It doesn’t matter that all of your friends already knew, it doesn’t matter that your parents when you were finally going to get together, it doesn’t matter that strangers comment on how perfect a couple you would make. When you finally admit to yourself that you love your best friend, it hits like a big yellow school bus (pardon my Mean Girls reference).

This is my fourth time coping with this news. If someone can truly explain to me how not to fall for the “best friend,” you would really help the future of my love life. It seems second nature for feelings to start to develop. He is the one waiting for you with open arms when you learn of something that brings you to tears, he is the one who casually foots the bill when you two are out for a nice lunch, he is the one who stays up video chatting with you all night when you just want someone to talk to, he is the one who reminds you that you deserve more, and he is the one who will show up the day after you fought tirelessly to make sure that your friendship is ok.

The problem is that he is also the one who harasses you when he hears about your most recent hook-up; you are the one he turns to when drafting a text to ask his newest muse on a date; you are the one that sees him at his worst, whether that is puking after a night of pledging or rolling out of bed in a full groutfit. You will always be the one who picks up the pieces of his heart once they’ve been broken, hoping that just maybe one of these times you’ll be the one he chooses to hold them all together.

So, what actually happens once you reflect and realize that he is the one you want to wake up to every morning?

It seems that there is no easy answer of how to cope with this reality. You know that the feelings are not reciprocated because well, you just finished hearing about his dance floor make out session from last night and the girl he’s taking to dinner tonight. So, the real question is how are you going to move on from this unrequited love? I do believe that it differs for every person, but creating some distance is the advice that I give and try to follow. You are never going to move on if rush to his doorstep every time he needs something, if you let him twirl you around the dance floor, if you reach for his hand to hold when something is wrong; you will never move on if you don’t change anything because we all know that he only keep giving you reasons to love him.

Let me tell you, as someone who has fallen for too many of her best friends, it doesn’t get easier the more times it happens. It seems that every time I move on, someone else subconsciously creeps into the back of my mind, and every time I realize how deeply I have fallen, it is a bigger blow than the time before.

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