(ex?)crush

To rip the band-aid off early, I've never been in a relationship. This isn't to say I've never been confessed to before or anything, it's been a personal choice. between the years 2016-2021 I hadn't liked anyone. The last person I did like, the crush lasted for about 5 years (2011/2-2016) and, since I was a child between the ages of 5 and 10 through it, I obviously didn't try to turn it into a relationship. I realized that he was a bad person and just suddenly stopped liking him. That is behind me. Then I got into high school and, because of covid, we were online. I didn't really know my class personally during the first few months because of it even though we were on discord all the time. You can't just get to know someone online, especially not in 5 months. But we started with in-person school on exactly the 17th of February. And on March 14th, something happened. I noticed that a guy in my class, who I considered to be one of the few people I bonded with, looks... I don't know... different... I noticed his flaws, I noticed his looks, his personality and all of those facts combined started to give me a weird feeling in my stomach that i hadn't felt yet. I always thought that the term "butterflies in your stomach" was just metaphor or something but I think the new feeling was that. It only happened when I was near him and I couldn't even talk confidently and clearly during that. Seemed I had formed a crush on him. I knew how I was about crushes, knowing that the last one lasted for five whole years and I knew this would be bad and fuck things up about our friendship. Me and him talked online basically every day and still do. I never did confess. On January 10th of 2023, after almost eight months, I decided I didn't have a crush anymore. I just didn't feel the butterflies when texting him or seeing his notifications or seeing that he liked my post or story or anything. I don't know if I stopped liking him. I don't know if I still like him. But what I do know is what I head with my own two ears: in may of 2023, during the last days of my sophomore school year, I heard him talking with 3 classmates of ours and two of them starting talking to him about a girl in our class and he started to accuse the third friend if he told them and asking them if "it's that obvious". Although I never heard their full conversation and pretended like I wasn't listening at all, it's obvious that this was just teasing about his possible crush on her. The two friends did confirm to him that yes, "it is that obvious". I had noticed him smile a lot when talking with her and her going out of her way to talk to him but I just ignored it as her talkative personality since I knew who she liked at the time. Still, hearing that made my stomach turn. I thought I didn't like him. I even stopped talking to him. Why did I feel.. angry? or was it jealous? I don't know. It was a weird feeling. Then, after the summer break I started to notice their interactions more and it still made me feel weird. They act a little relationship-ey together or could it be that at least one of them has romantic feelings and hasn't confessed - I don't know. I started to accept that, whatever it may be between them is theirs to figure out and mine to move away from. He's hers and that's all. I don't like him anymore. But, recently, he started talking to me a lot. He sends me cute cat videos (and cute animals in general), he sends me funny videos, he sends me relatable videos, he sends me videos about things I like that I don't even mention often like cinnamoroll and hello kitty, he interacts with me at school and basically a lot of similar friendly stuff. Even multiple of his friends keep on telling me "oh you and him are so similar" or "you and him would make a great pair" or "what you did right now is literally like him" and I don't even know what to make of all this. Between his new friendly interactions and my January crush pause, I started to talk to new people I'm interested in, male and female and everything in between and outside that. But I just wasn't interested in relationships. I wasn't interested in a relationship with him either. I try not to talk to him as much but he keeps on starting conversations. I thought maybe he just likes me as a friend and started to reciprocate his friendliness by sending similar videos and posts to him, just toned down. Every time he sends something I interact with it very minimally and usually just leave a like or laughing. But every time I send something, he writes full responses and tries to start conversation. But I always keep it minimal. I don't want to get too attached and catch feelings again only for it to turn out to just being normal friendly behavior but only my closest of best friends act like this and it isn't your average normal non-close friend thing to do and I wouldn't be this friendly with anyone that I'm on this level of friendship with. I don't know. I'm confused. If you managed to read through this, hi! Here's a cookie 🍪!