” But I just kept going out with my now girlfriend and not as much with her or them and it was interesting how things progressed in that my girlfriend has the same name as her younger sister (26-27) and they even look similar, oddly enough, so we both pointed this out one night when I was out with her, my cousin and his girlfriend for the cuzzo’s birthday and somehow we got around to joking about me dating her sister and she said, “I’d hate that!” And when I asked why she said, “I’d be so jealous! Because now she’d be your best friend.” I didn’t really know what to do with that and just chuckled. Keep in mind, funnily enough, that this was the same night she got a little tipsy and showed my cousin and his girlfriend my abs.

I just moved on, kept her as a good friend and focused on my girlfriend whom I truly do love and adore. Just an all around wonderful, adorable, lovable and incredible human being I want to squish just from thinking about her right now. But, funnily enough, my friend didn’t even give it a couple of weeks after asking to meet my girlfriend to suddenly wind up in a relationship herself. Whole time I knew her I always found it curious that she never really went on dates at all or brought up any romantic interests when I sometimes did early on until I mostly just stopped and got wrapped up in our friendship. Even more curious? When I asked her what sparked the change she said she felt “Left out” when she met my girlfriend and we all had a movie night with my cousin and his girlfriend. “You were with her and your cousin was with his girlfriend and even my dog went to be with you two and I just felt left out.” I then remarked that up until then she and I often made a pair whenever we’d be doing something with couples and she agreed and I guess that was not possible anymore.

I found it interesting because she was kinda thick as thieves with my cousin before he met his girlfriend yet she didn’t go out and date anyone when he met his girlfriend, even a while before I came along yet when I find someone she immediately rushes into finding someone? I further found it interesting that she integrated the young lady she’s seeing into a crossword game she and I played together everyday. Sort of our daily workday ritual at around 2PM. One day she beat me then said she can forfeit the win because the girl she’s seeing was helping her and I was slightly annoyed, mostly because it was our thing and that was obviously cheating. Now she has her partner play it with us adjacently. Not helping her but competing with both of us. Surprised me how she suddenly threw someone into a tradition we’ve kept to the two of us for many months and that person just so happens to be the person she’s dating.

And, as I said prior, her relationship does feel rushed. I took my time with my girlfriend. Didn’t even make it official until 2-3 months in or so. Yet she pretty much made it official with this young lady she’s seeing within about 3 weeks. But I do hope it works out, truly. Yet, that aside I’m left wondering to this day if there was ever anything really there between us despite her sexual orientation. Does it read like that to anyone?

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TL;DR: Got super close with a gay former coworker who acted very affectionate and couple-like with me for a long time, I developed feelings, but only realized she was attracted to women later. I decided to move on and not put so much time into our friendship. When I got a girlfriend, she seemed jealous and rushed into a relationship fast. Now I’m happy with my partner but still wonder if there was some emotional “more than friends” thing going on with my friend, even if not romantic.