I was blunt. I didn’t try to sweeten anything as another poster put it. However, he left a message on my work voicemail saying he wants to have dinner tonight. 
He is a sweetheart, I just know he isn’t the right one for me. Why do these things have to be so hard when the other person is nice?
HUGS!
Sqrl
That makes it tougher, no doubt, but no less right to do what you did. You can tell I’m in the same camp as most of the others who have replied to your OP.
Keep in mind that relationships are two-way deals. And both parties must agree on the parameters of that relationship. You weren’t ready (or it wasn’t right for you) to have the relationship go further than friendship.
I think you acted maturely and responsibly. Your concern over it shows that you are mature and responsible. But keep in mind you’re not responsible for the maturity of the other person. While it may make you feel badly for a while, I think you did the right thing by not stringing this guy along, but if he can’t deal with it, really, you’ve done all you can do.
Hurting someone’s feelings is a bitch, but each person is responsible for the maintenance of their own feelings and reactions. To go against your reasoned decision because someone has a tantrum or acts pouty or continues his pursuit of a deeper relationship is a poor way to continue any relationship. Don’t allow yourself to be manipulated.
Good luck. I hope it’s not too hard on either of you.
You know what? It sounds like he’s being impossibly clingy.
You’ve ended it. It’s over. You don’t love him. Friendship will have to wait until he’s given up on a romantic relationship. Unless you’ve been sending semaphore signals of a completely different nature while you were talking, he should have grabbed the clues you’ve thrown him and started rubbing them together.
He is demanding something from you that you can’t give as well as asking you to be something contrary to your nature - deceitful, manipulative, and using . . . or could it be that he being that way in order to keep you around?
Color me cynical, but I think he’s trying to use your good nature to get what he wants. Cut off contact with him until he can prove that he’s mature. And DON’T let him guilt you into anything.
His needs are not your needs, and I am concerned about your needs. Do you need to see him, to have dinner with him? If you do, go. If you don’t need to have dinner with him, please don’t go just because he’s nice.
He wants to have dinner with you. What do you want?
You do not owe him because you don’t feel what he wants you to feel.
I’m going to be blunt. Don’t try to be “friends” with him.
A few years ago I found out a “friend” was in love with me. We discussed it. I told him I didn’t love him, and would never love him. He said that was fine. He had a lot of female friends who he was not romantically involved with. It would be fine.
Then, a year later, he asked if I had “changed my mind yet.” He thought that someday I would fall in love with him. I told him I could never see him again. He was really, really hurt. Much more hurt than if I’d had a brain, and ended things before.
For years after that he would send me cards. It drove me crazy.
The end result was I hated him. I was furious. I’m more reasonable now, I don’t hate him. He’s really a nice guy, and he can’t help how he feels. But as I type this, I can feel my blood pressure going up and my face tightening. Just thinking of him makes me FURIOUS. You don’t want to end up as bitter as I am.
It sounds to me like you could be headed in this direction. If he really loves you, that’s not going to change. If you keep seeing him, it will get ugly.
Maybe someday, when he’s in love with someone else, you can start a new friendship with him. But what you need to accept is that THIS friendship is over.
I’m going to have to agree with lesa. I ran into an ex that wanted to be “friends” this weekend. He gave me the same line about “understanding my feelings weren’t the same” & that “we could just hang out as friends” when I ended things. Trust me. It’s usually a line if they say it so soon after you explain you aren’t interested in a serious relationship. As nice as they might be, it will get annoying when they attempt to change your mind.
When I tried to move on with my life, he kept trying to weasel his way back into “boyfriend” situations, called constantly & basically drove me crazy. Eventually I quit answering calls from numbers I didn’t recognize & stopped answering e-mails from him & his friends.
It had been about 5 months since I had seen him. Friday I was at a bar with some friends from work & ran into him. He actually asked me to go to a wedding with him. I told him no & he refused to accept that for an answer.
:whining:
Please. You’d really be doing me a favor. Just think about it. You’ll know a lot of the people there…
:end whining:
Lucky me. I’ll be in Santa Monica the weekend of the wedding. A wedding in Michigan is out of the question.
Yet another hearty seconding of the previous comments. I was married for 7 years, got divorced and finally after almost three years am able to be on very good terms with her. It was quite hard in the beginning for me but eventually I was able to work through the issues I had.
And like lesa but in the opposite situation, I have a female friend who I have pretty much fallen for but there is absolutely no reciprocity :/. I did make the mistake of asking again recently whether she had “changed her mind” and though I felt compelled to ask at the time, I regret it. I hope we will still be able to be friends but I fear I may have also made her uncomfortable or angry. I am able to seperate friendship from romantic involvement so we’ll see.
Sometimes you can stay friends, other times you can’t.
I dated a guy for 3 months, and eventually determined that he wasn’t the one for me. I broke it off, but after a few months we were able to continue the friendship we had before we started dating.
But during those first few months, any time we were together in company (we share the same group of friends) it was hard for him.
So as long as he isn’t clingy and does what the guys did to lesa and little*bit, then you can still try to be friends. But give it time.
Dude… that is sooo hard. I don’t have any words of advice… in fact I should be the LAST persont to give advice. I have been/couldbekindastill in a similar relationship going on 4 years now. Not that its always been like that… BUT recently, I can feel your pain man. Do whats best for you… for the BOTH of you.
This email was in my account when I opened it this morning. I editted out things that seemed to personal.
"Thank you for being so nice to me yesterday. You are one of the kindest people I have ever met. I’ve had such great times with you. Hope you are doing okay today. I’m off and getting my thoughts together.
I’m really doing better today than I expected. I would like very much to be friends and to have you to talk to and to share some more good times with. How do you feel about this? Maybe we could have dinner tonight and just see how it feels.
I’ll await your call call this evening when you get home."
He really is a nice guy and it breaks my heart that I hurt him. This is what makes me confused about what I should be doing. Like I said, my priority is to not hurt him. Thanks everyone for helping reinforce my views.
HUGS!
Sqrl