8-years of Realizations of a 5-year No Label Relationship

I had a guy bestfriend for 5 years. When I 1st saw him, I thought to myself, “oh he’s quite cute”. Months after, I was given the opportunity to talk to him. After that, we clicked so well. We got to know each other more in the light of friendship. We discovered we had a lot of similarities. Though I had a crush on him, I still see him as a brother in Christ. For 5 years, we’ve been thru a lot together. We do eat in low-budget restaurants together. We stroll the mall together. We talked about anything under the sun. We were communicating through texts or chats almost everyday and every night until midnight. I had been his listening ear during the biggest battle he faced in his life. He even told me he would be fine not married in the future because he thought he always had me. It all happened like I never thought it would end. Then, after 5 years, he sent me a long message saying that we need to have distance with each other. He expressed about a lot of things in that message which was more confusing. But years after, one thing I was sure he was saying in that message, he wanted to end what was going on back then. It hurt me because it felt like I was breaking up with someone so close to my heart. I had a lot of unanswered questions which until now are still unanswered and I am not seeking for answers anymore. I realized that was somehow a good thing that we were only friends and we did not have physical connection. It was not that hard to move on because there was never an US, we never committed to something romantic. Good thing. Now, years after, I already moved on and moved forward with my life. I am now busy with my career goals. I’m not hoping that someone is out there meant for me. Only God knows if there is. For now, I love being on my own. I now have the liberty to sleep early if I want to. I did not have that ‘guilt feeling’ if I can’t reply immediately. I hope other people especially the younger generation can learn from this experience. It’s not bad to be friends with the opposite sex, but be watchful and set boundaries because we wouldn’t know who among you would fall on false hope.