obsession, love and friendship?

OK i have a male best friend, ive recently discovered that i have feelings for him that go beyond friendship. However I'm pretty sure he doesnt like me in that way. Hes completely obsessed with a girl he met a year ago who was the perfect girl according to him. Ive seen him try to form other relationships but it seems that none of the girls live up to this girl he met and has not seen since. First and foremost im his friend and i hate to see him get depressed over something he cant change, ie seeing this girl again, but its difficult for me to listen to him exponding his feelings for her and comparisons with other girls he has gone out with while having and concealing my own feelings from him. Recently it feels like this is driving me out of my mind and ive even thought about contacting the girl myself and trying to set up some form of contact between them to cheer him up. but i dont want to do anything to destroy the friendship.

So... several areas i need advice on... can i help my friend in his obsession without spoiling our friendship? How can i deal with my feelings without destroying our friendship? and how am i going to prevent myself going completely crazy while i await any advice you might give?

Any advice, criticisms, harsh truths, welcomed

Cy

hi cyenne, thats a pretty screen name.

well, that can be a pretty tough situation we all can find ourselves in at times, when we care 4 a friend, and they dont see it or worse, feel the same. You will have to determine how he would feel if u let him know how u felt, and if he doesnt respond so positively..would u be happier with him out of ur life? I did that b4, and it ended my friendship with a very incredible guy, sadly because I think he was gay or bisexual, but ur situation, hes not.

Sometimes we can show the friend how much we care by doing thing to make them happy. And your idea of finding the girl to let her know how he feels, and that hes a wondeful guy, will show him just that. ONce he starts spending time with her, things may or may not take a turn in your favour as he realizes shes not all that he imagined, and she will be out of the picture. If things develop further, then you will have his friendship still, and he will be happy. We can t force anyone to love us, against their free will., but let ur love be known to him, if you feel that it wont wind up as terribly painful as my situation had...

Different ppl react differently, and altho he may hear what you are saying, its only after he realizes what hes really loooking for and have found it in you, will he come around..which may take years...if you are willing to stick around for this duration...

good luck....

cookies

Hello, I couldn't help but respond to this topic as your friend sounds like he's been in a similar situation to me lately.

First of all I would like to say that we men have one design flaw ==> Obsession.

We cannot help it. We see something we like and can't help but want it (especially if it's pretty and on 2 legs). Now Obsession can creep in at anytime but it's usually activated by a fantasy - IE getting with that girl (even if she's not single and you actually stand no chance at all). Something that can start off small can snowball into something uncontrollable in a very short amount of time.

It's basically the man's brain reverting back to it's animal instincts. I expect cavemen fought to the death over women and where that is now illegal the human mind appears to have found another outlet => Fantasising.

Now this has probably been read about in my other posts but a couple of months ago I was extremely attracted to someone and to this day I still do not know whether I really stood a chance or not (she called after 12 red roses but I kinda screwed that up - there was also the little issue of her b/f). Now that seriously made me go loopy for a while especially after I was told she'd contact me again (and didn't). The thing is I couldn't help but wonder "what it could have been" or "what I did wrong" or "what I should have done" and it starts snowballing. The what-if's, but's and why's start turning into fantasy and thats where it gets to the level where you need distraction or help!

I decided to finally have the phone line in my flat connected so I could go online with my PC. Now instead of thinking about my situation frequently I find myself thinking about visiting this and many other sites and what I'm going to download etc.

I was able to assess myself (after several weeks) and finally decided that whether she was or wasn't interested there's overwhelming evidence saying she wasn't by the fact that she never contacted me again.

Sounds to me like your friend needs a big wakeup call and then a change of lifestyle and something to distract him.

Hope this all makes sense..

Hi

I would just like to thank everyone for their advice! Everyone is so nice and helpful. It was especially interesting to hear the view of someone who experienced what my friend is going through, thankyou Turboz. I guess i'll just remain friends for now and see how things go. Thanks again for listening, being understanding and helpful.

Cy

No problem.

Just remember if you want to give him that wake up call jo#ust point out a few things that might temporarily cripple him for a few days:

1) She's not in contact with you so she's obviously not interested in you

2) It was ?? years, months ago - nothings gonna happen now

3)(Just to be sure to wake him up) What made you think you stood a chance with her anyway?

These are the 3 big ones I had to kick myself in the teeth with over these last few weeks. It seems to work when you do it to yourself (eventually) so coming from someone else should work a treat.

He won't like it but after a few days he'll come around and it should change his way of thinking on the subject. With any luck he'll let it drop.

Thats when you leave it for a week maybe 2 (so it's not obvious) and then start to make your move.

Good luck