We're still good friends who talk daily and send each other gifts now and then. It won't ever be anything more than that for a whole sack of reasons, which I knew from day 1, so I spent the whole crush just enjoying crushing on her. We played a fantastic, torrid, epic ship during the time period when the crush was worst (but I was definitely crushing on her before that), but we burned out on that after a year or so and now we just fritter around with new ideas and keep each other company.

It's really nice, tbh. I think it worked out well because I never even allowed myself to entertain the notion of admitting to the crush. It was a foregone conclusion, but it was nice to know I could feel that way about someone again.