My (second)-newest and most favourite friend is a girl of twenty. I’ve known her for a while now and in that time she has aquired a boyfriend and dumped him (last night was the night he got the message)
I think I am in love with her. I know I love her in the way one grows to ‘love’ a good friend.
I think she considers me a good friend (if not her best friend at the moment) but that is all. I read the signals and they say she has no designs on me as a potential boyfriend. The signals say I am a guy who will always be a mere (but good) friend. The signals seem designed to keep me at bay, to keep me from making any kind of move.
In my experience, it usually is a torturous situation but can fade if your attention is directed elsewhere. Other than that, if it ever does turn romantic, once again I’ve found that it doesn’t typically end up the way you wish. My own case has seen terribly disappointing, over zealousness for me and/or the ending of a valued friendship. If I had them to do over again, I would reconsider seriously.
A lot of this depends on what kind of “good friend” she considers you to be.
Are you the friend she likes to hang out with because you enjoy the same things and can let her hair down and be herself with? If she feels that way about you, and you feel that way about her, then I say let the friendship go forward.
On the other hand, if you’re the kind of friend she likes to call when her boyfriend treats her bad, and now that she broke up with him she wants you to reassure her that she did the right thing, all the while you’re expecting that sooner or later she’ll realize that the two of you are a perfect match and that she’ll drop those “keep me from making any kind of move” signals – well, you can regret it now or regret it later, but you’re going to end up regretting it sometime.
You need to figure out if she is a true opposite sex friend or if you are just faking it like most people do. True friends can do stuff alone together as well as do things in groups even when one of them has a romantic interest around. I am a male that has true female friends even though I am married. That means that I can go out to dinner alone with them as well as have her bring her boyfriend/husband over to dinner with me and my wife. My wife knows me and thinks that is great.
Assuming #1, you have to figure out if losing her as a friend will be worth the risk of making a move. Believe me, this is a huge risk. Even if you get shot down and she pretends that everything will be just like it was, it won’t be. You just played an all-or-nothing game and lost.
The way you describe it makes it extremely likely that this isn’t a bet you want to take.
Not doing anything will buy you time and time is on your side. At worst, you spend some quality time with a good friend (assuming #1).
The way I see it, you’ve got two options: try to stamp out that feeling and stick with friends, or (once you’ve determined if this is how you really feel) tell her and see if she feels that way, too. You probably think you know which I’d recommend, but you’d be wrong. Falling in love with somone is the easiest thing in the world. maintaining a real friendship with someone is difficult. Also, the stomped on, repressed feelings manifest themselves as a vague sort of infatuation, which keeps the relationship interesting.
If you are getting “friend” signals from her now, then keep it as friends. By “friends”, I don’t mean “you only hear from her when her latest has crapped on her or she doesn’t have anything else to do”. If you enjoy each others company and are comfortable together - let it ride. Tomorrow isn’t necessarily the end of the world, and there is no telling what the future may bring. Find someone for yourself, while maintaining your friendship.
Mr. SCL and I met and dated 11 years before we got married. When we first dated, I didn’t think he was the type of guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. When I grew up a little bit, I realized he was exactly the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. We will have been married 16 years in January - I’ve known him over half my life and don’t know what I would do without him.
Just because things don’t happen right now doesn’t mean they won’t happen - but you can ruin a good thing if you push it.
My personal opinion - if you’re not friends with the person you marry - no matter how much you love them - things aren’t going to last.
It’s hard. I’ve been that guy. But even though it’s easy for me to say to you from here, try to get over it. When women have that really close male friend who likes them and they know it, they can take all kinds of advantage of you, consciously or not. You get to watch her go out and fuck everyone else and their brothers, and then when things go south, she’ll come and cry on your shoulder… until she goes out and does it again, leaving you high and dry. I think the comedian Chris Rock says that women consider this close male friend to be “a dick in a glass jar,” to break the glass on the rare occasion they decide to move the friendship onto something else. But they have all the power in that relationship, all the control, and you’re left hanging. It sucks to be that guy, and I hope you can move past it… and her.
I’d go further than that and say that HAVING a close opposite-sex friend (and I had a two year relationship exactly like this–lots of girls do) encourages people to pursue stupid relationships. Since they are getting relable opposite sex companionship, approval, and affection from you, they don’t even notice when these things are missing from their romantic relationship: romantic relationships that should have crashed and burned early on are allowed to linger.
This doesn’t mean that opposite sex friendships are bad. But I do think that when they approach the emotional intimacy level of a romantic relationship without the sex, they can be destructive to both parties, and that destructive pattern is something people should look out for and avoid.
Another vote for keeping this relationship platonic. If you have any sort of feelings for this girl, the emotion factor is going to be much higher. Also, there’s no way it will ever be just a sexual relationship.
That said, I don’t have any problems with good friends of opposite sex. Most of my best friends are. A same sex friend can take advantage of you too, if things get out of hand. Just know your boundaries and make sure she respects them, and you won’t have a problem.
Since typing the OP my state of mind has changed considerably. I have decided I can’t go on being her friend. She has issues. She is a schemer, she is a liar, she is a manipulator. As a person I love her to bits but I am also highly frustrated with her behaviour. I have decided that I will either a) jump in at the deep end and tell her how I feel and let the ball be then in her court. If she decides she wants to end up together with me she’ll have to buck her ideas up or I will revert to… b) give her the cold shoulder and cease to be friendly to her. With the frustration she has inspired in me I can almost take pleasure in being a bastard to her.
