This is going to be one heck of a long letter to you, but I think you deserve it. After-all, I have just ended the best friendship I've ever had with someone. And shamefully, I done it in such a blunt manner. The reason this is so long-winded is because I want to paint you a picture.
So let's start with the beginning...
I've known you for roughly 5 years. Funnily enough, you used to bully me in school. I used to hate your guts. But that all changed one day. I used to heavily suffer in silence of depression. I'd go into school everyday, I'd pretend to be alright, I'd smile and do my best to be the best friend I could to other people, but there was this one day where I decided I had enough of everything. I planned on taking my life later that evening when school had finished and I went home. The day was awful, nothing was going my way. My friends were even ignoring me and acting strange around me. When I went home later that evening, I wrote a letter of goodbye to my parents, and then sat and cried for 30 minutes. As I made my final preparations, my mam and dad burst into my room and asked me whether I was suicidal. I instantly declined and said "no, why would you think that?" (I didn't want them to know because I was embarrassed by it). They told me that a senior teacher had rung the phone and a student had told them how worried they were for me. I didn't know who this student was, but I suspected that it may have been one of my friends. Just the idea that someone - one person - cared, was enough to change my perspective that night. So, I went into school the next day and started asking around. I found out that it was actually you. Before my first lesson period started, when I was sitting by the stairs that morning, you came up to me and for once you were kind. You told me that you were really worried for me. This is sort of the moment that I define as the start of our friendship.
As you know, throughout that time, I was speaking to Nicole. Well, by the beginning of 2014 me and Nicole had stopped speaking, after she broke my heart. I continued with my life and tried to move on. I struggled for months and months because she meant so much to me. I mean, here's me, having a major crush on a girl for 15 months, and after finally plucking up the courage to tell her how I truly feel, she felt the same way - but couldn't go into a relationship because of the abuse she received from Daniel Nixon. It crippled me. It was this very point, in-which I truly started to think about my sexuality - which I suppressed for so long. I didn't like it though. I hated the idea of me being bisexual. So I just lived in denial.
As September 2014 came around, we went back to school. This is where - I guess - me and your friendship really kicked off. You were heavily depressed. You would self-harm and would talk about how you hated your life. Since I knew exactly what you were going through, I pledged to support you through it all. Little did I know exactly what I'd be letting myself in for.
I remember one moment during that month, we were in maths and we were in the library (there was about 10 of us). I made an off-handed comment about homosexuals, and you, rightfully so, got angry. You stabbed me with a compass. You revealed how you were bi-curious. So, why am I telling you this? Well, to be honest, I had a minor crush on you. Nothing I couldn't handle. Nothing I couldn't dismiss easily. I didn't have feelings for you like that, and the reason is because I had an "off-limits" sign on you. But after you revealed that you were bi-curious, that "off-limits" sign that my mind had placed was suddenly lifted. This was literally the moment that our friendship was doomed.
After months progressed. As I got more emotionally involved into your circumstances, I realised how fragile you were and I began to develop feelings for you. I wanted to be there for you all the time. I wanted to be your number one go-to guy whenever you were down. I genuinely cared for you. Which is why it killed me watching you break-up from Eve and become even more depressed. Which is why I was so concerned about you taking drugs. Which is why it made me so angry watching you slowly change, and replace me for your friends at the green. Which is why I desperately tried to stop you from pushing me away. I actually loved. No -- I was actually in-love with you. I know, it's shameful.
As school finished, and I was essentially forced out of your life, I slowly but surely started to bury my feelings for you. I went from thinking about you every day and every night, to maybe once or twice per week. I'd wonder how you were doing. Whether you were happy.
This was all until late 2015, when you attracted my attention. You made numerous posts on Facebook about people at the green, taking the piss out of emos, that sort of thing. I sort of just ignored them, and continued on with my life. When the Paris Attacks happened in November 2015, you made a post about it. You not only condemned those attacks, but you also condemned the attacks that happened in other parts of the world too. When I saw that post, something inside of me sparked. I could tell that you had a mentality change. There was something much more real about you. The Jordan I knew mid-2015 would have made a joke about the Paris Attacks. I started thinking about you a little bit more from this point. I remembered even having a discussion with Matthew Byrne saying that I think you've changed. He didn't believe me. So I continued with my life. Eventually, in December, you made a post about having no-one to talk to. Since I was stuck at 1:30 in the morning doing coursework, I decided that I'd message you. I told you that I'd always be there for you.
