In my story, the protagonist is a lesbian (technically homoromantic asexual, but she doesn't know that yet) with a serious crush on her straight best friend. They both know each other's feelings, and the MC is trying to get over it so they can just be friends. The trouble is, I'm aromantic asexual, so it's really tough for me to figure out how to portray feelings I've never felt. This is the first story I've written that has romantic feelings as a major thing in the story, and I don't really know how to write it.
Aro-ace too You wouldn't happen to be familiar with the "Asexual-aromantic = Ace of Spades, Asexual-(hetero/homo/bi/...)romantic = Ace of Hearts" terminology by any chance, would you? Regarding romance itself: I've had to do a lot of googling "what does falling in love feel like" since I've started writing relationships, and I've found listening to the songs tends to help. Regarding your character specifically: What kind of person is your Ace of Hearts in general? Maybe she could decide to stop thinking about her and her crush "just being friends" and start thinking about them as "being friends"? Platonic love is not intrinsically "less" than romantic love, so maybe she would try to think of it as loving the other girl differently instead of loving her less? I think my favorite scene from How I Met Your Mother was when Barney and Robin decided in season 5 that they weren't working as boyfriend/girlfriend, but decided to talk about it as "friends getting back together" instead of as "boyfriend/girlfriend breaking up" so that it wouldn't turn ugly in the future. Is your Ace of Hearts the kind of person who might think of this? And if you're ever feeling self-conscious about your ability to write somebody who experiences feelings you've never experienced: Thomas Harris wasn't a serial killer
The ace o' hearts has arrived! (and one that isn't very good at romance anyway) Back at college I developed one of my first crushes on a lad that I had known for about four months and it lasted the grand total of a month. We'd met over playing cards, he was really funny, really cared about others and was really passionate about animals. I grew to care as a friend for him quickly but then just after christmas he told me how thankful he was for his christmas present and something just switched. As @Simpson17866 says, the love I felt was different, not more. It's not an easy thing to put into words. I found myself completely out of sorts, it sounds as cliched as hell but I was thinking about him nearly 24/7. Nothing specific, just him. He'd just flicker in my head for a second and then gone. Something funny he said or something interesting. In the first two weeks he forgot his money for lunch and I cannot tell you how the adrenaline rushed about my body as I offered to pay for him. Then at about day 12 one of my other friends picked up on me, maybe I was laughing too much, maybe I was using too many endearments, I don't know, but she knew. She pulled me over and said "You like him, don't you?" I just blushed and said "Kinda, yeah." "I'm going to tell him." I wasn't too fussed about that, he looked slightly surprised, and then shrugged. Before that the first ever person I'd liked romantically laughed at me. Wonderful, I know. We both sat kind of awkwardly next to each other for a couple of days but after that we went back to normal. I just guessed he wasn't going to say anything on the matter. Outwardly I didn't seem to care but inwardly I was quite annoyed with myself. I should have told him, not someone else. I wanted to know what I wasn't doing. Or whether I had really felt anything. I felt kind of numb, friendship after romantical feelings feels like getting a homemade, but delicious, cake after one from the poshest shop you know. It's lovely because it's a non-glitzy honest love but perhaps doesn't look as pretty. You tend to look over it because you don't have to pay for it very often but when you are 'in love' you have to pay with your mannerisms, actions, thoughts, yourself. You are constantly thinking about what the other person is thinking about you and it is exhausting. I think this is why you feel numb afterwards, why friendship is strange afterwards, your brain is letting you feel like this towards someone for free.
I love the feeling of being in love and I do enjoy writing about it from time to time. Whether you're thirteen or ninety three, it's blushing cheeks, eye contact that makes your pulse race, butterflies in your stomach, all of the cliches. Being in love is definitely very different from loving someone. The responses to being in love are involuntarily, so I would write them like that.
It's not just your Ace of Hearts, though, about whom we need a little more info. It's the other girl too. What's her dynamic? What's her engagement of the situation? I know she knows the Ace of Hearts is crushing on her, but how is she working her side of the relationship? Also, I have no idea what my deck of cards name is, but I'm homosexual homoromantic. And I have certainly fallen for the str8 buddy more than once. There's a lot of pain in love, especially when it feels like such a lost cause. Friends would say "He's str8. What are you doing?" I would answer "I'm not doing anything. It's how I feel. I'm not a Vulcan. I'm not Spock. I can't just turn it off." The nicer he was, the friendlier he was, the more accommodating he was, the more it hurt. Staying over his house and watching a movie, laid out in the floor, just some pillows and a comforter and a bunch of bad snack food was like gently pressing a bruise. It hurt, but in an inexplicably good way. When he quietly cuddled up against me and let me stroke his hair, that was like pressing the bruise well past the good-hurt threshold. It was beautiful and wonderful and heartbreaking because I knew this was the limit, the very extreme edge of what he could allow himself and it meant a universe of trust on his part that I would respect it. I was so happy-sad. In a lot of ways it would have been better if he had not met me so close to the halfway mark. Better for me, anyway. Emotionally. There was possessiveness. It can't be helped when you know that this small, very private space of intimacy is all there is. As soon as some pretty girl cuts her eyes at him, it's over. We're not dating. We're friends. He knows I'm gay, and in his platonic way he loves me, he does, but he's not in love with me. I may have more to say later. Those are initial memories. His name was Matt.
