thinking about how when I was a pre/teen, whenever a friend would confess they had feelings for me, it felt like the end of the world, like this deep, dark pit had opened up beneath me. it didn't matter if it was a male or female friend, I'd just feel so upset and violated and... disappointed, I guess. the third or so time it happened, I just remember thinking ‘why do you have to do this?’, because I legitimately couldn't understand their need to act on it. why couldn't they just keep it to themself? of course, this is because whenever I had crushes, it was a conscious choice, and acting on it would have been a choice that went against my own comfort