Relationships -- any kind of relationship -- can be difficult to navigate. This is especially true when the nature of your relationship changes, or at least your feelings do.
It can be daunting when one person in the relationship starts to look at your bond differently... when one friend begins to view another in a romantic way. What happens then?
The women of Reddit have shared their stories of what happened when a close friend of theirs confessed to having romantic feelings for them, and as always, the stories are all very different.
Curious to find out more, Redditor Necessary_Produce515 asked:
“Women, how does it make you feel when a close guy friend admits he has feelings for you?"
Lose A Good Friend
"uncomfortable. because 9/10 times, the friendship dies after they confess their feelings to you. especially if you start dating someone."
– urbanlulu
"I ruined a friendship with a good woman over this. Sucks. You want to shoot your shot because it could be awesome . . . . But you end up making it weird and uncomfortable for the woman. Especially if the woman is magnetic and they get hit on all the time it can really mess up a friendship."
– Deleted User
A Little Advice
"This is only from my experience but --"
"Women: You cannot treat your guy friends like your girl friends. You cannot treat your guy friends like your girl friends. You cannot treat your guy friends like your girl friends."
"If you want a guy friend, then you need to treat him like -other guys- treat their guy friends."
"It's not 100% accurate -- there are definitely guys out there that can do the guy as a girl thing, but for the most part, if you treat your guy friends like you do your girl friends, they will catch feels. They will misinterpret your emotional bonding as more -- especially if you are the more physically touchy type -- and it will end badly since he will feel that you were "leading him on.""
"Men: You cannot treat your girl friends like your girlfriends. You cannot treat your girl friends like your girlfriends. You cannot treat your girl friends like your girlfriends.
"Do you let your guy friend lean his head on your shoulder? Do you let your guy friend hold your hand casually? (no shame for the guy friends who do - in fact, you probably don't have this problem since you can separate romantic and platonic intimacy) Do you listen to your guy friends talk about their feeling for hours on the phone?"
"Guys getting "signals": Look at how your friend treats their girl friends. Is it the same kinda stuff that you are interpreting as signals? Is it the stuff that is making you have feels? Grow up. Let your friend know that you have to step away from the friendship; or at the very least, let them know that *action is normally something you reserve for romantic partners and to please stop *action."
– adf564gagae
If You Wanna Be My Lover...
"I think what happens before this declaration matters a lot. Like have you both been flirting a little and does she seems receptive? Have you hung out at all just the two of you? Has she chatted with you about her romantic feelings for other people? If the answers are yes yes and no, proceed and things will more than likely go pretty well."
"I think in my personal experience, it's worst when it's completely out of left field, like you genuinely had no clue until that second. This happened to me and I just kind of agreed to go out on the spot because I liked him as a person and wanted to give it a chance. It was a bad relationship for both of us and ended with a lot of hurt feelings, and honestly it was my fault for not having more of a backbone about it."
"It's definitely awkward though, especially if you don't wanna hurt anyone's feelings or make anyone feel unworthy or unwanted."
– Loafthemagnificent
"What I'm getting from this thread is that the Spice Girls gave out some really bad advice in that song"
– tjrileywisc
What Happens After
"Asexual aromantic here. Before I realized I'm aromantic asexual, it was confusing to me. "This person likes me and I see no problems with this person, why I don't like them back?" If course, no one has to return feelings no matter their sexual or romantic orientations. Anyway things got much easier when I now can immediate dumb people: "Sorry, I'm not looking for a relationship." Which I know is true."
"It's the aftermath that makes it or breaks it. If the guy gets what I say and returns to the platonic relationship, that's cool. However, there have been also those who do hear what I say, but they just... keep hoping. And that gets really exhausting. :/ There have been people I had to cut out of my life because they got in stuck in "what if she actually changes her mind" loop."
– AavaMeri_247
Rarer Than You Think
"I think I'm the only woman this has never happened to."
– haloarh
"You're not the only one!!"
