https://brandyjensen.substack.com/p/dear-fuck-up-should-i-tell-my-friend

It just sometimes happens that you will look at a face you’ve seen countless times and suddenly have the urge to bring it much closer to your own. You will find that a new sense of wonder attaches to a person who is also beautifully familiar. You will realize, in short, that you are in love. There is nothing particularly gendered about this. I refuse to cede the territory of Being Someone Who Yearns to men. ... For every anecdote about relationships ruined I could give you one about relationships changed. “We were friends for years before we started dating” is so common a story it’s often told quasi-apologetically, like it’s not exciting or interesting enough to count. But in every version of that story there is a moment when someone who had long been living between fear and hope had to pick one.