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Dear Em & Lo,
So I have this guy friend who I met my freshmen year at college. We used to hang out a lot together and, well, I ended up liking him. The only problem was that he sometimes did not seem to feel the same way towards me. He would flirt back and lead my hopes of one day us being together. We even had a lil thing one drunk night, but in the end he would always get another girl or just call me sister, which I hate.
So, this has been going on for almost two years and I am just about tired of all of this. Every time I try to get myself into forgetting him and succeed, he comes around and I fall again. And every time my heart breaks more and more. I’ve never been the lovey-dovey type girl and I am not one to fall in love, but I think this time I fell and it sucks. I even tried that whole psychic thing and they told me that he is immature and that around June he’ll man up and it’ll work out. But it’s already June and it doesn’t seem like anything is going to be working out and I’m done with waiting.
I actually made up my mind to finally tell him so that I am able to move on and get the closure that I need, but my plan was a failure. There doesn’t seem a way that I can get him alone to tell him. Any ideas on how I’ll be able to do so? And trust me, me telling him we should hang out does not work. We have said that before and we just don’t hang out, not to mention that he is seeing someone and knowing him he is just not going to want to hang out. I am desperate to finally get over him, and in need of ideas, so any that you may have I will gladly welcome.
— Woman Down
Dear W.D.,
Oh dear. You seem to be in what we like to call a unilateral relationship. Kind of like Em’s relationship with George Clooney. You say that he “sometimes did not seem to feel the same way towards me”? (Italics ours.) Um, we hate to break the news, but it sounds to us like he’s never felt the same way towards you. You like him; he enjoys the attention and flirts back. You start falling for him; he initiates a drunken hookup. You want more; he hooks up with someone else. You’re thinking “boyf!”; he’s thinking “sister.” And you’ve been putting up with this for two years?! Girl, it’s seriously time to move on.
Okay, you get that. That’s why you wrote to us, after all. But here’s the thing: If you were never actually dating — or even really hooking up on a regular basis — he doesn’t need to be part of this process. In fact, it sounds like he doesn’t want to be part of this process. Which is perfectly within his rights. Sure, it was kind of lame of him to lead you on — unless you just happened to misinterpret his attentions. It’s easy, when we’re super into someone, to pin all our hopes and dreams onto their smallest gestures. So what he thinks of as harmless flirting or a friendly hookup, you take as a promise of things to come.
Whatever the history, clearly there’s no future. Trying have The Talk with him when he won’t even agree to be alone with you sounds kind of like “You can’t fire me — I quit!” Except in this case you’re trying to quit and the boss has already informed security not to let you in the building.
We’re guessing that this guy had no idea you were waiting around for him to become “a man.” (By the way, we’re no psychics, but we can tell you that that process usually happens way after college!) Sure, the way you’re feeling probably sucks as much as if you had dated for the past two years, but you need to find some other route to closure. We’d recommend just ending the friendship/relationship/whatever-it-is cold turkey, since his any contact with him seems to unhinge you. If you think you can keep your feelings platonic (be honest, now), then just treat him the way he’s always treated you, i.e. keep your distance when you feel like it. Just remember, the more it hurts, the more you should keep your distance.
And now you’re ready for our 10 Steps to Getting Over a Breakup. Just because you didn’t get to experience the privilege of dumping him — or even being dumped by him — doesn’t mean you can’t mourn this thing like a breakup. In fact, we highly recommend it. And for the record, the actual act of having The Talk or breaking up is highly overrated. Just think of it this way: By being so unavailable, this guy let you dodge that particular breakup bullet. That silver lining’s on us.
— Em & Lo
He wont see you?
You are already dumped.
Dear Women Down,
I can relate to what you have gone through. It may seem like the world to you when he sign off in a text “love you.”
If he can admit that he likes/loves you…when will he? Are you ready to wait?! You’ve known him for 7 years!
Just be friends, but if being friends is too much then ignore him for sometime. Change your look…go out enjoy life! And if its meant to be that he will be looking for you or a reason to run into you.
If he can’t date you how can he know to marry you? I could be right or wrong, but its your choice in the end.
“Marry, not date”!? Like, he’d skip right over the dating part and marry you on the spot?
Ludicrous.
To Woman Down, yeah, don’t spill your guts. It’s uncalled for in this situation. You don’t get closure from other people. Closure happens one person at a time. Delete his number and get it on your own.
I had a similar friendship with a guy for years. I met him just after he started dating Manipulative/Dependent Girl #1, and he would tell me all sorts of things, like how he wished we’d met before. He’d never bring his girlfriend around to hang out, but he and I would stay up until dawn some nights, just talking while watching Adult Swim. I was smitten.
And stupid. He finally broke up with M/D Girl #1, had downtime of about two months, and started in on M/D Girl #2. During the downtime, he and I played a really interesting, sober game of strip checkers (I suggested chess, but he didn’t think that was fair because he knew I was better). Before anything happened (but after we were both naked), he told me he wasn’t looking for anything right then; he wanted this to be outside of our friendship and not affect it at all; he wanted me to know I was the type of girl to marry, not date.
Luckily for me, I stuck to that conversation. We had our little hands-on thing and I finally realized my dream of kissing him… and you know what? The whole thing was a letdown. He was incredibly lame, and I pretty much walked away from his place that night without any of the bursting infatuation I’d had for three years.
He, on the other hand, seems to have idolized me ever since. He’s still dating — and bitterly complaining about dating — M/D Girl #2 (we’re talking four and a half years now). He tries to get me to agree with him on all of his relationship woes, but I’m in a happy, healthy relationship that is much more serious and fulfilling than I could have ever had with him. He still says I’d be the one to marry, not date, and has even started signing texts with “Love you.” (something he has never said in the entire seven years I’ve known him. Not even about his dog.).
I think I wrote all of this in some lame attempt to throw out some bonding story. I know that rarely works, especially when you’re in the middle of being in a one-sided love, but really. It can totally get better. Give it time and, if need be, distance. The talk does nothing unless you’re in therapy and were given the assignment to have one.