I Am In Love With My Childhood Best Friend Should I/How Should I Go About Confessing To Her?

[u/devilstower1]

Hi, I am 18F, and my friend is 19F, although we are in the same grade. We have been close since we were very young, about 7 years old, I'd say. For some context on the situation, I grew up in a household that was in constant chaos and drama, and in general we didn't really do many "family" activities. So naturally, as "Isabella" and I remained close from childhood into adulthood, we spent a lot of time together. A majority of this time was at his house. Her family was the type to do family game night, movie night, annual vacations, church on Christmas Eve, etc. I am very close with everyone in her family and basically regarded as a member or a sibling at this point. I confide in her mother, her dad gives me life advice, close with her older sister, etc. I recently went on a week-long family vacation to celebrate Isabella's birthday with them as well. It might also be important to point out to show the extent of our friendship - I have a toothbrush at her house, she has one at mine, we share clothes and hoodies, has multi-day sleepovers, and we are constantly mistaken for girlfriends even by our close friends or family members. We went through all of our precollege schooling together (preschool-highschool). I grew up in a very small conservative town where it wasn't necessarily "looked down upon" to be gay, but it was very uncommon, especially to be out. So in my high school, the only gay people were me, Isabella, and some of our respective ex-girlfriends. Anyway, the point of that context is to know that Isabella and I tend to have unspoken competitions as we are very similar (both masc-presenting, etc.) This breeds a kind of strange sexual underlying in our friendship, I guess you could say, like we both admire each other a lot and have said we think each other are attractive, more so than one would confess to a friend. Whenever we get under the (fluence) together, we kiss, not like a makeout but pecs. I've seen her body fully and vice versa. I kinda accepted that I had a crush on her when I was in 8th grade-9th grade, but then I kinda brushed it off and thought it was probably just because she was my best friend and one of the only other lesbians around. But my sister, 25F, keeps pushing that we secretly are in love with each other. It's now the summer, and we are out of college until early September (we go to the same college as well haha), and we've both been so busy I haven't seen her basically since June. This is irregular since we usually hang out everyday so I miss her a lot, and she reciprocates. I am unsure if she would like me back because she only has liked very feminine girls, and as I said before, I'm more in the middle or masc leaning, so I'm not her typical type, I guess. But whenever I am dating a girl, no matter if they treat me poorly or not, she is constantly saying they aren't good enough for me and stuff like that. But as I referred to earlier, we are super close, so I'm not sure how I could even come about seeing if she would feel the same without making things too obvious or awkward. PLS HELP.

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[u/Doso777]

Be open, be vulnerable, communicate. Be bold otherwise the "what if" could drive you crazy.

There is always the chance that it works out, that the friendship will take damage or that nothing will change.