I’ve had a couple of situations in the past where I’ve hung out with a guy a few times, then he told me he had feelings for me. I would tell him I didn’t feel the same way, and we would agree we were happy to stay friends.
In my experience, it hasn’t always gone that well. It has later turned out that the “friendship” was the guy simply waiting around in the hopes that I change my mind and decide I want to date him. I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience of me telling a guy I’m not interested in romance/sex, him accepting it, and him being fully happy being platonic friends and not trying any advances later. Usually they “accept” it but then try to make advances later down the line.
With this in mind, what is the solution? Is it best to distance yourself from a guy once he tells you he has feelings for you so that you’re not keeping him “in hope”?
How about you all?
Comments
Someone having feelings for me isn’t my problem so if they don’t make it my problem we are fine
If he doesn’t cross boundaries then how is it affecting you?
I had to ghost, block, delete my friend of 10 years because he wanted to get a job in my team to be closer to me 😭
If he doesn’t respect you as a friend, boyfriend or partner, it is “boy, bye” time.
I don’t really need more friends enough for it to outweigh the awkwardness. I’m not interested in dealing with that especially for someone I’ve only hung out with a few times.
I would probably only ever give him a chance if he were a long time friend. If he the entire “friendship” was in fact wanting to date me, there’s a 99% chance it won’t work out.
Even if he were a long time friend, I’d still be hesitant. And ask what he wanted – if he needed space to move on, for example.
In almost all cases the friendship won’t be the same, in most cases there won’t really be a friendship at all anymore. Or so I think, anyways. I’ve never actually had a male friend, that I actually spent time with just the two of us. I used to be naive and assume men who contacted me were just being friendly, but experience has taught me, if a guy tries to get to know me more than he “has” to in order to meet a minimum of politeness, he is always interested.
Surprisingly positive! What made all of the difference in the two examples I’m thinking of is that the friendships were genuine. Unlike in the typical scenario, they weren’t just friends with me because they wanted to date me. The romantic feelings only began to enter the picture because of how strong and intense the friendships were. At no point were any untoward advances made.
In the first case, it was an awfully long time ago in uni. My best friend confessed his feelings for me out of the blue, and I admitted that I reciprocated them, but that it wasn’t a good idea for us to be in a relationship (we were both starting to date other people at the time). It was very painful for a while and required us to grit our teeth, but we both put a concerted effort into maintaining appropriate boundaries and focusing on the pure joy of our platonic friendship. We stayed close and the feelings faded. I’m quite impressed at how we handled it given that we were both 19 at the time.
The other one is more recent, and also involves a friend I’ve had since 2011. We’ve always been uniquely honest and vulnerable with each other — especially when he used to be very closed-off — and till this day, still haven’t run out of exciting things to talk about. We went through a rough patch a few years ago where he basically ghosted me because his feelings were becoming uncomfortably romantic and he knew that I did not reciprocate them despite loving him deeply. I was unbelievably hurt but understood that he needed to do that for self-preservation. It became abundantly clear to him over time that he would much rather have me in his life than not, that his feelings were something he could control, and since then we’ve moved past that rocky phase, communicate even more openly, and are more appreciative of each other than ever.
We met in college and he pursued me hard. I tried dating him but just didn’t feel it and broke it off quick. It took about a year to be able to be friends. He did try things a few times again in the years following, but I never budged. I would frequently confide in him about who I was dating, and he’d do the same with me.
16 years later and he is one of my best and longest friends. We live on different continents but he remains one of my closest confidantes. We have met each other‘s partners and families, visited, helped each other through many heartbreaks.
Sometimes I still catch him get that „what if things had been different“ look in his eye. But he knows it won’t happen and that our friendship is worth so much more than that.
Its never gone well. They either vanish entirely or have intermittent breakdowns of emotion and ask if there’s ever a chance.
Im still technically friends with guys in both camps, but communication is significantly reduced.