– BonzuPipinpadaloxi3
It Doesn't Have To Be Hard
"I agree with this! I always try to be considerate in the way I respond, and I do my best to behave normally around them to send the message that it's okay for you to have told me, I don't think less of you, I really value you, it's not awkward, etc. I don't feel like other peoples' feelings toward me are a burden in any way UNLESS:"
"*They're pushy and try to convince me to give them a chance/won't accept my desire to be platonic without lashing out"
"*They won't stop talking about it and can't return to normal. I understand needing to talk about your feelings, but I'm not the appropriate person to discuss it with."
"*They completely disappear. I see a bunch of people talk about distancing themselves, and I'm okay with that as long as its communicated to me! Otherwise I am going to feel like you didn't actually value our friendship. And that circles back to the whole issue of women feeling like men are just befriending them out of romantic/sexual interest rather than genuine friendship."
"I'm still friends with several people who have had feelings for me in the past. I think we value each other and I don't feel like they're hanging around to shoot their shot or anything."
"Likewise, I've had crushes on male friends many times in the past and have behaved the way I expect them to behave toward me. If I shared my feelings and they didn't reciprocate, then oh well. I behaved normally and moved on. It wasn't always quick and painless, but it also wasn't something I let myself dwell on."
– Shelby382
Or Can Lead To A Happy Ending
"I married him…"
– MelissaHunt95
"The best partners are the ones you are friends with first, so I was thrilled when my friend opened that possibility with me. We are now married."
"With other friends I have politely declined and we have returned to the friendship with no problems whatsoever."
"Not everything has to be a big deal."
– PattersonsOlady
Not All Black And White
"Depends on the guy, if I'm single at the time, and how he says it."
"If I'm in a relationship and it is in any way other than past tense fun story type of thing that came up naturally (as in like asking why they did something dumb in college and they are like "because I had a crush on you and was too shy to be alone with you" type of deal), I'd be pissed."
"If I'm single and think he's cute/don't think dating him would drive me crazy I'd probably feel flattered and ask him on a date right then."
"If I'm not into him I'd feel bad at first, but tell him I'm not interested and would rather just stay friends, but if he doesn't drop it I'd probably get annoyed and stop speaking to him."
"All this is assuming it is said respectfully and I don't feel trapped, if the guy was setting of my internal alarms in any way that would probably be the end of the friendship though."
– AccountWasFound
The Other Side
"“Now I gotta deal with this”"
– starlingxoxo
"Yeah we do too, I assure you."
"Listen I understand this is a perspective from the other side, but the amount of times we as straight men are expected to just shut off our emotions and be platonic, especially when we have to go to school, or you’re friends with our friends, where it’s unavoidable, is frankly a little absurd."
"Yeah it f*cking sucks. Compassion seems to be in a cup with a hole in the bottom for things like this I’m sure, but we’re also expected by women and other men to be aggressive about stuff so we’re being pulled in two different directions. Be assertive and lead and initiate things. Also be able to disengage immediately on request. Eventually we figure it out but it is hard."
"On one hand believe me if we could turn that switch off we would. But we can’t. It’s very uncomfortable. If we could avoid you for a long enough time for the feelings to go away we would do that too. I have definitely done that and low and behold I’ve had women complain about not being their friend anymore."
"It’s extremely frustrating."
"and by all means if someone is a jerk about it or is too aggressive yeah, I bet it sucks. I’m sorry you have to deal with that. But we’re disappointed too."
– _PswayZ_
"It's awkward. I never really had guy friends, and the first one I had told me he liked me even though he knew I was engaged and had met my fiancé. I am still cordial on social media if I interact with him, but I don't see him in person anymore, as it just became weird."
– NeviaFirin
"Yeah… someone like that is kind of scummy. To try and develop an emotional rapport with someone who’s in a relationship/engaged/married is f*cked up and kind of speaks to what kind of morals that person has."
– DepressedTeenager32
Ouch! That is awkward!
