How can I avoid being an utter jerk in this situation?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So a few months ago, I met someone, we hit it off, and I realized pretty quickly that I was *ridiculously *attracted to her. Like, knees trembling and heart pounding attracted to her. I went along with this, and flirtation was reciprocated — but only inconsistently. She wouldn’t answer my calls for days on end, but the next week, I’d be ‘my love’ and ‘darling’. Wanting to make some sort of sense of this, I met up with her one day for coffee and told her about my feelings for her. She said she didn’t know what she wanted (that much was obvious).

I backed off for a while, so I could get over these feelings and clear my head. No calls, no texts, nothing. She wound up seeing another friend of mine, which irked me a little, but by then, I had already figured out that “I don’t know what I want” was semantically equivalent to “You are not the one I want,” and I could deal with that.

So one morning she calls me up and asks if she could crash on my couch for a few hours. I wanted to make up some excuse to say ‘no’, but I live in a house with a bunch of mutual friends, and so I said ‘sure’. She comes over fifteen minutes later and starts crying. I ask her what’s wrong, and she told me that her new boyfriend cheated on her. So I gave her a few words, and went on with my day. I did *not *want to be her shoulder to cry on, when I still had some feelings to work through. Anyone who’s been in that position knows how much that sucks.

But now she’s back at it again: I’ve been running into her a lot, and she’s starting to call me things like ‘darling’. I’m sick of it, and want to tell her to cut it out. Ideally, I’d like to do this without erasing her completely from my life; I can’t be friends with her, however, if she keeps flirting with me while still trying to patch things back together with her sometimes-ex. That just screams insecurity and a whole newsstand of other issues to me, and I’m in no position to be someone’s pro-bono psychotherapist.

So how do I work this out without (unnecessarily) being a jerk? I can’t exactly avoid her; she lives right down the street from me, and we have a lot of mutual friends. Should I just man up and explain everything? Or should I just get over it and not get worked up over her boundary issues?

2

I’m a big believer in accepting people how they are, or just leaving them alone. You’re not going to change how this woman relates to others. If you don’t like the way she acts, end your friendship, or whatever you have going on with her.

3

I’m guessing that being an utter jerk would actually be to your benefit in this situation (that is, if you want to be with her). She’ll use you because you’re a nice guy. Become a jerk and there’s a good chance you can be her boyfriend.

4

“Be a jerk”- always good advice. :rolleyes:

5

I’d just ask her flat-out. “You said before that you didn’t know what you wanted. Have you decided on what it is that you want? Because it seems to me like you’re sending me different signals than you were a few weeks ago, and I’m confused.”

6

I think Gus nailed it. I also think you’re taking a very high difficult road on this - that situation sucks. But it’s great that you recognize it and are standing up for yourself. I think that turning up the Jerk Dial several notches will get her to back off, and she won’t think less of you.

7

Man up and say this, in a neutral tone - “I am no longer interested in you romantically, and don’t particularly care about your relationship problems. If you can live with that, we can be friends.”

8

You can say something like this, and you don’t look like a jerk. See?

9

In this case “be more of a jerk” really means “be less of a doormat.”

I think the best course of action at this point is to cut off all contact with her if possible.

10

Make your own damn boundaries, is my advice.

I think you’ve been pretty good about things, so far. Don’t give up now. I believe you could remain friends and there is no need for you to be any kind of a jerk.

Set boundaries for yourself and stick to them. No more crashing at your place, that’s out, make some lame excuse. No more listening to her relationship woes, make any excuse and end such conversations immediately. Basically, don’t allow yourself to be used, that’s really all it takes.

If she wants to pursue a friendship great, if not, oh well. Don’t be a jerk, you’ll only regret it.

11

Well yeah, but the OP said this - “I can’t exactly avoid her; she lives right down the street from me, and we have a lot of mutual friends.” So it sounds like it isn’t possible.

12

My point was that you can tell someone that you don’t want to be their friend, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it.

13

You’re the guy she shows interest in when there isn’t another guy lined up. Frankly I wouldn’t even want to be friends with her.

14

Well, what the OP considers “being a jerk” is really “not allowing yourself to be used as a chump”.

“Asking her flat out” always good advice.:dubious:
Look bro. She doesn’t want you. She has placed you firmly in the “friend zone” and is content to use you as a shoulder to cry on when she catches the guy she’s banging with another woman. And you let her get away with it because you like her attentions.

