Relationship Psychology Discussions > The Vent

Staying friends with someone you love

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Kate:

--- Quote from: ladya on May 18, 2018, 11:53:32 PM ---
--- Quote from: Kate on May 18, 2018, 11:35:27 PM ---
--- Quote from: maroonlight on May 18, 2018, 11:22:48 PM ---
--- Quote from: Still tired on May 18, 2018, 03:53:09 PM ---
--- Quote from: maroonlight on May 18, 2018, 12:17:01 PM ---
--- Quote from: Still tired on May 18, 2018, 03:24:12 AM ---I'm not sure if men and women can really be friends at all. I used to think so but experience taught me otherwise. I think you can be friendly within certain limits but not really friends.

--- End quote ---

You can be friends if neither party is not attracted to one another. Otherwise yeah, it could be very hard.

--- End quote ---

There is always sexual tension whether people think they are attracted or not. The only way it can work is when couples are friends with other couples and no one involved has any intention of leaving their partner. But even then you are playing with fire. If one or both are single then they will always be wondering if the other is interested or flirting or starting to have feelings for them. Unless you both state openly that there is no attraction and what kind of friendship is it anyway when you have to say that to each other?

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I've had a couple of successful and drama-stress free friendships with men. Others have been people I see only as a friend but then they sexually approached me at one point so then it became awkward.

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Most of my friends are men.... :-/ There's no sexual tension there... I call and see them regularly

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same. i feel i relate better to men than women. men have been far better friends to me throughout my life than females. i don't really have much luck with keeping female friendships. they always get weirdly competitive with me over time and try to bring me down or get clingy and dependent idk. i've been f'ked over by way too many - its been a weird pattern in my life so i just keep majority at acquaintance level and its been good that way.

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Yeah the same - I have a few male friends that I call almost daily.. they are all married, but I also have single male friends who I am very close to...my male friends know a lot about me.. I've told them all sorts of things that I have never told my female friends..

doubleoh8:
I think people are different -- and what might be impossible for some is possible for others.

I have always had male friends, as well as female. (I am straight, female, single and early 50s). Some of my male friends I've had for decades. Some are single, others are partnered. Occasionally, I have had a male friend who I was not interested in 'hit on me,' but in most cases we actually weathered the whole thing and most are still friends and still in my life. Three spring immediately to mind and all three are now married and I am friends with their wives too. There was one man I had to 'cut off' because he formed what I thought was an unhealthy obsession, but he wasn't a close friend -- more of an acquaintance. 

Curiously, I have had a couple of male friends who I believed myself to be in love with, but they were not into me. I was not very good at staying friends in those cases. I think that's because I got quite emotionally attached and couldn't handle it that well, whereas the men I refer to above may have been attracted physically but didn't form that kind of deep attachment. That or I have a giant ego and just don't handle rejection well at all:)

maroonlight:

--- Quote from: doubleoh8 on May 19, 2018, 05:30:40 AM ---I think people are different -- and what might be impossible for some is possible for others.

I have always had male friends, as well as female. (I am straight, female, single and early 50s). Some of my male friends I've had for decades. Some are single, others are partnered. Occasionally, I have had a male friend who I was not interested in 'hit on me,' but in most cases we actually weathered the whole thing and most are still friends and still in my life. Three spring immediately to mind and all three are now married and I am friends with their wives too. There was one man I had to 'cut off' because he formed what I thought was an unhealthy obsession, but he wasn't a close friend -- more of an acquaintance. 

Curiously, I have had a couple of male friends who I believed myself to be in love with, but they were not into me. I was not very good at staying friends in those cases. I think that's because I got quite emotionally attached and couldn't handle it that well, whereas the men I refer to above may have been attracted physically but didn't form that kind of deep attachment. That or I have a giant ego and just don't handle rejection well at all:)

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If one or both people are above average in regards to their physical attractiveness, its completely human and normal for something like that to happen as humans are designed to be attracted to each other. I've had some male friends who I didn't have a compatible personality with for a romantic relationship and I think we both knew that regardless of whether we were physically attracted or not, we wouldn't be right for each other for a relationship.

With that being said, the instances where I've been hit on or they've tried to make a move on me, there was one guy who was married that I was not interested in so we stayed friends..other times it was too awkward to really keep talking to them. I didn't cut them off completely, but just didn't seek them out afterwards.

Unfortunately I once had a neighbor who I barely knew that had a very unhealthy obsession with me and probably hit on me over 20 times even though I told him over and over again that I was not interested. He lived right next door to me for 2 years. Now THAT was awkward.

Seeker:
If you haven't told him how you feel, you need to do that. Life is too short to be in limbo.

If you have told him how you feel and the result was just being friends, then you need to cut this relationship off. You may even tell him why you're cutting it, but cutting it is the best option in that situation because all you're going to do is keep driving yourself crazy and spending money on psychics when the solution is free.

I can't speak for how women feel about being friendzoned, but trust me when I tell you that any man in the friendzone does NOT want to be there and you can bet almost always that the man is in that zone agonizing. We don't want to be your friend, at least not in the buddy-buddy sense, that's what we have other men for. With the exception of rare situations where there is no attraction, the men in your friendzone are not happy to be there no matter what they tell you or how you perceive them to be taking it well.

njlady:

--- Quote from: Seeker on June 20, 2018, 09:22:09 PM ---If you haven't told him how you feel, you need to do that. Life is too short to be in limbo.

If you have told him how you feel and the result was just being friends, then you need to cut this relationship off. You may even tell him why you're cutting it, but cutting it is the best option in that situation because all you're going to do is keep driving yourself crazy and spending money on psychics when the solution is free.

--- End quote ---

This.

Tell him.  He either wants to move forward or he doesn't.  Stop beating around the bush.

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