This is where our friendship revived itself.
But it's also when my feelings started resurfacing.
After Christmas 2015 (when you got your Xbox One), we'd sit and play on Xbox Live with each other for hours on end. We'd have so much fun. On New Years Day, I even went to yours for the first time. Oh god, the memories. Watching you play Star Wars Battlefront, missing those AT-STs with the rocket launcher, and then missing the collectable three times in a row. Or playing Outlast, and watching you be a little pussy boy. Getting high on energy drinks to the point where we're giggling about the twin brothers' humongous penises.
It's important to know that at this time, my feelings for you were still manageable. I could control them.
As the months progressed, slowly but surely, my feelings for you deepened. I tried my hardest all of the time to support you. Even when you were dating girls that were so obviously treating you terribly. I'd always think to myself that if I was as lucky as those girls, I'd treat you so much better. It hurt me to see you get hurt by these girls. But I continued.
This though, is when I really started losing it:
When you came to my house during the one week while my mam was away, we had so much fun. The first night, we celebrated and had a little bit of Smirnoff Ice and Jack Daniels. We ordered a takeaway and played some Xbox. It was amazing. I remember when you were having your tab, you asked me where I was going to be sleeping. I told you that I'd be sleeping in my own bed, and you asked if you could sleep there too. I agreed.
The next morning, after waking up next to you, something about it felt so amazing. You're probably so weirded out right now, but I really want you to understand how deeply in love I was with you. Just your presence was perfect. Anyways, I made you a full English breakfast and you actually liked it. It felt so good making something for you. We then got ready and went to see your brother. He was hilarious. I remember when we first met and you introduced me to him, he responded with something like "oh, so this is the one you're in a gay relationship with". I was shocked, but it made me want what I knew I could never have even more. By the end of that day, I actually realised that I could see my future with you. I woke up next to you, I made you breakfast, we went shopping, we played Xbox, got drunk etc. It was just incredible. But once again, I knew that I could never have it with you and that really is a heartbreaking feeling.
Remember when I had that breakdown in front of you on your birthday? If Nathan and Matthew didn't come back when they did, I would've told you all of this then.
To be honest, I think the whole bromance between us didn't help. I think psychologically and emotionally, it deepened my feelings for you. Which is really unfortunate.
In the past 10 days, I've had three dreams about you. In all three you were just here, making jokes, playing Xbox etc. In the third and final one though (which I had the night before I ended our friendship), you left and it broke me. I was crippled.
My love for you is often referred to as unrequited love, which Urban Dictionary defines perfectly as:
"Its the feeling of being completely, hopelessly, desperately in love with someone, all the while knowing that your feelings will never reach them.
Its contradictory in that you feel incredible because you love someone so much, but also at the same time you feel almost overwhelming despair because you will never know what it is like to hold them in your arms, or touch their face, or kiss their lips. You will never know what it is like to wake-up next to them in bed in the morning, bodies entwined.
It can be masochistic in nature- it causes such heartache, but you enjoy loving the person so much, you willingly let your heart go through the agony, so you can hold onto something- I don't know, maybe hope?
Yesterday, I decided I couldn't continue with all of this. Being friends with you is just too painful. I knew that I had to either finish my friendship with you to force the feelings to go, or continue being friends with you and suffer in silence, while my feelings for you continue to get stronger.
Either way it wasn't going to be easy. On one hand, you're my best friend and you've been more of a friend than ANYONE in my life ever has, so losing that would paralyse me. On the other hand, remaining friends with you is just crippling me emotionally and psychologically because of my feelings for you.
In such a selfish manner, without any explanation to you, I made the decision to stop being friends with you. I didn't want for this to happen. You must understand. Losing you is not only losing someone I am in love with, but it's also losing the greatest friend I've ever had. I've cried myself to sleep for the past couple of nights. I've been an emotional wreck. I may have seemed blunt, but that's because I was holding back the tears. I feel almost lost without you. But, for the sake of emotions, and your heterosexuality, I have to move on. I have to accept that I can't be with you, and it's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
I am so sorry for dooming our friendship from the start. My feelings for you, no matter how hard I tried to suppress them, triumphed in the end and now I'm an emotional wreck.
I don't know what else to say other than I'm sorry, and I'm equally disgusted and ashamed at myself. And I hope that you continue to live and lead a happy life. I'm gonna miss you, too much.
Matthew.