TIFU by Confessing My Feelings to a Close Friend on a Trip and Getting Emotionally Whiplashed

Went on a trip recently with some of my closest friends. One of them is someone I’ve had feelings for a while—feelings I’ve mostly kept to myself because I didn’t want to mess up the friendship or friend group. The peak of those feelings was years ago and ever since it’s ebbed and flowed. We don’t live in the same state or city anymore so not that it matters anymore. Only see them once or twice a year now and this month long trip was definitely the last time I got to see them more an extended period of time before life takes us in different directions.

Anyways, I thought about maybe confessing my feelings during the trip earlier this year but quickly decided that it’s not right to dump all that to someone in this context at all and moved on.

The trip was going well and around halfway through we hooked up. It just kind of happened after a night out and immediately after the next morning she said it couldn’t happen again and we both promised not too. Despite that, there was this one night where we were talking about some trauma stuff that happened to her last year and she asked to sleep with me. Among many things she thanked me for being by her side through it all and was just really emotional as she held me tight and fell asleep wrapped around her. Which really confused me given that days before she was adamant about that hookup can’t be happening again. We talked a lot about our futures and how we’re getting older and need to start making steps to reach where we want to be in our 30’s like kids, marriage, etc. The scariness of it all. The few years we have to make it all happen, find the right person, get the right job, etc. Of course this is very different but it still felt intimate in a way that I find hard to see as 100% platonic.

Anyways, we ended up hooking up a few more times afterwards. It was great and all, but close to the end of the trip we went to a bar and things went sideways. Got drunk and ended up talking to a bunch of people there and at some point in the night this guy somehow senses my feelings for her and we have a man to man discussion about having to express it. He also talked to her at a separate point in the night about her being a bad person for leading me on and flirting with me despite not wanting it to lead anywhere (from what she told me).

It was a blurry night out. Don’t remember much at the bar. Tried calling her 10x times to find her, said I love you via text (I do this with a lot of my close guy friends, but it almost definitely did not come across like that to her without that context… still cringing when reading that text), etc. Ended up going back to the apt with her. At some point in the night I told her how I felt, or at least that I used to have feelings for her, promised I wouldn’t speak on it again and then we hooked up again. It was great. Things seem to have gone over just fine… or at least I thought because why else would we hook up if they weren’t.

The following morning I felt great to get it off my chest but I realized the next few, and last days, of our trip she definitely pulled back a lot. She was more snappy, she was more distant. At one point, during one of the days it was just me and her (since our other friend had a detour during his trip) she splitted ways as we explored the street markets separately it was clear that she did not want to be around me. That hurt.

On the last night, she brought it up again. Said she was sorry about the distance and coldness. She was processing everything and had been emotional at various points of the trip. She filled me in on some of the conversation that we had that I had not remembered. Mentioned that she did reciprocate those feelings at one point but never altercated it because past experiences losing close friends to that. Said she wish she had known and not been oblivious to it all. I apologized for dumping so much on her in a night. Didn’t even get to finish the conversation due to our other friend coming back from the store.

Not to say it ruined the trip, but those last few days were definitely a weird way to close out an otherwise amazing trip. I had accomplished what I thought was impossible years ago, felt safe enough to share my feelings and get it off my chest, then felt completely isolated for a bit afterwards. I brushed it off when she apologized, but it’s been sitting heavy on my mind sense. What it all means.

Was that night we trauma bonded and cuddled purely platonic from her end? Why would you hook up with someone if you just had a conversation with someone about leading people on and I had clearly expressed my past feelings… then go cold the following days? I just don’t understand it. And now that’s likely my last interaction(s) with her before I move across the country and lose touch. In fact, I haven’t really spoken to her since our goodbyes at the airport. And that goodbye was such a terrible goodbye. I wanted to say so much, to give a last kiss, etc but it felt so distant from her end.

Not sure how to move on. What to feel. I have no clue how things were left between us. What she’s feeling. Is she even feeling anything, does she think about this stuff like I do or no? A little disappointed this might be the last interaction I have with her before I move and start a new life.

I’m stuck wondering whether our moments together were purely platonic for her, why she hooked up with me after talking about not wanting to lead me on, and what she’s feeling. I haven’t felt like joining our usual group gaming sessions since I got back, and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to move forward or what to feel.

I feel like I messed everything up. I keep wondering what she is feeling, or if she’s thinking about it at all. I keep replaying everything: the hookups, the cuddles, the talks. Were those moments real? Platonic? Emotional? Mixed signals or just my wishful thinking?

I’m left more confused than ever, unsure how to move on from a goodbye that didn’t feel like one.

TL;DR: Went on a trip with close friends, one of whom I've had feelings for in the past. We hooked up a few times, but after I confessed my past feelings, she became distant and cold, leading me to question what she felt. Now, with the trip behind us and me moving away, I’m unsure how to move on, especially since our last interaction felt distant and unresolved.