Your decision isn’t so much “do I act like a jerk” as it is do you want to be friends with this girl knowing that it won’t go any further. If you want to be friends, you have to accept the emotional rollarcoaster. If you don’t want to be friends, just politely tell her you feel bad but perhaps you aren’t the best person to discuss these matters with.

Or you could jerkishly tell her “what the shit are you bringing this crap to me for? What’s next? Are we going to go out sipping cosmos and shopping for Manolo Blahniks together?” And then spread rumors around that you let her blow you.

15

Yes, of course. But sometimes I see “doormat” and “jerk” as being the extremes of a continuum, where somewhere in the middle is the ideal. The OP needs to move a few notches towards the middle.

16

The next time you’re in her company and in a non-emotional mindset, say this:

“Hey <girl>. You know I kind of have had a thing for you, right? And you don’t really feel the same way about me. That’s fine, c’est la vie, but you should know that when you flirt, it actually brings all that back and keeps me from moving on. I know you’re not doing it consciously, but if someone was doing it intentionally, that would be called ‘mind games.’ If the tables were turned, I would want to know, which is why I’m bringing this up, so if you get where I’m coming from, you know, ‘handle with care’.”

17

I’ve played both extremes of the ‘jerk/doormat’ continuum all my life, mostly being a jerk when I was fed up with of being a doormat, and regretting it later on. It’s time to move on and find more mature ways of dealing with my personal life.

I have no interest in being her boyfriend anymore, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I wince whenever she calls me ‘darling’, partly because I still got some kind of attraction to her. I’m not going to change the way she relates to people, but I’m *not *okay with whatever it is between us.

Welp, it’s not I haven’t manned up to her before (when I told her how I felt about her). I guess it’s time for another heart-to-heart. Settled: next time she pulls that on me, I’ll tell her I’m not cool with it.

18

I used to feel the same way about a female friend of mine. She ‘dated’ me while she dated other guys as well, except that I found out she was actually sleeping with the other guys and not with me. Then I basically told her that it was fine for us to be friends, but that I wasn’t taking her out to dinner/movies/shows/clubs and paying for her any longer. We were going to go dutch. At first she was a bit offended by this, which really pissed me off, but I told her if she wasn’t interested in me as a boyfriend I could except that, however, friends don’t pay for each other all the time in a one sided way.

Fast forward a decade later - I am married but still friends with her. Funny thing though is that I am no longer attracted to her. It turns out all those little quirks about her I thought were ‘cute’ like her always being a few minutes late because she wanted to do her make-up or the fact she had no sense of direction, which always resulted in her getting lost, are now just fucking annoying.

19

This kind of game playing really bothers me whether it’s a male or female! GRRRR!!! Sorry you’re going through this. I think we’ve all been there at some point in our life.

**Believe me, she hasn’t forgotten this conversation. She likes you but not in the same way you feel about her. And she DOES know what she wants - it’s just not you at the moment and she wants to keep her options OPEN with you if she needs you for something later.
**

She’s using you, dude. And in my opinion, this is CRUEL. Again, she hasn’t forgotten about your feelings for her. You need to create some boundaries here. If she tries something like this again, you need to be too busy to deal with it and/or Suggest she call some of her girl friends for help. Then hang up. She’ll figure out that you aren’t a pushover. This will only happen if you let it happen.

**She’s obviously a manipulator and I’m SURE you aren’t the first one or the only one for that matter that she’s playing games with. ****As for the endearments, some people throw them around as just part of the conversation and they don’t really mean anything,… obviously. ****LISTEN to your instincts about her. Reread what you typed here. Women aren’t the only ones with intuition about other people. If you run into her, keep it short. You’re too busy, remember?
**

**I would NOT explain anything to her again. You’ve already done that. I wouldn’t accept calls from her anymore, either. Let it go to voice mail. Since you say you can’t always avoid seeing her, at least maintain control over when that will be and for how long. For instance, don’t linger in her company no matter how much you might want to. When you do run into her, pretend she’s someone that you really aren’t interested in and behave accordingly. You don’t have to be a jerk, you’re just too busy, busy looking for someone that deserves a good guy like you! Remember, DON’T tell her again how you feel. SHE KNOWS… Man up and move on!
**

20

Winner.