Work Text:
r/offmychest
u/i-put-the-bi-in-bitch
I am in love with my sister's boyfriend and get jealous of them whenever they hang out and go on dates. I might be starting to resent her even though she technically did nothing wrong. Oh and I still haven’t come out to them.
Okay this totally sounds worse than it actually is. I [19M] just started college this fall. For anonymity reasons I will not name my college but it is very close to the one my sister [22F] attends. When I got accepted at a school in the same state, we all decided me moving in with her and our best friend [20F], who is attending my school, was the smart choice.
At the beginning of this year, my sister quickly became very good friends with this transfer student from England [20M] and dragged him and his best friend [also 20M] into our little trio, turning us into a friend group of five.
The transfer student, let's call him George, started to hang out at our place all the time, being very friendly towards my sister and our roommate but not me. He always acted very cold towards me against all my efforts of trying to be friendly (okay, I did try to be friendly once and when he gave me the cold shoulder I decided to play the game by his fucking rules, sue me).
This weird rivalry of ours lasted for about two months before my sister sat me down and told me George and his friend (let’s call him Smarties, and I never had qualms with him, love the guy, he’s the coolest mfer I’ve met) were here to stay and I better act more ‘cordial’ with him and not ruin game nights or movie nights or whatever.
She told me if I could stop being a stubborn ass (I never am a stubborn ass), I would love George and get along perfectly with him (I doubted at the time). And even if I didn’t like him, he was very important to her and she had no intentions of letting him go, so I should at least be civil towards him.
I should have guessed they were dating before she said he was very important and here to stay, because whenever George visited without Smarties, he and my sister always hung out at her room, only coming out to get some wine from the kitchen. (Our roommate is usually busy studying in the library or locking herself in her room coding in a haze of energy drink induced caffeine trips)
The only time I’ve seen them hang out in a common area was when they thought I had class and were watching one of those sappy period romance movies my sister loves so much on the living room couch, cuddling under blankets. And when I walked in unannounced, George went red as a tomato like he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. (I do NOT wanna think about what they were doing that caused him to turn beet red)
Anyway, after my sister had that talk with me, I decided to make the effort to at least like her boyfriend and asked the guy out for coffee the next time he came to visit. He looked at me like I’ve grown a second head but eventually nodded and accepted my invitation.
Maybe my sister gave him the same talk, maybe he is unable to say no because he’s British and has to be polite all the time who the fuck knows, but he agreed which was a win in my book. After that point even if he still acted like a dick towards me no one could say I didn’t at least try.
Turns out as big sisters always are, my sister was once again right.
When me and George met at the campus coffee shop, the first ten minutes were agonizingly quiet and awkward. I do have ADHD and do not do well with silence so I started going on and on about my latest hyperfixation, an online comic TV series and went on a rant about the importance of representation in media. (At this point I still wasn’t aware of my own sexuality, should have known, right)
I stopped after like fifteen minutes to apologize because usually people get bored easily when I go on tangents so I’ve learned to tame myself but George was fucking incredible about the whole thing. He told me not to apologize, that it was fascinating listening to me and asked me insightful questions about the whole thing. (I should have known I was going to fucking fall in love with him at that moment) It made me feel accepted in a way I had never felt before.
We exchanged numbers after that and started texting almost non-stop and started studying at the library together almost every day. In between study breaks that he made me take, coaxing me out of the library with the promise of a cup of coffee (a man after my fucking heart) we became closer than we were with other people in our group.
We talked about our mutual experience of growing up with older sisters, I learned about the thesis he was planning on writing (he is only a year older than me but since he has transferred from UK where colleges are three years for some fucking reason he’s a junior whereas I’m a freshman) and bonded over our mutual love for Star Wars.
Other people in our friend group became highly aware of our budding friendship as well but everyone seemed pleased by this new development and I could see my sister being so happy.
Here’s the thing. I don’t have a lot of friends, I never had a friend I felt this connected, this close to ever, not even to our best friend/roommate. So whenever George would spend time with my sister (rightfully so since she’s his girlfriend) I started to get annoyed.
They’ve always had date nights, Thursdays each week, where they’d huddle up in her bedroom and watch rom-coms while drinking wine. And bi-weekly they’d go out on Friday evenings, visiting museums or second hand book stores, then have fancy dinners at bougie (yes I had to look up how it’s spelled) restaurants.
At first I thought this prickling feeling in my stomach whenever George and my sister spent time together was annoyance and fear of losing my best friend (I have abandonment issues, leave me alone).
But one Friday evening when George came by the house to pick my sister up for their date, because he is a gentlemen who has the manners of a fucking period drama love interest, he said something to her in French and I lost it. (They were apparently gonna try out a newly opened French bistro and of course Prince fucking Charming is fluent)
My sister giggled and told me to not wait up which made me wanna puke and after they went out I had to hold my head in my hands and will myself to not fucking cry. That’s how our best friend/roommate found me. (Yes I was crying when she found me)
That night we drank cheap tequila, got drunk, and I confessed how I hated when George ditched me to spend time with my sister while crying on the floor, disgracefully eating a Chipotle burrito that became soggy with my tears. She smacked me in the head and told me I was a dumbass.
