I met my girl best friend on our first day of uni about an year ago. She is in a 3 year relationship and I knew it from the start. For context I never had a girlfriend. We have been friends since we met but in the last 2 or 3 months we got super close, spending almost every day together at uni, hanging after classes, studying together on free days, gaming and watching shows all night until morning, got into each other's hobbies, sharing inside jokes, even co-parenting a bee plushie. We got so close all our friends tease us a lot about it and people started assuming we were together.
As expected I caught feelings for her. I never acted on it, I tried to just be her close friend but I became emotionally dependent and jelaous. On days we weren't together (not many anyway) I always felt a bit empty, I thought about her a lot and basically wasted them fully doing nothing. I started giving her gifts, got more physically affectionate and similar but I always did just because it made both happy, I didn't expect anything. I always asked her if she was uncomfortable with me doing anything but she always said she didn't mind anything I did and so we never set any boundaries. She started calling me her bestie and said how much she loved spending time with me. She started getting upset when I missed any of our shared rituals, when I said no to play with her or when I went to uni by myself and not with her.
Then, a few nights ago, while drinking together on voice chat, I got pretty drunk and confessed. I told her everything, including how I view her boyfriend and their relationship, which I didn't have any right to, as it looked dead and shallow from the outside (you can see it from the fact she even got this close to me in the first place). She got pretty hurt, especially since she thought I was the one guy who cared about her a lot without wanting to hit on her. And the fact I disrespected her boyfriend made her even more upset.
She said she wished she could just pretend it never happened and go back to normal but she can’t. She asked me to "get over her" and told me I should just learn to distinguish platonic and romantic love. We agreed to take some time apart but we both said to the other that we can text each other at all moments for whatever reason.
Before she left on a trip, I texted her wishing her to be safe, enjoy the trip and have fun since she deserved it. She texted me back saying she knows this is hard for both of us and especially for me so I should try to keep myself busy and have fun too.
Now I feel like I shattered her trust. She was happy to finally have a guy friend who didn’t hit on her until I did. I feel terrible. I swore to never hurt her yet I did.
She should be back tomorrow from her trip and I think we'll have to takk since we have a uni project to do together and she told me she still want to do it with me.
How do I stop catching feelings for close female friends? Was this even real love or just emotional dependency? Can I fix this and make our friendship go back to how it was?
TL;DR:
I (22M) fell for my girl best friend (22F) who’s in a long-term relationship. We got really close, I caught feelings, and confessed while drunk. She was hurt, said I broke her trust, and now we’re taking space. I want to fix the friendship but I'm not sure if that’s possible.