A couple days ago, my best friend and I both admitted that we had feelings for each other beyond just simple friendship. See, I already loved her more than I'd loved any of my other friends I've had in my life, and I just thought that was because all those other friendships had some level of either filtering or outright deceit to them. With all my other friends, I had to limit what I said, to filter things through the sieve I'd created to get along with them. With a few of my friends, I had to actually get them to believe that I was a completely different person than who I really am. With DJ, I had to pretend I liked pro-wrestling and The Ren & Stimpy Show (god, I hate that show so much). With CW and AA, I had to basically step back whenever we were all in a room together and let them talk without me. With J and his friends, I had to pretend I knew everything, which turned out to be pretty easy because I'm a natural bullshitter. With Riza, though, I could finally be me. For a start, I could never tell any of my other friends that I loved them. Still being new to this whole "woman" thing, I was so pleased that I could finally have a friend I could say "I love you" to. From being on facebook for a while after high school, I just figured this was how women interact with their friends. The nearest thing to physical contact I could make with my friends was a stiff handshake, but all the girls I used to go to school with would post pictures of themselves with their friends making contact from hugging all the way up to pressing each other's cheeks together to both fit into a portrait shot. The most heartfelt thing I could tell my friends was, "I'll call you later." Meanwhile, the girls were telling their friends stuff like "love u so much" and posting coloured heart emoji on each other's selfies. So, I just assumed this was how zillennial women talked to their friends, and when I had the opportunity to do it myself at long last, I took it. So, I assumed that I was just feeling happy to be unburdened of toxic masculinity at long last and was grateful for the opportunity Riza afforded me to demonstrate it.
However, a few things happened over the latter half of 2025 that made me re-examine my feelings for her. Without getting into it too far for privacy reasons, there were a handful of times where I was scared that I would lose her. Not that I'd lose her as a friend, but that she would end up in a destructive situation or even die. This scared me to the point I was crying on the floor of my room, rocking back and forth like a basket case. I would also find myself thinking about her more often than not if provided with a spare moment. After one of those unfortunate incidents in October, I decided that I would start sending her "good morning" and "good night" texts everyday. Every morning, I would hear my phone chime, think "It's Riza!", and get a warm tingly feeling in my chest. I used to always sign on and sign off with a yellow heart emoji (💛) because according to colour theory, yellow is the colour of sunshine and joy. You're supposed to send yellow flowers to your friends. It's a nice bright platonic colour.
But, as it turns out, I had fallen in love with her without even realising it.
The last time I was in love, it felt very different; I felt wanton and repressed while my ex probably felt nothing. Of course, I approached my relationship with E differently, in that we started it by me asking her out to the grocery store coffeeshop near campus. So, basically, we started out how romantic relationships in the corporate feudal state are supposed to start. There was no underlying friendship beyond just a few minutes' talk we had at an informal party in her roommate's dorm room, no real interest except from me, and no foreseeable future for our relationship after the coffee was gone. We went out a few more times after that, but never any further than the college's rec room, and just as I was starting to feel like she was warming up to me, I discovered she was a giant racist and I broke up with her. The time before that, with JM in high school, I felt different there, too, insofar as it was the 2nd-ever time I had been in love, but I felt there was mutual love there. I've told Riza this already: if JM's dad hadn't felt the rush of fascistic power to dictate what was an "acceptable" relationship, I most likely would have married her after high school. But, our relationship started as a friendship, just like with Riza. But, as with everything else that happened in [PLACENAME], religion and politics got forced into it and broke us apart. We talked again 1 time after breaking up, then she avoided me for the rest of the school year.
I didn't recognise that I was falling in love with Riza because it didn't feel very much like the last 3 times I'd been in love. To me, she felt like a close and treasured friend. It wasn't until after Halloween that we both realised we wanted to be more than just friends. Having had time to think, I'm pretty sure I can pinpoint the exact moment I realised I was in love with her. Again, I don't want to give too much away, but we had a phone conversation about something that got interrupted part the way through and it had me slumped over on the couch crying, panicking, feeling isolated, and muttering "no... no...", because I was concerned about where her next call would be coming from, or if it would even happen at all. I realised that I couldn't remember how I got along without her, and I accidentally let slip over a text message that if she died, I would kill myself. I hadn't intended it to sound manipulative, because that's often something that manipulators do: they threaten to kill themselves if their mark tries to do something to end their relationship. My immediate thought in the moment was, if there truly is a heaven like the Christians say, then by killing myself, we could finally be together, because there would be nothing left for me on Earth if she wasn't here anymore. Oh, fuck it, I'm ugly-crying just thinking about it again. But, yeah, that was when I realised something else was happening.
So, all things considered, when it came down to it, I found it was easy to internalise. When I applied the word "girlfriend" to Riza for the first time, it fit like a comfy cable-knit sweater. I feel like I've known her for years, even though it's only been just over 1. I wrote this about her yesterday:
Every time I look at my girlfriend's pictures, I fall in love more and more. When we met, I never imagined this. I was so happy being her friend, I loved her more than any of my other friends. When she admitted she had feelings for me, I realised that I have feelings for her too. After I spent most of last night and early this morning thinking about her, I realised that yeah— I'm in love. She means so much to me I have no words to describe it. Her happiness is so important to me. We were planning on being roommates even before we admitted our feelings. Throughout my whole life all I've had in my future were vague or nonexistent plans, but this is not vague, this is not nonexistent. This is a solid, definite, achievable goal. She has supported me more than anyone ever has and now we're both giving each other reasons to live. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, RIZA!! I love you so much...
So, yeah. I don't use the yellow heart anymore. I use the red one now (❤️), the colour of love, blood, and communism.