Conversation starters

CuriousCathy

CuriousCathy

Member
Hi folks, I’ve been mulling over my thoughts on (excellent) feedback here after posting my story as a blog entry the other day.

Short summary:
I/Cathy, a hetero female, in a long stable marriage to Edgar (hetero male),
have recently developed a deep crush on Heathcliff (male, bi) - close platonic friend of long standing.
I am now torn between confessing vs not confessing to Heathcliff out of fear of blindsiding him and destroying the friendship. Edgar is aware that there has been a change, open to idea of ENM (discussed over 5 year period, so not something I’ve just thrown on him), generally supportive of whatever I decide.

I need to explore several scenarios in my head of how such a confession could play out and get comfortable with them before I can decide how to proceed.

Problem: Unusually for me, I seem to be unable to imagine conversation starters for such a confession.

If you have been in my shoes or similar - how did you admit your crush to the person you were crushing on and what happened after?
 
Hello Cathy,

I don't think there's any easy way to confess a crush, you just have to say, something like, "Can I confess something to you? I am kind of starting to have feelings for you. I hope that doesn't hurt our friendship."

Those are my thoughts, hopefully others will chime in.
Kevin T.
 
I know you are a long distance away from Heathcliff. Do you mostly text, do phone calls or video calls, or what?

Is there a reason to tell him about your crush before you actually have plans to see him again? What would that reason or reasons be?

I just think there isn't a big rush to "confess" before another visit is quite imminent. Like, if you want to have sex with him on that visit, you should tell him about it a month or two before the visit so that he has time to decide if he'd want to do that. I think he's mono though, and has a gf, so there's no point in telling him you want his body, unless you think that him knowing that would make him go Hallelujah and break up with his mono gf. (Something similar actually happened to me way back when I was 19 or so haha.)
 
Thank you, @kdt26417 and @Magdlyn for your thoughts!

There is zero rush to confess. I feel I need to imagine various possible permutations of that conversation. I often preconstruct dialogues in my head if I’m faced with a tricky situation so that I can think through as many options as possible upfront. I think it’s a relic from language learning but I still find it helpful.

Anyway, my dialogue-building imagination has been letting me down this time so I asked for help here 😁 I haven’t had a full-on crush on anyone (the odd spark yes, but nothing this deep-seated and pervasive) since the crush on my husband >20 years ago. And Edgar confessed first so I’ve never had to start the conversation myself before 😅

Barring dire emergencies, Heathcliff and I are unlikely to see each other for about a year. Possibly longer, depends on our work projects /etc.


When we are not seeing each other we message. We video call when the stars align (timezones + work patterns + weekend plans tend to interfere). When we video call, it’s usually my whole family participating because that’s what we do. If it gets really long between conversations, we’d sometimes call each other when either/both of us are at work and can talk but video calling would be weird in the work environment.

So if this ever happens in real life, I would prefer for it to be face to face, ideally when I’m visiting Heath on my own so that he is in his own space / comfort zone / I can dial it right back if things go pear-shaped. We had many of these situations in the last few days, but he’s currently in a committed mono relationship, so I’m not undermining that. It was really hard to keep my mouth shut when he manages to find my sensitive spots for caressing (inner elbow, neck, etc) or on direct eye contact, which we do a lot of when we talk. Eeeek.

And I absolutely need to give him time and space to process this if it ever comes to pass. So it would need to be some kind of prolonged work trip or two trips close together or something like that. Or work out a way to discuss via video call if it doesn’t work out in person.

I just have this simultaneous dread and excitement that , if I’m honest with myself, this crush has been brewing for a long time and it’s not going to go away in a hurry. It just got heightened last week on seeing him after 5 years, but it’s definitely been simmering on the back burner for some time now and it’s not getting smaller, despite me trying to analyse everything to the nth degree (which usually helps me get over things).

Also I have a sneaking suspicion that he might already know and could bring it up if things change on his side relationship-wise. I don’t want to get caught out. According to close friends, I’m very transparent and don’t have a poker face, so the only reason that he might not be aware of the crush is because we‘ve always enjoyed close body contact and caresses and that hasn’t changed. Although Heath has been particularly inventive with choosing spots this time! 🫠
 
Well for what it's worth, my vote is to go ahead and confess to him -- though it doesn't have to be right away, you can decide when the time is right.
 
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