Perhaps reading a load of romance novels by a range of different romance authors would help you to understand how to put feelings of romantic love on the paper.
Part 2 One night we were at this little place called Meg O'Malley's in Old Downtown Melbourne with a few other friends. Chris, Matt's pal that I mentioned in this post, who did not like me, was there too. We were a few drinks in and Chris made a comment insinuating that Matt and I were fuck-buddies. Matt puts down his drink and says: "You know how Puerto Rican guys are." He gestured an anatomically improbable length with his two index fingers. "The day I decide to give it a go, it'll be with him, not with some baby dick like you." Snorted laughter from everyone, including people who were near us but not with us. I couldn't have loved him more in that moment. Chris stared daggers at me the rest of the night. Being in love is an emotion, but it's made of events and words, paying attention to the person you care for, protecting them. Matt could have just told Chris to shut the fuck up, or ignored him, or just said, no, that's not true, we're not having sex. Instead he kinda' wrapped me in his shell. He shut Chris down without making me feel like being gay was something he needed to distance himself from. He certainly didn't have to risk that joke backfiring. Matt and Chris were friends from grade school, but Matt had a low bullshit threshold and with that joke he said I don't want to have to pick, but if you force me, I'm going to pick Wrey. At least that's what it said to me, and I'm pretty sure that's how Chris took it too. Gestures like that are part of what build love. They don't always have to be grand gestures, and sometimes the smallest things speak the loudest, but love doesn't just materialize out of thin air. There are materials to its construction. I'm talking about being in love. There are other kinds of love that form in other ways. So, as regards your Ace of Hearts, you can show us her love for the other girl through the things of which her love is constructed.
It's a bit of an unusual setting. They were both raised in two-mom families, and pretty much took for granted that they'd be gay themselves. So the straight best friend is having trouble accepting that she's straight, and feeling down about how her orientation hurts her friend. She really values the friendship, and really wishes they can stay really close without their differences getting in the way.
Okay. You are weaving a very tangled relationship indeed. The ambiguity on the part of "str8 girl" is going to wreak havoc on your Ace of Hearts. So much hope. Right within in reach, only to be denied the Nidus*. How old are they? *ETA: Old British SFF show called Into the Labyrinth. Young folk questy-questing in a labyrinth, good wizard, bad wizard, and this thing everyone wants called the Nidus. Every time the young folk almost have it in their hands, someone powerful yells "I DENY YOU THE NIDUS!" and woosh, away it goes into some other part of the labyrinth and the quest goes on and on...
@Wreybies, it's really no wonder at all that you fell for Matt. He sounds like one hell of a guy, and the way you describe your relationship is so painfully beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.
The thing about 'love' is that is complicated ... its as lot more than sexual attraction , so people who are bestfriends could 'love' each other platonically- they might not talk about it in those terms but if they are always there for each other, they do anything for each other and in extremis would risk their lives/die for each other, and hell they'd even share their last rolo - then that's love , just not romantic love. A solidier in combat might 'love' his comrades to the point that he falls on a grenade to save them ... but that doesnt mean he wants to have sex with them. Equally you get people who are friends who also have hot and steamy sex on occasion, but who don't love each other and have no intention of being more than freinds (FWF - freinds who... ahem ... fornicate ) And combining the two you get people who have hot and steamy sex whilst remaining freinds who also love each other a friends but who don't ever become a couple (and on occasion where one or both of them are with someone else) You also conversely get people who become couples and sometimes marry withou ever loving each other 9or who loved each other once but don't any more) What i'm saying in essence is does your MC "love" her best friend in that she wants to get down and dirty with her , or does it just mean that she hasnt quite resolved the feelings and emotions that go with platonic love
This thread caught my attention, because I had an experience like this, but I'm terrible at giving this type of advice. I can't say that I've been in love myself, but my own experience I had was being friends with someone of the same sex who had serious feelings for me, which I couldn't reciprocate. All I can say is that there were many intense emotions through the friendship we had: unbearable longing, unbearable guilt, passion, love, lust, regret, sadness, closeness, just tons of emotional conflict and tons of pain for both parties. It was Eros in love with Agape; I was the straight friend who felt real guilty for being straight because it was hurting my best friend. We both tried to make things work, but eventually tons of little things ended up breaking both our hearts and things just ended I doubt this was any help at all, but hopefully it gave you a bit of insight?
