Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : A few months ago, I (F16) became friends with a guy at my school. I’ll call him A. I go to an all-girls school but A has been questioning his gender for some time now, and prefers male pronouns. A also has a pretty obvious crush on me that became apparent fairly quickly- he would stare at me in class, come back with me to my form room, all the typical stuff. He didn’t outwardly say so, but he was very open about it within his friendship group and the news got back to me- gossip spreads. I decided not to bring the topic up to him, and to let him surrender that information to me when he wanted to. But he progressively got harder to be around- our conversations disintegrated into an overwhelmingly depressive miasma and he got more and more clingy. I couldn’t get away from him, as he’d follow me everywhere. We went on a walk, and after about 6 hours I said that I was tired and that I wanted to go home. He said that he’d come too and followed me back, staying at my house for another 2 hours before I surreptitiously text my mum to drive him home. 

I realised we had nearly nothing in common and I honestly just wanted to break off contact with him. I couldn’t deal with the topic of conversation because I have diagnosed severe anxiety and experience strong suicidal thoughts, so every time we spoke about stuff in that ballpark it would bring it to the surface and put me in a vulnerable position for a good few hours. I tried to be a good friend but I felt no connection. It was difficult to empathise with his emotional state when I felt so awful myself. I could not expend that emotional energy. To be concise: it was exhausting.

So A eventually asks me out, and I tell him that I cannot reciprocate. I felt incredibly uncomfortable but also numb- I just couldn’t connect with him and I felt so bored and dry throughout the rest of the day. He, again, came back to my house afterwards. I’m not sure what I should have done, but in the next few days I blanked him completely at school. He messaged me a few times, saying things like ‘please stop ignoring me, it’s exhausting trying to speak to you. What have I done wrong? Have I ruined everything?’ I tried to damage control by saying I’d speak to him the next week, and that I was just in a bad place and needed some time, but I continued to ignore him. He would come into my form room to sit and stare at me- i could feel his presence like daggers in my back. I want to keep avoiding him. I want to relinquish our friendship. I began ignoring his text messages- i feel I owe him an explanation but I just don’t want to interact with him. I’ve lost friends like this before. I feel like I’m in a perpetual state of isolating myself and that soon I will be completely on my own. 

Anyway. A has a new crush. He learnt on me heavily for emotional support before. I think I was bad for him- he went through some rough things, and his family situation was one wherein his parents were both away from home for long stretches of time, not to mention his gender dysphoria. I was never a good friend to him. Am I the asshole for cutting him out of my life and refusing to explain why?  Sorry for the verbal vomit.