Lobsang, is this the same lady we have spoken of in the past? It seems like the same one and you say the guy she was seeing, and you wanted to hate but was a decent fellow, has been dropped. His idea or hers? Also, if this is the same one, what has caused the
?
Why would you want to profess your love to someone you describe this way… and one that I think has known your feelings for sometime and has continued to string you along? Give her a choice to change? Never happen. Even if you are given every assurance and outward appearance at first.
Give her up… back away… the time spent on this one you’ll never get back.
To be fair to her though… She has unwittingly done me several huge favours…
She gave me the motivation to lose a shitload of weight, so that I am now within the ‘ideal weight’ zone for my height.
She bullied me (in a good way) into joining a gym. We now go semi-regularly to said Gym.
She has made me realize I am not as doomed to a future of loneliness as I once thought.
I no longer drink myself to sleep every night.
Nic2004 The eventuality that she chooses not to change is my reason for having a plan b. She is human and therefore she deserves forgiveness, but if she will not change her manipulative ways (remember she is quite young, there is time for maturity to take hold) I will give up on her. Not with ease, but I am strong.
Besides (Nic2004) I happen to believe she hasn’t been stringing me along, but rather that she has been unsure to the point of assuming lack of aforementioned feelings. So she’s been waiting for me, mistaking me for someone with experience in this area, to make the first move. She might be a traditionalist in that way.
Or, as a good friend suspects, she’s a misandrist (a female who hates males). I can’t see it myself.
I am sorry. In review I think Stringing Along is too harsh a term. I simply meant that I believe she has known the depth of the feelings you have, and have had for quite a long while, and perhaps has let you languish in the “just friends” role for too long. I’m sorry if it sounded like a criticism. I know of the personal improvements you have made in the recent months. If nothing else, these things have been worthwhile. Now, as then, I hope you get what is best for you. If that turns out to be what you want to happen, I think it is great.
I didn’t take it as a criticism. No hard feelings at all.
I may have given the impression in past threads that she knows how I feel. What I must have meant to imply was that she knows I have or once had some feelings (correct me if I am wrong) but I don’t think she has any idea whatsoever how significant my feelings are or that they are still extant. This is why I feel I must tell her how I feel because I suspect she thinks she is a small part of my life*
[sub]*Recently I have been moaning about work. Yesterday I told her in confidence that in reality work is not the problem, that I have non-work-related things on my mind, and that I can’t tell anyone, not yet anyway, what they are. Her replies were ‘fair enough’. Her behaviour since has given me reason to believe she thinks I have problems that are irrelevant to my feelings towards her. Little does she know she is ground-zero[/sub]
Since it’s been a week since you first posted, I’m going to guess it’s been something like three weeks since you first started worrying about this.
That’s three weeks that you’ve been spinning your wheels, unable to move this relationship forward, enjoy what you have, or end it and begin to move on.
Time for the drama to end. Tell her and see what happens.
I seem to recall (paraphrasing here) that you have sent her a message, phone recorder or IM or something, stating you feelings in no-uncertain-terms and got nothing in return. Do you remember the instance I refer to here? You were almost dreading the meeting with her at work that loomed a few days off. Sorry to be so unclear. I just remember you had reached the “I have to make my feelings known” place in your heart and then had major regrets, only to be met by a blank wall and discovery soon after of that new guy in her life.
If I’m not remembering it clearly I apologize.
One of the few emotional things I agree with Gore Vidal (who has a conspicuously emotionless image whether it’s valid or not) is that “It’s a lot easier to be friends with somebody you’ve had sex with than it is to have sex with a friend and keep the friendship”. My closest friend is my -ex, and while there’s still some sexual chemistry there it’s not what it once was and I’m really not bothered by the fact we are no longer and never again will be a couple (as a couple we were a disaster but as friends I think we’ll travel the ages). One of my best friends today is a guy I had sex-or-something-like-it with soon after we met, but we basically said “That was fun, that was cool, let’s not do it again” (and unfortunately he took me at my word). OTOH, the one time I made my intentions clear to a friend I was in love with it didn’t end well at all and I lost him as both friend and potential lover (which is probably the best thing that ever happened as he was one screwed up individual).
Being silently in love with somebody (especially somebody who is actively dating other people) is absolutely miserable (as evidenced by most of Eponine’s lyrics in Les Mis). It does a number on your self esteem and can destroy your own romantic prospects where others are concerned. My advice (I am not a heterosexual) is that if you feel you are never going to be happy on her romantic sidelines then you need to end the friendship one way or the other, either by making it known that you no longer wish to be just friends or by just letting the relationship phase out. If you have the guts and are lucky she’ll return the feelings and you’ll live happily ever after, and if you’re not then you’re out a friend, but you’re also free. Currently it sounds like you’re in holding pattern and eventually you’ll run out of fuel.
Hope this is more coherent than I believe it to be.
I sent a text message with a mere implication that I was interested in her… dreaded the meeting at work… weeks later discovered that I put the wrong phone number in (she gave me the number wrong) so she didn’t get that message (bolding only to make it clear) Therefore she has had no direct indication from me that I am interested in her. A rather jerkish mutual ‘friend’ once said about me to us “I know you were sweet on her once, I don’t know if you still are” and the conversation immediately changed subject. That is why I say she thinks I may have once had feelings for her. That is why I feel I must inform her that I still do, and that they are significant.
To the thread in General - the way I feel I may lose her as a friend anyway so I might as well try to swap friendship for companionship.