A friend I used to hang out with every week once confessed his feelings for me, which I didn't reciprocate. I wanted to stay friends, didn't see why we couldn't, we had been friends the whole time without any romance, why did that have to change? but he decided to stop hanging out with me.
I was heartbroken and felt tossed aside. I didn't understand why our friendship wasn't worth anything to him if he couldn't have me romantically or sexually. I felt betrayed and dehumanised, like I didn't matter to him as a person but only as a romantic prospect.
When I told other friends about it, to my surprise they all sided with him. "He is heartbroken, it's hard to get rejected" even my THERAPIST said this. It's not like I didn't empathize with him, but wasn't I rejected too? No one else could see that but me, they placed me as some sort of villain that had power over him in that situation, when all I did was set a boundary between friendship and romance. All I did was not consent to the terms he wanted for our relationship, I rejected them, my terms were different and he rejected those.
I've had my heart broken by friends over and over and it hurt the same, if not more, than any romantic heartbreak. Why is friendship undervalued next to romantic feelings?
To be honest, to this day I'm still pissed that no one sided with me on this. There's so much unraveling that needs to get done around how we view different relationships in our lives, and I feel like most people can't even scratch the surface when it comes to this questioning.
