confessing feelings

[rondelle]

has a close friend ever confessed their feelings to you and how did it go? How did you wish they had done it, if it didn't go well?

 

[peoplesuck]

Spoiler: This adds nothing to the thread, but it made me laugh.

The only person to confess their feelings for me was my 40y/o science teacher, and I was 16 or 17.
Surprisingly, it ended up being a good thing, even if it was terrible at the time.

Ive never had a friend confess their feelings for me, and I have never confessed feelings for anyone else, I think. I almost did one time, and right before I did, I found out she was my best friends girlfriend. I wasnt close to him, but we had been close in middle school.

 

[scorpiomover]

has a close friend ever confessed their feelings to you and how did it go? How did you wish they had done it, if it didn't go well?

Happens a lot. People like to talk about their feelings.

If you mean they expressed feelings for me, most of the time, I didn't really know what to say. It gave me pause for thought. But I didn't feel that people would really listen to my POV that much, and so didn't really know how to respond.

However, one woman I was getting on great with as a friend, but wasn't attracted to, asked me out. I thought that if I asked a friend out, I'd want them to give it a shot. So I agreed. We went out for 3 months.

 

[Marbles]

@scorpiomover Did you remain friends afterwards?

 

[scorpiomover]

@scorpiomover Did you remain friends afterwards?

With the one I dated? Yes. Still friends after 20+ years.

With the ones I didn't date? A few, who were great friends anyway. They were the sorts of friends who I'd go drinking with, crash at their place, have mad conversations, generally hang out with. Our friendship was not dissimilar to a good friendship with a guy friend.

The majority of them, I didn't stay friends with. I'm always open to being friends with people. But we didn't have what I'd call a good friendship, not before, and not really after. They were more people that I knew, usually because we moved in the same circles and hung out with the same people. A shame, because I like being friends with people. But there was a lot of sexual tension, and not enough of a strong friendship bond to get over it.

 

[Ex-User (14663)]

they only do that stuff in movies

 

[moody]

Yes. I was fine with it at first, but soon became a bit of a jerk by accident. I was only in middle school, to be fair, and it wasn't intentional, but my pre-teen emotional intelligence not the best and I was too sensitive. We had been friends since the 4th/6th grade, but because I was a year younger, they never would call me a friend which automatically made me put some distance. When I was in middle school they finally referred to me as a friend in a conversation, which made me relax. When they confessed to me, I didn't get it at first. When I did, I was unfazed, and told them it was okay. Later that day I realized they'd only started calling me a "friend" when they developed feelings for me, and it made me feel betrayed. (Again, I'm in middle school). I incidentally started being increasingly rude, and didn't keep contact later on. I feel bad looking bad on it, because they were never anything but kind to me. Oh well.

 

[Inexorable Username]

has a close friend ever confessed their feelings to you and how did it go? How did you wish they had done it, if it didn't go well?

That happened to me. It went...weirdly. I was sort of attracted to him but I really didn’t want to make anything of it.

He kissed me, and it’s was a pretty bad kiss. Really hard and aggressive. Like the kind of super passionate kiss you see in romance movies...which never pans out well in real life.

Then he did some male-to-female foreplay and it was awkward. I wasn’t really sexually active yet, and it wasn’t way, way out of my comfort zone. I felt so extremely self conscious that to be honest, I think the experience was ever so slightly traumatizing. Lol. Lied and said I liked it. Then we just didn’t really do much after that.

We were really good friends but there was an aspect to him I didn’t find attractive, and he had also dated a good friend of mine for a long time which made things really weird. I didn’t want to betray her, even though they broke up.

What sucked is that quite a while after that he ended up dating one of my other friends and Shen got really jealous of my friendship with him. It really sucked. We were very close friends and she was really demanding, needy, and insecure as his girlfriend. He used to come to ME to complain about it, which just put me in a really awkward position.

I guess I wish that he never kissed me. I feel like, in part, it was my fault, because I was probably flirting with him without realising it. I’m sorry. I know this all makes me sound like a really shitty person but I’m just trying to be honest about it all.

I really loved him...to death. But as a friend. In a way - I loved him more than I would have loved someone I dated. He was like the world to me. But again - as a friend.

The reason it was such a special friendship was that it was something that made me feel accepted, validated, and special. I felt like he really knew me for who I was and genuinely liked me as a person. I felt like we had a really special connection with each other, and like we would always be there for each other. He bought out the kind of brave-ish bad girl in me, and I liked that. It also gave me a chance to hang out with the guys, who I got along with way better than I didn’t the girls my age.

That was in high school, and after that, I never had that kind of friendship with a man again. After high school, most men get this idea that men and women can’t be friends. I pretty much learned to identify players because they’re the guys that will try to make you believe they’re you’re friend. Lol. Like - if a guy texts you just to talk - bad sign. That’s what I’ve learned.

I’m not sure if it’s advice that you’re looking for. If it’s is, this probably isn’t the best story to help you.

