Fell in love with best friend... Need to accept that it can't happen between us.

Hi, been browsing this section of reddit and have been resisting the urge to post but here I am now. This will probably be a long post so I thank anyone who takes the time to read this :> It also might not make much sense since my mind is a mess at the moment. (Scroll down for short version)

Some facts about us: -Neither of us have been in a relationship before. (She almost was, but it didn't work out) -We are both very shy. -We haven't really got many other friends. Most have gone off to university or just moved away so contact isn't very often.

I 18m and my best friend is 18f and we are currently in college together (british college). We have been best friends for about 4 years now and we have become very close and we pretty much depend on each other. Our friendship pretty much started in such a way where she was having relationship issues and I was the only person she could trust. (I didn't have feelings for her then) This phase of her trusting me a lot really built up our friendship and became a really nice thing to have and for the years that I have known her we have always had plenty of laughs and never had any arguments or issues until recently.

It wasn't until maybe a year ago where I started having stronger feelings for her (I was unsure of my feeling for her for sometime), I knew it was just me that felt this way so I kept it too myself hoping it would go away which unfortunately they did not. I knew that she saw me as a 'brother' and I didn't want to ruin that but we can't control our feelings can we? Anyway around a month ago she started having feelings for someone else on our course and they have started seeing each other quite a lot and here starts my problems.

We had a long talk and she revealed to me that she liked this guy and I obviously got very upset, I even went as far to reveal my own feelings for her knowing full well that it wouldn't make a difference. I'll admit it was a big relief telling her but that's pretty irrelevant. Her reaction was basically being very surprised, which I totally understood. She then went on to say she doesn't think of me in the same way which I was expecting. I told her that I didn't want this to ruin our friendship and that I would try and move on and hopefully get over her. She told me that she doesn't want to lose me and can't imagine me not being in her life.

Because she is spending a lot of time with this guy. (they aren't official yet) I get really jealous and anxious, my mind just goes crazy thinking of what to do and how to get through this and I just end up feeling depressed and lonely. I really don't want my feelings to get in the way but I think about her all the time and really care about her so getting over her is harder than I thought. We have always been there for each other and have a ridiculous amount of trust with each other, we always tell each other about our problems and we are always there for each other.

I've read multiple posts about people being 'friendzoned' and the main suggestion was cutting contact completely (that's not gonna happen) but I don't think I quite fit into this category. While I would LOVE to be more than friends with her I respect her feelings and I really want to be able to just be her best friend. Losing her is not an option and she has told me many times she doesn't want to lose me either.

SHORT VERSION Fell in love with best friend who likes somebody else, don't want to lose her and want to remain friends but I don't know how to cope.

Basically I just need advice about getting over someone you're in love with but also keeping that friendship strong. I also need to accept that it can't happen between us but I don't know how to.

Sorry again if bits of this don't make sense, my head is all over the place at the moment. So if you have any questions I'll try and answer them as quickly as possible!