I met this girl in high school when I was in 11th grade and she sat next to me in math class. We ended up becoming pretty good friends at least inside of school. We went to the same college after high school and occasionally had classes together and would sit next to each other pretty much like high school. Eventually we fell out of contact and I didn’t see her for almost 2 years.
Fast forward to last month and I see this girl in my Geology class. We sit together and its just like old times. Turns out she had gone to school in Maryland for about a year and a half. As the weeks go by we start hanging out outside of class. I go to her house and we drink, I spend the night, we go on walks, stuff like that. A couple times when we get drunk we make out or something but no sex or anything. I’m really starting to develop romantic feelings for her though. I think about her all the time and love talking to her. So anyway we go downtown last night to drink and we are both drunk before we even get there. Some guy starts talking to her and I get really jealous, which is stupid I know but I couldn’t help it and I walk outside for a while.
She comes outside after a few minutes and asks me whats wrong and I basically hit her with everything I’ve been feeling. Of course she tells me she doesn’t think about me that way, yada yada yada. I told her I wasn’t sure if I could just be her friend because it was just too painful for me. I start crying and I get a ride home. God I feel like I’ve totally ruined things and I haven’t talked to her yet, though we have class together on Monday. I love being her friend but it might be too heartbreaking for me knowing we could be nothing more.
If it would be too heartbreaking to be her friend knowing there will be nothing more, back off. Don’t spend all of your available free time with her - if you are with her you are not out meeting someone who might be open to a relationship.
Don’t tell yourself she might change her mind and decide you are her One True Love. Yes, she might. However, since she has already told you she doesn’t see you that way, I don’t see it happening.
It sounds to me like there is too much alcohol involved here for anyone to have been thinking straight last night. I would suggest asking her to meet you for coffee when both of you are sober, and having a real discussion about how both of you feel. Then you can make some decisions about what to do. Options include:
giving her some time to think about what she wants before anything drastic happens,
stopping the friendship because it’s too painful for you and she just doesn’t feel that way,
trying out a dating relationship and going slowly (without sloppy drunken makeout sessions that leave you both confused about what’s going on).
Don’t jump to conclusions; give her some time to think properly; and have some sober conversations. If she tells you that she really just doesn’t feel that way, move on and don’t look back.
You’ve answered your own question though, you can’t do anything. You’re just going to annoy her and make yourself miserable by holding on. You don’t want to be that person who doesn’t take no for an answer. Respect her decision and more than that, take care of yourself.
If she’s pissed at you for telling her how she feels, then fuck her, and I dont mean slipping the sausage. Whether you caused a scene or not, she sounds so self-centered that has no idea how brave you were for speaking up, and how flattered she could be by the compliment.
Whatever you do, dont blame yourself. Shit happens.
pool, sorry to hear it, but your title is misleading. This wasn’t relationship related; to call it a crush would probably be an understatement but that’s the closest I can nail it. She was a friend you were attracted to who didn’t share the same feelings. I’m sorry that feelings boiled over like that and things blew up, but at least that takes you a step closer towards separating yourself from these non-reciprocated feelings.
You may think you’re in love, maybe this is the closest you’ve ever felt to it. But it’s probably not. It will hurt for awhile, longer than you hope, but these things do fade away. Every guy who has at least 25 years under his belt will tell you the same thing. And I don’t know why I’m telling you this, because I believe you already know this.
You’re going to keep going to class with her, moving your seat so you don’t sit right next to her (if you can), you’re going to lose her phone number and her email address, and you’re going to move on. This is definitely a case of “fake it till you make it” - she doesn’t want you romantically, she doesn’t want you as a friend now, she’s made that perfectly clear, and that’s just the way it is.
Don’t be mad at her or yourself, though. She isn’t playing any games with you, and I respect that, and you got things cleared up about where you stand with her in a big hurry, and I respect that, too.
ETA: This is the voice of experience talking, from all of us. We’ve all dumped our emotional purse all over someone else and got nothing back but a kind rebuff (if we’re lucky) - most of us probably more than once. You take a breather, you wallow and feel sorry for yourself for a bit, then you get back in the game, because you have to play to win. (Is there a cliché I’ve missed in my post? I’ll think about that and get back to you. )
pool, you do not want to maintain a friendship with her. Maybe, in a few years, once all of your feelings for her have gone, it’ll be ok to pick up with her again. But whatever you do, keep her completely out of your life for now. Unless a miracle happens and she’s waiting for you naked in your bedroom one night. Then all bets are off.
