Thursday, 18 November 2010
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I'm In Love With My Best Friend. Again.
As a teenager, I dated a good friend of mine. We had an amazing relationship, for an amazingly short period of time, and it quickly faded. Years have passed since we broke it off, yet we have been best friends nearly the entire time since our break up.
Once and awhile during that time, certain moments and gestures would trigger memories and give me a feeling of new found infatuation, but nothing that would stick with me. From other people we knew, I heard he also experienced similar periodic feelings.
(Conveniently, I had recently told her that I believed I may have been falling for him again and, of course, she betrayed my confidence by telling him this.) After, I immediately noticed a change in him, and a drastic change in his feelings toward his current interest.A couple months ago, for the first time in a long while, he began getting more serious with another friend of opposite gender. I was surprised with an incredible and shameful amount of jealously toward this minor bloom of interest between them.
I felt awful, due to my inability to hide my feelings from him. He then brought his curiosity of my behavior to a mutual friend of ours.Now, we are still just friends. I do notice a stronger connection between us however. A few more major things have evolved as well.
Sometimes we lock arms while walking (only instigated by me). Sometimes we watch TV and kind of "snuggle". He makes points to present his accomplishments to me. When he drinks a little too much, he unknowingly makes comments like "someday WE'LL just buy a condo there" among other "WE" comments. We just returned from a weekend away at his mom's house to visit with her and his entire family. Our parents encourage our union in a very serious manner. Among many other things that seem goofy to input.On the contrary, if we do kind of "snuggle" (and when I say kind of, I mean it and it's very short lived) he, quite obviously, quits the session. He even sometimes sits up in position where it would be impossible to engage in it again. In certain situations we have also slept in the same bed together (never leading to anything more than sleeping or some more of the kind of "snuggling".)
On a few occasions, I have been waken by him getting up to sleep on the floor. I never understand this. What man wouldn't want to sleep with a woman or enjoy touching? Let alone, sleep on the damn floor?I can't understand the crazy amount of mixed signals I get from him.
I also could never live without this person in my life. He and I know everything about how the other ticks. I want nothing more than to tell him that I would love to spend everyone of my days with him. And to share with him all the wonderful things we have discussed about our futures.
He means everything to me, but to bring on the cliche statement... I don't want to lose this friendship.What on earth do I do?
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About the Author
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- From: ntorguson@xanga
- About Me: 23. Life is flying by.
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Comments (28)
that is so tough. I have been there, and in the end we discussed everything, talked about being together, but he would never commit, and now that I have a new boyfriend my new guy gets jealous of me talking to him bc he thinks I still want him. It makes it hard to be friends with him. Unless you are both SURE, I say don't cross that line. it makes it really hard to go back, and the friendship will not be the same.
Sounds like your friend is very confused....I say talk to him about it and see where it goes from there. If you don't you'll just keep playing this game of cat and mouse and you'll never get anywhere.
Here is my take on it drawn from my own experience with guys. In the end WHY he doesn't take it to the next level doesn't really matter. It amounts to philosophizing (mental masturbation) trying to figure it out. Because no mater what complicated and tortured reasoning lies behind it, the simple and true explanation is he likes you, but not enough.
Not enough to stop seeing girlfriend #1, not enough to overcome shyness, not enough to risk his job, not enough to take ribbing from his friends, not enough to move to another city, not enough to whatever other billions of things can fill in that blank.
That's it. In the end that IS the reason that a guy or a girl doesn't take a relationship farther. They've reached their current limit on what the relationship is worth to them. We all do it. It's called boundaries. We all have them and they are OUR boundaries, not related to the inherent value or worthiness of the other person, they are all about our own issues.
when it comes to a close friend, or partner, it's really hard to NOT take it personally that they are putting on the brakes when we are saying 'go go go'. And it's really frustrating, irritating and hurtful when they can't or wont tell us why, or we think their reasoning is bullshit. But there it is.
What can YOU do? You can't do anything to change his feelings or behavior, your own behavior is the only one you have any control over. If you enjoy the level of interaction, continue it. If it's too frustrating, find a more willing snuggle partner. There are a lot of people to love out there, and if you keep your eyes and heart open, you will bump into one of them.
hugs
Hon, you only live once. Confusion is exactly what you want: when people are confused, they express a need to resolve it. If you are the person at the root of his confusion, he'll grow more attached to you because he'll want to figure out why he feels the way he does (i.e. in love).
But if you're going to be in love (you've decided it already), you need to let everything go. Universal law of life: there are no big profits without big risks. Take them.
mark
I think you honestly need to talk to him and figure out what's going on between you two. Only after that..then you will know. And it's a fine line between friendship and relationship. I've walked it and gave in to it since I am dating my best friend..
So it really depends on you and what you want to do after talking to him. Life is too short, if you think you and feel like you're in love, then maybe you are and you should jump for it.
My best friend/ex-boyfriend and I are kind of like this.
Sometimes I agonize myself by thinking about the what-ifs. What if we got back together? What if he actually told me he loved me again? What if he actually proposed instead of just joking about it? What if he actually came to visit me when I'm 150 miles away? What if he talked to me about his unresolved feelings? What if I talked to him about my unresolved feelings?
In the end though, neither one of us never really says anything. We go about our usual ways, keeping in contact and up to date with each other's lives, seeing each other when I'm visiting my parents, only being as physical as we can both handle without getting too emotionally involved.
The difference between my situation and your situation is that in my situation, I understand (and he understands) that the chance of a romantic opportunity between us anymore is pretty much null and void. We're two very different people than we were when we used to date, and, as such, a relationship or marriage would have a slim chance of working out. We do not want the same things, and work out much better as friends.
