Dear M,

It was never love at first sight. When I had first laid eyes on you I never took any special liking to you. After all, you were two school years below me and I had always known you as “S’ little brother”. That’s all you were to me. The circumstances provided no way for us to develop any sort of relationship with each other. Though in such close proximity within a small educational institution, we belonged to two separate worlds. I knew of your existence but I never gave you much thought. After 2014, everything changed. Your best friend became romantically attracted to me so you started coming around. Then, you and my best friend become romantically attracted to each other as well which led to us spending more time together. These circumstances caused our relationship grow from just mere acquaintances to people who communicate, though not intimately, but regularly. But even then I still felt no unusual attraction towards you. You were my casual friend, my boyfriend’s best-friend and my best-friend’s romantic interest. However, I did begin to notice that you were a cool person and even an awesome person at that.

Then I was informed about what you went through, how it changed your outlook on life and made your soul become darker, I discovered that you did not have the perfect life, nothing was handed to you, you had to work hard to survive and you’re still working hard to make a name for yourself. That is when I first became attracted to you. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever felt. I felt that I could relate to you. I wanted to become close to you. I wanted to be there for you. I wanted to love you. I came to realize more and more what a dark beautiful soul you were and how much I wanted to love that dark soul of yours with every fiber of my being. There was not anything you asked me to do or to give that I would refuse to do or give once I was able to. I wanted to love you the very way that Christ commanded me to love my neighbour.

Unconditionally.

Despite my desire to form a close, loving, intimate relationship with you and despite me trying to show you through my actions that I cared deeply for you, our relationship  remained a distant, casual one for months. But I guess you knew I cared somehow but you just weren’t ready to open up yet. So in the shadows I stood, cheering you on from the sidelines, desiring for you to win, desiring for you to be happy.

And then something happened. Our conversations became longer. You shared a tiny bit more information with me. But still we weren’t there.

Then my birthday came and you messaged me. You held a conversation. We talked for the whole day, our conversations became deep and this continued throughout the summer. Finally we were close friends and I was able to tell you how I feel about you, how I was drawn to you and felt the need to be by your side, caring for you and supporting you. My love for you drew stronger and more intense, you became my top priority and could even be considered my guy best-friend. But at the height of our friendship we were now separated, you went to 6th form (A-levels) and I had just left 6th form at our Alma Mater to attend the University of the West Indies so we had to wait a few months until school had ended to see each other again. We were no longer hanging out as a group but as a trio (me and your best-friend broke up but you and my best-friend were still infatuated with each other after a whole year) and we met up at her house. For the first time, I really held you. After months of being emotionally intimate, we were now also physically close. I felt so safe and peaceful with you. I have never felt more joy and euphoria when lying in someone’s arms as I have felt while in yours. You make me feel alive.

I felt torn between you and my best-friend because you two both wanted different things and I knew you both can only be happy apart from each other. It was hard to please both of you. My best-friend decided she was going to stop waiting for you and move on. And you were left with only me by your side.The same way I was left with only you by my side after your best-friend broke up with me. Maybe we were meant to be constant. So I’ll be here as your queerplatonic partner, as your anime marathon buddy, your cuddle buddy and whatever you need me to be (except your smash buddy lol… unless we talking Super Mario Bros).

I want to do life with you. I want to live with you in a nice little house, somewhere quiet, so I can see you and be with you everyday. Luckily, you agreed to this idea. Me and you, in a committed, non-romantic partnership. And the struggle with being both aromantic sexual and Christian is that in order to fulfill my desire for sex, I need to get married. But my love for you even has me thinking that I should remain celibate, because getting married in an amatonormative culture can really mess with our arrangement.

I’m in love with you. And you don’t have to be alarmed at me saying this because you know what I mean. For me, there is no experience of romantic love, I’m aromantic. For me, love is love, there is no romantic vs platonic love. For me, love is unconditional, love is an action, love is a choice. And I choose to be by your side forever. I love you M and no matter what I always will.

Yours sincerely,

Your nonromantic love

& possibly 1st girl to have a squish on you