Just Want to Rant About Being In Love With My Best Friend

So I’m a uni student from Australia who identifies as staggeringly stereotypically gay. I’m 18 and I came out when I was 15, firstly to my friends at high school, and then to my family. One of those friends from high school holds a special place in my heart for many reasons. One of which is the fact that he was one of the first people I came out to. Another reason would be the fact that he was also one of the first people to be entirely accepting of my sexuality, no questions asked, no strange looks or reactions, no fears of “Aw no is he gonna try and flirt with me now?”, nothing but a nod of understanding and kind, heartfelt words.So we were quite close with each other in high school, and further on down the track, fast-forward to my first year of uni, we met up for lunch or movies or whatever we wanted as often as we could. We’d find time for each other within our busy uni schedule; I’m studying music theatre an he’s studying education, so free time was somewhat hard to come by. All the while within this first year of uni, we would tag each other in memes all the time, text each other about just funny things we saw that day, always a good time whenever he and I speak together.When suddenly his birthday arrives, and on a spur-of-the-moment decision, I’m buying him shoes, dinner, movie tickets, whatever I could for him. In total I spend like $210 on the one afternoon, more than I had ever spent for one guy before, let alone a guy I was romantically invested in. Just to provide context, before this I had a boyfriend for two and a half years in high school, and that was a pretty good relationship until he dumped me. The most I had ever spent on that first boyfriend was like $60 for a new Pokémon game.This thought played in my head whilst my friend and I were out and about in the city celebrating his birthday, just the two of us. Why was I so adamant about the frivolous gifts? Why do I feel so much pressure to give him everything he wants while simultaneously feeling no pressure at all because that’s what he deserves? Why do I think about him all the time in this way? Why do I want to make him happy so badly? The answer of course was obvious to my heart maybe, but my head didn’t comprehend it until the two of us had actually gone our separate ways after the birthday outing was done. I had fallen in love with my best friend. Yeah I know... sarcastic-teenager-voice “Oh Em Gee, a fag who’s in love with his straight best friend? That’s like, sooooooooo originallllllllll...”Yes I know, it’s incredibly cliché of a gay adolescent guy to be in love with his straight best friend, and this story is probably both very relatable and sickeningly overheard, but even so, it’s my story that I need to have told, and talking to my other friends about this doesn’t always help. Bare with me through this gross amount of gay unrequited love if you will.So yeah, after his birthday I realised that I was in love with him. I knew that I had to tell him then. I had never wanted to lie to him before, and I wasn’t going to start now. A couple days later maybe, we meet up at a coffee shop, and he’s wearing the shoes I bought him. In that moment, watching him walk up to the front doors of the shop I think to myself “Ok this is it. I can’t keep hiding how I feel about him. I have to tell him.” We sit down and chat casually for a while, about our usual inside jokes and whatnot, which I use as a means of setting the mood for a casual mention of my feelings, something like “Hey man so I’m like, head-over-heels crazy about you ya know? Now how’s that macchiato?”Obviously I don’t say it like that. Instead I tell him that I need to tell him the truth. I tell him that he needs to be aware of these feelings because hiding them from him would be wrong of me. I tell him that I know nothing will ever come from having these feelings, and that a romance between us will never happen, and yet these feelings still exists. I tell him how important he is to my life, and that I never want anything to change our relationship that we already have.His response of course was exactly the same as his response to when I came out to him the first time, a warm nod of understanding and even more heartfelt words of encouragement.With my second come-out to him out of the way, I felt both incredibly overjoyed and relievedwith his reaction. However, another part of me was also slightly disappointed that he hadn’t stood up immediately and took me in his arms and hugged me so hard so as to never let me go, and slowly plant a kiss on my lips that I’d been wanting from him for quite some time. In my head I thought “well hey, I’ve told him how I feel about him and he still wants to be friends with me, so who cares if I don’t have him in my life the way I really want him? He’s still in my life either way, and I’m just fine with that. We have been best friends since high school, and nothing could change that, not even my love for him. I’ll surely find someone else to fill this hole I have in my heart and it will be someone who will treat me better than my first.”So i thought.Turns out that guys on Grindr aren’t exactly “boyfriend-material” and they fill up the “other” holes that I don’t really want filled. I mean there have been plenty of potential guys that seemed like a good match to my personality, but none so like my best friend. In fact, when I looked through the catalogue of guys on Grindr that claimed they were “looking for something serious”, the criteria I had in mind to be eligible to be that something serious, was if they were anything like him. Not too many were.This goes on for like almost half a year and I’d been repressing my feelings for him pretty well during that time. I’ve had plenty of meaningless sexual encounters since that time and I was feeling content with where my love life was at, a string of f-buddies and a small list of guys I’d actually go on dates with. I’m optimistic about my future love-life, and all the while, my best friend has supported me along the way, laughing with me about the funny things that happen when coitus goes wrong, encouraging me to follow through with plans to meet up with guys who are genuine and sincere, all that jazz.Then he tell me that he’s also started dating... and later on he tells me that he has a girlfriend now... and that he’s been sending her love letters and been going on super-cute dates with her... and he even takes her to a few places and hangouts that he and I have been to... and to top it all off, he even sends me screenshots of text-conversations that he has with her...Now obviously the considerate and compassionate side of myself reciprocates his support that he’s given me back to him with this girl. She’s a great match to his personality in my opinion and I do want to see the two of them go far in their relationship. He tells me about all the cute things he does for her and it’s incredible. However, the jealous part of me is sulking in the corner yearning for the same treatment for myself.I really thought that I could keep being friends with him and being totally fine with suppressing my feelings for him. Well I mean, I am, I really am I swear, but my mind can’t help but think about what it would be like if only he felt the same way about me that I do for him, what kind of life would we have you know? I know that it’s honestly so silly that I’m still so hung-up on this one guy. I continually tell myself that nothing will ever happen between us. I know this, I know that I know this; that truth is locked in my conscious mind at all times. But then why do I still have these feelings for him? I shouldn’t, I know that at some point in the future there will be a guy who will be so amazing that being with him will make me laugh at the concept of being in love with my best friend. But I guess until that day happens, I’m trapped in this reality where I can’t have what I really want with him. My friends at uni are incredibly supportive of me, and they tell me all of these things each time I un-bottle-up these thoughts to them. But still... you know.Literally any words of help or advice are appreciated. If this cheap, cheesy, melodramatic recount relates to you at all, then feel free to respond with whatever you can think of that would be helpful to me. If you think that the fact that I’m 18 kinda invalidates all of these feelings I have and you think that I’m overthinking all of this, then you could very well be right, because that did also cross my mind. If you just want to pour out your own unrequited love story in response, please do; it’ll be a nice cathartic way to make me feel better knowing that I’m not alone. If you’re still reading this far, thank you so much for listening to me rant, and I’ll give you a moment to relax from this whirlwind of a story.