Reading your post as an outside party, I see one person who doesn't see any romantic opportunities between the two of you any longer and someone who isn't ready to admit yet that there aren't any romantic opportunities any longer. Of course, I could be wrong, and he could be reciprocating in more ways than are presented here, but based on this evidence alone...I really don't see why you're hanging onto the hope that one day he'll say he's madly in love with you and always has been.
The best way to get to the bottom of all of this and put all your what-ifing to rest is, of course, to talk directly to him. If you genuinely believe that your feelings are true and real for him, there's always a chance that he's been holding back on the same feelings. But remember - even if he doesn't feel the same way, it's not the end of the world. Keep your heart open and you will find someone deserving of it.
@UnconventionalButterfly@xanga - i agree with this.
you definitely need to talk to him about it , and he seems pretty confused to me.
you say you don't want to lose the friendship, but it looks like you're trying to make the friendship a relationship. and yeah definitely just talk to him. it's better in the long run to best bring things out into the open.
whoa whoa time the heck out...WHERE is all this confusion coming from? Seems to be pretty cut and dry to me. You guys broke up years ago, YOU initiate all physical contact, and he doesn't want to snuggle with you and would rather sleep on the floor than sleep with you on a bed, AND he's pretty much seeing someone else. Am I the only one that thinks the guy has zero interest in her and is delaying things until he can find a good way of letting her know he has no romantic interest in her without breaking her heart/friendship? Which by the looks of things is already too late. Sleeping on the floor? Give me a break.
And I'm gonna make a wild guess and say you are the one inviting him to sleep over.
You sleep in the bed you make. Men-women friendships always end up like this. Messy. Especially an ex. You should have made the difficult decision to cut off all contact when it was over years ago. Once you hook up with a friend, its difficult to go back to the 'friend' type relationship, because sex and feelings complicate everything. Which is why guy-girl friends try not to hook up for the sake of friendship, and a lot of ppl like myself don't even bother with that period.
@ccccourage@xanga - i agree.
one of my (now not so much) best friends and i had the most amazing chemistry. everyone thought we were either dating secretly or hiding our feelings or eventually going to date. we slept together a lot, snuggled, blahblahblah. eventually we talked it out, and we both admitted that we had had some sort of feelings for each other, but that was past now that he had a girlfriend. we agreed there was always just going to be some kind of tension/chemistry/what have you.
then as we were graduating, we hooked up and everything went down from there. i got insanely jealous and upset when he hooked up with another girl, and he couldn't understand why. we hashed out what we felt millions of times, but neither of us could understand the others reasoning. it's unfortunate, but it happens.
my advice would just be to move on. most likely, he's not going to become anything more with you. he may feel comfortable because you guys are such good friends to snuggle and whatever... but then he remembers how you feel, and he doesn't want to lead you on, so he moves away from you. talk it out, take a break from each other, and just see what happens without him in your life.
i believe that i couldn't live without the guy in my life either... i learned too. i couldn't imagine a day without talking to him or hanging out with him... now there are days when i don't even think about him. it's hard and it's upsetting at first, i cried almost everyday. but i truly am happy now. i have a guy who treats me like a princess and is willing to commit to me in every way this other guy wouldn't and couldn't.
good luck, and stay strong.
There is a reason you broke up.
my best friend and i act this way. she's a chick though, and we're straight. i think it sounds like he might just wannna be friends.
You need a good sit down talk with him. Plan and simple. Communicate with him and ramble about everything and see what he says. It's the best remedy, get it all out and make sure to put a lot of stress on the statement that you don't want to ruin your friendship with him.
Side note: when he gets up to sleep on the floor, probably for a personal reason that would result in embarrassment... to put it frankly he might wake up with a boner and that would be super awkward.
@ccccourage@xanga - There’s more wisdom and truth in your comment then I have seen on datingish in a long time.
It’s sad, but so very True.
If you're both willing to be completely open and talk about what's going on, you can work it out. It took me four months of talking and getting to know my SO better before we were both ready to commit to long term relationship. The key is good communication. If you don't have that, my advice would be to move on.
Mixed signals always complicate relationships between exes, but from an outside perspective, I don't think he is romantically interested in you. Sorry.
I just think you're a source of comfort for him, which is apparent when he drinks and says things like that (since his inhibitions are lowered).
@baggageclaime@xanga - Totally agree, took the words right out of my mouth.
Your friendship will be obviously very awkward for the rest of your life if you don't do something about it. I'd personally try having the relationship with him again. Otherwise, I suggest you try and find someone else, but this may be risky, unless you can control your feelings towards your friend. The hypothetical future relationship may or may not work out, but such is life. If you lose him completely, there will be other people. This is not a life or death situation. I used to think the same of friends I had, but they're gone, and I'm alive and well. Don't throw all your eggs in one basket, if you centre your life around this friend of yours, and you don't want a relationship with him, you need to spread your proverbial tentacles elsewhere in many other places to find new connections.
talk to him about it, but make it clear that if he's not interested, remaining friends is your first priority.
@ccccourage@xanga - wow, now that's a quality response
been there , done that.
Take your chance now , or you will end up being like me, no U-turnsWow this sounds like a really tough situation. Since you're best friends you should just ask how he feels about you.
man up and say something about it, if not, move on.
he's either a coward and doesn't wanna start anythingor he's a coward and he doesn't wanna tell you he doesn't like you.take a risk and talk to him, you might feel stupid, but after the fact, you did yourself a favor.i don't understand why people don't confront things head on, maybe it's because they care too much or they don't care enough, in any case, life will pass you by and you'll only be filled with regrets.i've been there. i dated my best friend for almost 2 years. we recently broke up and it was a very hard and dark time. we both said we'll be friends, but i think it's too soon to tell if that would work out. but when we were together, it was the most amazing thing. we completely understood each other and we loved each other so much. i'd say go for it.
Taaalk. :)