Or she’s angry because she feels she was lied to or misled. Or her feelings are hurt, too, because a friendship she valued has to be over at this point and it came out as anger when what she’s really feeling is sadness or regret or panic. Remember, her friendship has been turned on its head, too.
In any case,** pool**, letting her know your honest feelings for her was absolutely the right thing. You may be embarrassed over how it went down, but few of us handle this well early in life. Vow to learn from this experience, and if it comes up again in your life you will handle it better. But being honest with someone about how you feel about them is so very important, even if it doesn’t go your way. I know Monday is going to be trying for you, but just focus on being respectful of yourself and respectful of her and you’ll get through it.
Thanks guys, it was really hard to tell her how I felt but it was something I had to do and now that its over at least I know where I stand. Now that its already happened it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off me. It will suck for a while but I’ll get over it. I need to spend my time looking for someone who wants to be with me as much as I want to be with them. I’m going to go outside and do something, its too beautiful a day to sit here on my ass and feel sorry for myself.
They sit next to each other in class.
They hang out outside of class.
The OP goes to her place, they drink together, and he sometimes spends the night.
They go on walks together.
They make out on a few occasions.
That set of circumstances could easily lead most people to believe that there might be more than a regular friendship here. Especially the making out part.
I’m glad you’re getting past this, pool, and i wish you luck. But if she gets pissed at you simply for declaring your feelings after the type of friendship that you described in your OP, you’re better off without her.
Sounds like it worked out well, actually. I know it sucks hard to be in this situation (I’ve been in it a couple of times) but really, her telling you to “let me let you go” is GREAT for you. It’s really f’n hard for someone who is in love like you are to let go. She has made it easier by brushing you off.
I had a guy that I was oogly over, and we went back and forth with the “I still want to be your friend” crap for a while. Finally, he just stopped talking to me. It was absolutely spine-crushing for the first few weeks or so, but my life was so much easier after that. He helped me move on by ending it solidly. It’s much better than being “strung along” (in reality or in my head) for a long time.
Not if she believed that they were friends with sorta’ benefits.
Note your description doesn’t include pledges of love on his part or on hers.
I know it’s possible for a woman to believe that a relationship of this nature is just friendship. Unsophisticated? Yes. Naive? You betcha. I know because I was in that exact same position many many times in my early twenties. Then after getting burned many many times - and really hurt, I might add, by guys I thought cared about me but in the end were enraged because I didn’t share their romantic feelings - I wised up and realized that men won’t have that kind of friendship with you.
And it still pisses me off. They were not honest with me about how they felt about me. I thought they were friends of mine. I never led them on, but yet I was the one at fault when it turned out that I was unwittingly breaking their hearts. Yeah, I was unsophisticated, but you have to understand that all through high school I was never anything more than one of the guys. Besides the making out part - well, and on two ocassions even the making out part - your description matches my experiences in my teens. Then I go away to college and all of the sudden the exact same type of relationship now means something entirely different. It took me a couple of years to unlearn what I’d learned in my formative years.
As an aside, I never did like girls much. Too girly. And then I have to realize I can’t have guys as friends apparently, either.
And, yeah, it hurt me too. As much as pool sounds hurt. I had to get over these guys as well. It’s not fun to suddenly loose someone you thought you could trust, who was a friend, who you cared about, liked, and spent a lot of time with.
She thought they were friends. They were not. **pool ** committed sins of ommission. He may not have meant to, but he did from what I read. That doesn’t make him a bad person, but it does make him unlearned. Now he’s learned that you can’t have it both ways. And I bet she has, too.
Once again, I’ll recommend “When Harry Met Sally” as the ultimate relationship guide. I’ve thought about what Harry said about men and women being friends many times, and I think he’s basically got it right - men and women can’t be friends. (Cue the teeming hoardes to all come in and tell me how wrong I am, and how they’ve been platonic friends with their man/woman friends for 35 years now and they’ve never once wanted to bone/be boned by them.) I’m not buying it - when there are men and women involved in a situation, there is always some degree of sexual tension. Most of the time people don’t act on it, but it would be extremely naive to think it isn’t there just because you don’t want it to be there.
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