The Heartbreaking Truth of Loving Your Best Friend
Nothing hurts more than losing your best friend to fantasies in your head
There are different kinds of love that experience in our lives. There are first loves and forbidden love. There’s self-love, eternal love, and complicated love. I think that hindsight is the only way to really know what kind of love you had. It’s important to know that all loves are not the same. If you treat all love like a monolithic feeling, then you might not build a foundation for the right love you’re in. And I know this to be true because I made the mistake of treating all love like it’s the same.
I loved my best friend and lost him because I mistook the love we had, a kind of brotherly love, for a romantic one. To this day, I miss him, I wish him well, and I wish that others who also experienced the heartbreaking truth of loving their best friends know that they are not alone.
When I met my best friend, it felt like I met my soulmate, but little did I know that my dream of love broke our friendship and reality. My best friend and I were both named William, both went by Will, and we both even had the same initials. Finding Will my first year of college was the best thing that happened to me. Yet, by the end of college, we brought out the worst in each other.
It’s worth noting that our story is more than just an unlikely friendship. When I met Will, I was stricken by how handsome he was, and still is quite frankly. He has six-feet tall, with a muscular figure, messy blond hair, and piercing blue eyes. He literally gave me Edward Cullen vibes and I think that’s what drew me to him. I, on the other hand, was quite plump, nowhere near toned, and I had caramel eyes and some horrendous swoop bangs. We came from opposite coasts, him calling Virginia home and me being the obnoxious California native who had to let everyone know I was from California.
I met Will because he was a suitemate to one of my first friends in college. We met within the first week when I asked to borrow a calculator from my friend. Through text, my friend wrote, “Yeah, just knock on my suite door and Will should have it.” Simple I thought. Well, the quick trip turned out to be anything but. When I arrived, I knocked on the door and was greeted by a sweaty hunk who was in the middle of a workout. “Sup, I’m Will,” he said. “Wow,” is all I could say. “Well, I’m Will to, nice to meet you.” He handed me the calculator, but I was intrigued. I ended up asking to come in, I sat down, and I asked Will for his life story.
What was great about my friendship with Will was that our differences complemented each other. Will had lived abroad and traveled the country, thanks to his dad being in the CIA. I was hungry for my opportunity to study abroad, having never even left my home state until I left for college. Will was into fitness and physics whereas I had Hollywood dreams and a burning love for fashion. I didn’t think twice about inviting him out with my friends. He was game and I was more than glad to see where things went.
Of course, things did not go anywhere, and I never tried to make anything happen. Will was straight as a vector, a thing he explained to me when he tutored me in math. And I was as flamboyant as some of the characters in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a movie we reviewed when he took a film analysis class. Our interests varied but our commitment to our friendship never wavered. I was always rooting for him and he was there for me through the thickest of times.
There are two distinct memories that I remember with Will. That of our first major fight and of him proving to be my best friend. The first being when I landed the internship opportunity of a lifetime. I had landed an internship at the Oscars in my second year of college. I was a junior when the Academy invited me and some fellow interns to come back to L.A. to attend the Oscars red carpet. I was nearly 3,000 miles away in Upstate NY — but no blizzard could keep me away. When I got the email, I cried, and I was with Will. I told him and he said, “Can I come with you?”
He knew he couldn’t come to the actual show with me, but he was happy to meet my family and hang out for the weekend leading up to the show. The night before the Oscars we went out clubbing. I invited my friends from home to meet Will and things were going very well. This was supposed to be my dream come true. However, it quickly turned into a nightmare. My heart broke and I almost cried on the dancefloor when I saw Will making out with some stranger. It stung and I hated to admit what I felt. Jealously. Again, I had never, and would never condone, anyone to push or test someone’s sexuality. I know sexuality is fluid, but I also knew where Will was and is on that spectrum. Needless to say, things slowly started to crumble.
The second memory that sticks out is the night I was roofied at a formal and Will came to help me. I had been invited to a formal a few months after my weekend trip to L.A. Being the diva I proudly am, I said yes, and I opted to attend even though I was the only one of my friends invited. I knew enough of the Greek life members and people attending to know I could bounce between groups and have a good time. I wish I could tell you if I even had fun or not because I don’t remember that night.
My last memory of that night was grabbing a glass of wine with some friends and then everything going black. I woke up on the floor, in the hallway, outside of my dorm. I was covered in sweat and my head was spinning. Somehow, my door was cracked open and I darted in. I patted my jacket and pants and realized I didn’t have my wallet or phone. I had nothing on me. I opened my laptop desperate to see if my iMessages could fill out the story that was missing.
Of course, my conversations with Will mapped out my night. Including when I became incoherent. He had called me several times and asked, “How are you?” I FaceTimed him and even though it was 5 AM he still answered. He told me to shower, pack a bag, and he invited me to a sleepover. He did not judge me. He did not blame me. He did what I needed, he heard me. And for a while, it smoothed over the cracks in our friendship. It was only a temporary fix.
As we crept onto our senior year reality started to spill in. And my growing affection for my best friend did not lighten up the situation. While Will was just kind of breezing by, I was taking every minute I could to research jobs, apply, take meetings, and you get the idea. When I asked Will what he was doing after college he just kind of shrugged. I totally thought this was fine, after all, we all have different paths. But I guess I had just wanted some sign that he could not imagine a future without his best friend by his side.
Through the vacations that came, Will and I talked less and less. Unlike winter breaks prior, we weren’t having daily calls before bedtime. Why you may ask? Well, I learned months later that he had been hooking up with some girl he’d met at the gym back home. When I found out in the spring I was flippant. Again, I hate to admit it but jealously crept up. Then when I finally started seeing someone Will thought I was too boy crazy. He didn’t understand how I didn’t have the luxury of openly engaging in PDA or meeting someone at the bar. I had finally swapped discreet meetups or something more consistent but Will thought I was being distant from him.
Before we graduated, we had a heart to heart. I learned that Will and I thought very differently about social issues and life in general. Will didn’t like to talk about race and he grew uncomfortable when I addressed his white privilege. Will thought I had an ego and was too bossy towards people. He also didn’t know I thought I was in love with him. Men right?
In the end, we graduated sitting near each other, again our last names are both S. When I grabbed my diploma I hugged him as he queued for his. That was the last time I saw him in person.
As hard as it is, I guess I’m fine with leaving things the way they fell. After all, I know Will is doing well without Will. We’re both out in this big crazy messy world, for the most part on our own. We’re probably each just trying to find that bond we had with someone else. To all of us who’ve loved and then lost our best friends, I’m here to tell you it will be alright. I know you’ll be alright because that’s really the only thing you can do, right?
