【原声视界】Day 16 My Best Friend Tried to Steal MY CRUSH

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My name is Bryan, and I have a best friend, Eric. We always thought that nothing could in anyway damage our friendship. We never had a single serious argument! It all changed when we met Phoebe. We were around 13 then. 

Phoebe was an awesome girl from another school, and we actually met online. We both played the same game. At first, all three of us were chatting online, but then we started hanging out with her in real life as well. She was fun and cool and pretty, and I started to like her very much. One evening after we had walked Phoebe home, we were talking about how awesome she was, and I eventually told Eric that I liked her. To my surprise, Eric told me that he liked her as well. At first we thought it was awesome – like, we were such great friends that even our taste in girls was similar, and we thought that it wasn’t a big deal. 

We were hang out together, but of course, online, I was chatting with Phoebe one-on-one, and I got the feeling that she may like me as well. I decided not to tell Eric so he wouldn’t get upset, and continued to talk to Phoebe daily. Later, Eric told me that he thought Phoebe liked him because she was so friendly to him, and I told him that I felt the same about her and me. I told his that I would ask Phoebe out, but Eric got mad and said that he should do it, because he had a better chance with her and it was fair. Of course, I disagreed, so we actually had a serious argument for the first time in our life.

After that, we talked less with each other, and when all three of us were hanging out together, Eric desperately tried to be funny and cool with her. Basically, he never acted like this before, and it was very weird for me, but Phoebe was laughing and enjoying his new style – so I decided that I should do it too. Later Eric started to make some barely noticeable but mean jokes about me, like saying, “hey, Bryan, wanna race towards that sign?” and if I said “no”, he would answer “of course not, I forgot that you’re the weakest in our class”. So I usually said yes and Eric was always a bit faster than me. Of course, I argued with him and tried to answer the same way he did, but it was so stupid. Online, I was telling Phoebe how Eric was acting like a jerk all of a sudden, and she was like, “he said the same thing about you, what is happening between you guys?”

I thought of telling her that I liked her then, but decided that I wanted to do it in a more romantic way, so I planned to ask her out without Eric around. But we were already planned to go out together, so I wanna to do it afterwards. So, we were hanging out as usual, and then suddenly Eric told Phoebe in front of me that he liked her and wanted to date her! I guess he planned that I wouldn’t say anything because it would be too awkward, but I couldn’t lose my chance, so I said right after him that I liked her too and that she should choose the best one. And yes, it was awkward. I still remembered how wide open her eyes were at this moment. She clearly didn’t know what to say...so she said something like “um, well, actually, I have a boyfriend, guys, I’m sorry”. The rest of the evening was very awkward. 

Like she was clearly uncomfortable at this point. And maybe she didn’t have a boyfriend, but the situation itself was weird for her. So we walked her home, and she muttered “sorry” and went home. After that, we didn’t really hang out with her, and I guess I understand why she didn’t want to anymore – or maybe she really did have a boyfriend... Me and Eric didn’t talk for weeks, and I missed him. I missed Phoebe, too, because she was a good friend, but Eric was my BEST friend. Even other people at school noticed that we didn’t talk to each other and asked why. 

So one day after school, I texted Eric and I asked if he wanted to hang out, and he said yes. At first it was a bit awkward; we were both mad at each other. But eventually we just started talking and joking around as usual, and soon it was like it was before. We didn’t talk about Phoebe at first, because it was an awkward memory for both of us, but then we did and decided that next time we wouldn’t act like this towards each other. I now think that I could have lost my best friend because we were both too stupid, and we should have handled the situation better.