Next morning I woke up with the worst hangover of my life and the world shattering realization that I was in love with George.
I was always very aware of how insanely, unfairly attractive George is, I have eyes you know. The guy is tall (has three inches over me which might be a thing for me), has legs for fucking days (and not just regular days, the kind of days they have over at Antartica that lasts over 72 hours), baby blue eyes, blonde hair, beauty marks all over like a fucking walking constellation.
I just always assumed it was aesthetic appreciation and brushed it off, until, well until I just couldn’t. I never would have assumed it was attraction that I felt towards him let alone romantic feelings accompanying it.
It’s been three weeks since my big revelation and I became a little bit distant to George, (which I hate because whenever I tell him I can’t hang out with him he gives me the saddest eyes and it makes me wanna punch myself) and he started spending more and more time with my sister since we don’t hang out that often anymore (which I hate because it makes my heart ache or whatever and I started to get unreasonably angry at my sister for simply spending time with her boyfriend).
And I know they’re talking about me because if they are in the living room or in the kitchen, they talk in hushed tones. My sister keeps looking at me with a sad look in her eyes and I pray to GOD that she doesn’t know what the fuck is going on in my head.
During our group hangs, ever since me and George got close, we’d always share the loveseat my sister got from the flea market, and he without missing a beat each time sat there and waited for me to sit next to him for the past three weeks, and each time when I plopped down on the floor instead he looked like he was going to cry.
I am seriously considering throwing myself in front of the subway on my way to the campus each day just to avoid this mess or OD on caffeine (Panera lemonade I'm looking at you) but my parents are somewhat important people and I do not want this to reflect badly on them and my sister would be fucking SAD. (And it's the worst way to come out yk) (For legal reasons this is a joke)
Writing this maybe I should have posted this at r/advice but I can’t escape the crushing suffocating feeling of both losing my best friend and possibly the love of my life. So off my chest felt right.
Edit 1: George ambushed me at the library’s exit and demanded to know why I went back to hating him all of a sudden. I had been studying for over nine hours at the point and was surviving on three hours of sleep (avoiding going home/spending time at home so I could avoid my sister because I didn’t wanna lie to her and couldn’t bear to see her with George) and I kind of broke down and confessed to him that I loved him but we could never be together. So I had to avoid him at least until I got over my feelings since we were gonna be in each other's lives for the foreseeable future, maybe forever if he married my sister.
I fucking cried at a bench, a pigeon pecked at my shoe while I did. It was spectacularly embarrassing. He kind of froze after my confession and looked in the distance very confused and I took advantage of it and ran off.
Edit 2: I snuck home, posted on my computer then cried myself to sleep that night. At 5 am in the morning I was woken up by our best friend/roommate and my very angry sister.
Turns out George ran after me but couldn’t keep up, he tried calling me and texting me but it went straight to voicemail since my phone had died when I was at the library and I never got around charging it. He asked my sister if I was home but since I snuck in they thought I was out. They spent the entire night outside looking for me, calling hospitals and police stations after 3 am, losing their minds which was pretty shitty of me I gotta admit.
And he never fully explained things to them, kind of being in a constant state of anxiety and turmoil. Granted he himself didn’t understand some of the things I said either, like how we could never be together and how I had to bury my feelings.
It was all out in the open, there was no putting all in the box at that point so I apologized for falling in love with George, told them if they were uncomfortable I could find someplace else to stay until the term was over and was probably gonna transfer schools out of state next year anyway.
When they asked me why, looking at me with incredulous eyes, I explained I needed the distance to stomach the idea of having the love of my life in my life at some capacity but never getting to be with him.
I was getting very frustrated with their inability to understand my point of view because they all had unbelieving looks on their faces. I told them I never intended to fall in love with my sister’s boyfriend when I first tried befriending him. That I never thought it was even in the realm of possibilities to fall for a man since George was my bi awakening.
Then things took a weird turn. Our best friend/roommate started laughing so hard, tears were coming out of her eyes. My sister started yelling at me and telling me I deserve a gold medal for jumping to conclusions. And George, oh poor George just lost it, squawking on the floor.
Y’all. George is apparently as gay as a maypole (I don't know what it is. Didn't ask. Didn't seem important at that time) and also in love with me. He never dated my sister. So I got a good dressing down and a boyfriend out of this. Can’t be too mad at how things took a turn.
Edit 3: Apparently our best friend/roommate has stumbled upon this post and sent it to every fucking person I know, even my parents and cousins in Mexico. If you know me and are reading this, I hate you.
Henry, if you are reading this and still making fun of me, no kisses for you. Tonight you can sleep on the fucking couch baby.
Edit 4: Since y’all are asking for an update. Yes I did forgive our best friend/roommate but she is no longer “slash roommate”. I am moving in with my incredible boyfriend next semester and spending the summer at my fathers lakehouse with our friend group and my boyfriend's sister who is also joining us. (She did read this before meeting me, there is no way I can make a worse first impression on her so I’m all chill.)