We are cousins, about five years apart. It might be worth noting that she's an only child, so she cares a lot about my brother and I and views us sort of like her brothers. I’m twenty and she’s fifteen.
I guess I'll just dive straight into the relevant details. When I was thirteen and she was eight, I was over at her house after school. I think her mom picked me up. I was pretty tired and she was doing homework, so I decided to try to take a nap. I went over to lie down on a couch in the living room, my cousin sitting not too far away at the dining room table. I closed my eyes and began to try to fall asleep. About five minutes later (and I'm still awake at this point), my cousin lays on top of me and kisses me for about ten seconds. I didn't kiss back or show any signs of being awake.
Now, admittedly, despite the pretty awkward age difference, I didn't exactly not like it. And so over the next year or two on about five or six more occasions I would pretend to be asleep (this time with the intention of her kissing me), and she would kiss me. By this point, I'd had two girlfriends but I didn't actually go on dates with them (they both asked me out; I agreed, but avoided both of them and made up excuses to not go out on dates with them due to my pretty extreme social phobia at the time). So I'd never kissed a girl, and I think I did this because I was just curious about kissing. I assume she also did it for the same reason.
I guess it's worth noting (despite being fairly obvious) that both of us were (or at least are now) fully aware that the other person was aware. Even if she couldn't figure out at the ages of eight and nine that I was just pretending to be asleep (which is pretty doubtful, especially given her intelligence), she's had to look back on it and figure out that I was pretending to be asleep so that she would kiss me. So we both know this, but we've never talked about it.
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Looking back at family photos during Christmas or Thanksgiving, she was always standing right by me. My brother did hang out with us, but he'd often talk with the adults, leaving my cousin and I to hang out with each other. She loved (and still loves) playing games with me. My dad's girlfriend about two years made a comment along the lines of, "[My cousin] is a really interesting and smart girl when you can actually talk to her. She's just so obsessed with [me]."
She's always hugged me a lot and she (although I'm not sure how recently this started, but it's been like this for at least three years) likes to hold my hand and sit really close and cuddle. I lived with her and her family for about six months last year. I slept on the couch, and at night she would come talk to me a little bit before she went to bed, and sometimes she would actually lay on me. Like, chest to chest. If we're playing a video game together, we'll lay down close to each other; if we're watching a movie together or if we're in the car together, she'll hold my hand (but she'll pull away if she hears someone coming).
Another pretty odd component to our relationship (well, I guess it's only kind of odd given the other facts about our relationship) is that we will often cause each other pain. It's essentially a game (although this has calmed down as we've gotten older). So she will tickle me a lot, I will respond by pinching her or hurting her fingers or something, and then she'll pull my hair or something. And there’s a lot of laughter during this too. Yep.
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A little bit more recently (past one or two years), she has routinely called me 'cute', even in front of her parents. She's even called me 'dreamy' before. Also, she was in German I last year and she would tell me and her parents and other relatives that she loves them using the German phrase love... except, as she later found out, she was using the phrase for romantic love. So she found out the appropriate phrase and began using it. But a month or two after she started using the appropriate phrase, she was (I think) hugging me one day (I forgot the exact context in which this occurred), and she used the phrase for romantic love, and didn't correct herself. So... and it’s pretty unlikely she did that accidentally.
About three months ago she was acting unusually flirty around me. She spoke in a very ‘cute’ kind of voice, and just seemed really flirty in general. I didn’t really flirt back at all and even seemed a bit put off by it. (I haven’t said this yet, but I wasn’t put off by it because I don’t like her in that way... I actually, admittedly, sort of do. But it’s mixed with a lot platonic love. Since living with her and her parents for six months, we’ve gotten a lot closer and we’re a lot like siblings now. The reason I acted put off by it is that, even though I kind of do like her in that way, I don’t want our relationship to become that... for a variety of obvious reasons. And she got pretty mad and seemed really hurt. She deleted all of my apps on my iPhone (which I could just resync to get them back, and I thinks he knew that), and then sat in a chair and looked mad/sad. She didn’t ask for a hug when I left, which is something she always does. So as I left I said, “Goodbye, [her name], love you too” in a concerned voice, and then she lit up excitedly and told me goodbye emphatically at the door. (I’m kind of bad at showing affection and I’ve never told her I love her until that point.)
And about three days ago she was really, really flirty acting. She made a joke (in context) about our grandmother accusing us of incest, and she made a joke about one of my friends secretly being in love with me... all while being very flirty in general.
Other things: she tells me all of her secrets, including very personal ones. She talks to me about which guys she likes at school. She wants me to get a girlfriend very badly. She laughs at even the pretty unfunny jokes I make. My grandmother sent a facebook message to my cousin implying that she felt were committing incest (this sounds worse than it is because my grandmother is kind of... losing it mentally).
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And I guess that’s all I can think of right now, but what are your thoughts on this? Is this really unhealthy sounding? How abnormal is it?
Just any general questions or thoughts would be appreciated..
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