I will say this though. And people will HATE me for saying this. Especially if you’re young.

I think the advice of “just go for it” is bad advice. I think adults forget what it was like to be in high school and they seem to think learning to confess your feelings is the most important thing in the world. It’s a very American mindset and I don’t think it’s a good one, or a wise one. My personal stance is that parents should teach their boys (since it’s usually boys they give this advice to), how to like someone from a distance, and be okay with that. How to be friends with a person, and feel a little tension, but also respect the value of the friendship and the boundaries of it.

You don’t have to make a move on every person in life you find to be attractive. Urging kids to do that is like saying - the best thing you can get out of another person is a date. That’s not at all the case. A lot of times, the friendship is more valuable than a relationship would ever be...and some really good friendships get destroyed by people who try to cross the line.

The thing is...if a woman is into you, at least from what I’ve seen, she’s going to make it painfully obvious - and more so over time. And if you guys aren’t friends, she’s probably not going to want to date anyone because she’s holding out hope that the two of you can date. At some point, the sexual tension just rises to a point of no return, and then it just “clicks” for both parties...and that’s when a long standing friendship becomes a relationship.

But there’s really no point in trying to force that to happen. Boys should learn how to have healthy friendships with girls, without harboring expectations. Girls don’t harbor expectations. Hopes and dreams, maybe - but not grand designs for how they want to edit the relationship to fulfil their fantasies. Practicing that kind of mindset...it’s not a good thing for men, and parents encourage it in their children by guilt tripping them into asking girls out.

Even though it sounds a little harsh...it’s my belief that if you’re not sure whether to ask someone out because you don’t know how they will respond, or you’re not sure whether you’re likeable enough for someone’s to agree to go out with you - don’t pursue. Your gut instincts usually know best. If you don’t know how the other person will react, then they probably aren’t interested enough in you for a positive reaction to be guaranteed. If you feel self-conscious and undateable, then you need to work on yourself more and dedicate yourself to being a person that you, yourself, admire and respect.

Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of potential risks. When you are happy with who you are as a person, and you feel an irresistible, mutual compulsion to make a sexual move on a friend - you won’t have to wonder or ask. It just happens.

When you do that, and you’re not ready for it, you set yourself up for feeling self-conscious, insecure, getting rejected, being depressed, having anxiety, sometimes even feeling angry, resentful, entitled, selfish, maybe even hateful towards the opposite sex...then people tend to pick out traits they don’t like about themselves and feel like they’ll always be like X or they will always be like Y, and that’s why they will never succeed...you could cheapen a really great friendship, or make it awkward, or maybe lose your friendship entirely....

Friendships are very valuable things that can last a lifetime. They’re special in a way almost no romantic relationship ever will be. Our media and our culture paints friendships with the opposite sex as if they’re useless, or just a stepping stone to something better.

As a thirty year old person, I can confirm that the relationship is almost NEVER better than the friendship, and it’s almost always temporary. Learning to control your desires and be the master of them so that you can have healthy, productive, beneficial friendships isn’t an excellent skill to learn. Friendships with members of the opposite sex are extremely valuable in particular, because they can teach you how to really relate and empathize with members of the opposite sex, which will make your future relationships all the more powerful.

I don’t think it’s worth risking a friendship over a relationship. But if it’s doomed to happen regardless, it will happen. People don’t have to worry about making the first move, really. The compulsion just takes over when his/her face is a few inches from yours and you’re intensely staring each other down. Then it becomes painfully obvious that escalation is inevitable.

One of the hottest guys I knew in high school was still a virgin, and the whole school knew it, because he wrote a love letter to his then girlfriend who he hadn’t had sex with yet and someone found it and it traveled through the school like wildfire. Every girl I knew had a crush on this guy. He was really devoted to his own self-improvement and self-growth. He was so confident in himself that he didn’t need a sexual reputation to validate who he was. He was also friends with a lot of girls, and he was a genuinely kind and compassionate guy. There was that guy, and one other guy that was irresistible that all the girls loved, and both of them had a lot of female friends....just sayin.

Comparatively, there’s guys that have like...one female friend, and it’s someone that they’re obsessed with getting a romantic relationship out of. My friend, I think, was like that. And we hadn’t a really, really great friendship. But I don’t think that’s a healthy way to be. And eventually, the sexual tension just kind of ruined it. Because there was a bit of it there - like a low hum. It just wasn't enough. It would have been better if we had kept boundaries and remained friends.

 

[Inexorable Username]

FYI - my above post is pretty much entirely related around high school friendships.

I think by the time people get into college, most people are capable of casual sex without it interfering with their feelings about who they are as a person, or really with their friendship so much...

 

[rondelle]

Did you think you weren't compatible or was it more of a gut feelings for you? Is it possible that you valued him too much and you were scare that dating him would break your relationship with him and that you would lose him?

I think people don't always need to flirt in order to become attractive!

and thank you the advise, I agree that not every people that attract you should be pursued, but also to speak our mind instead of dying inside!