HELP! I need to kill the infatuation so that the friendship can live!

[geoffparker88]

Hello everybody,

 

I need some help.

 

Okay, so there is this girl with which I am close friends. We've been friends since late October. Starting around, oh, say, early March, I started having feelings for her. Then, she got a boyfriend. Anyway, I had been trying to keep things under wraps. But, after acting like sort of a jerk, I apologized to her and explained what was going on with me in a private message on Facebook.

 

This is just a excript of what I said:

 

I was an ass last night for not talking to you and leaving without even saying bye, along with some of my recent comments. I'm just having a lot of emotions swirling around, and that's my responsibility to deal with them, but instead I've been trying to shove them in your lap. And, I'm sorry. Truly, I am. Would you just pray for me that my immaturity would turn into maturity, and that my jealousy would turn into indifference, but most of all, that God would get my mind healthy for a friendship with you?

 

Anyway, it was a bit of a back and forth message, but these quotes of hers pretty much sum up her response and feelings about everything. (Note that this wasn't posted consecutively as I'm posting it now, it's a compilation of what she said."

 

You will certainly be in my prayers, Geoff. And don't worry about any of this. It's okay.

 

You are a wonderful friend to me and nothing will or could possibly change that.

 

An excript of my response:

 

I was thinking about how it must be to be in your shoes right now.

 

Here you are, happy with a handsome, charismatic boyfriend, and a handsome, goofy close friend. Everything's perfect. And then, problems start arising. Your goofy friend starts getting all sensitive, and, frankly, starts chasing you and acting all clingy. He's mistaken love with infatuation. But you are quite happy with your boyfriend, thank-you-very-much, and understandably so. You are in love with him.

 

So, basically, whereas you were quite content with both guys in their former relationship positions, your close, goofy friend is now forcing himself upon you, metaphorically, and it is very, very upsetting and uncomfortable. You don't want to hate him, as he is your close, goofy friend, but by trying to come closer to you, he is tragically inadvertently pushing himself away from you.

 

As you can see, the first paragraph is what is happening. The second is what will happen if I don't get this under control and adjust my thoughts and feelings.

 

 

(As you can see, I was having (and still am having, frankly) trouble comprehending that my feelings were not doing any damage to the friendship.)

 

An excript of her response:

 

You aren't pushing yourself away from me. I promise. Do you sincerely assume me to be the type to flinch away from you? Not gonna happen.

 

And as far as (her boyfriend) is concerned, where do you get the idea that I'm in love with him?? I'm not. Nope. We haven't even been seeing each other for three months right now...too soon for something like that.

 

Regardless, I care about you, Geoff. You are my dear friend, and as I've affirmed, that won't change.

 

And later on, she said this:

 

I can't tell you what will happen in the future, but I can tell you this. This is a strong, lasting friendship that you and I share. You can confide in me just as I have in you without any fear of being judged. Just don't pull yourself away from me simply because you might have feelings, okay? I'm not going to make any of this awkward for you. You still get all the hugs you so desire and I still would love sitting next to (my friend and me) at church. Don't worry about any of this. It makes no difference to my perception of you.

 

The next day, memorial day, she invited me over to her house to swim in the pool from around 4pm to 9pm and then we watched a movie together at home, and I finally left around 1am. It wasn't anything romantic, it was just two friends hanging out, at least that's how I take it.

 

As you can see, this isn't your standard woman. She's very understanding and comforting.

 

But that being said, our friendship is still in danger of dissolving, not because of her reacting in a negative way, but because my emotions are going haywire and being around her just makes my emotions go more haywire. It's torture for me, in a way.

 

But, as you have read, this is a special relationship. Plus, to complicate things even further, she's my cousin's wife's younger sister. She also goes to the same church as me, and we see each other and sit together every Sunday and Wednesday. You see, it's a little hard to avoid her if I wanted to, which I DO NOT want to.

 

I just want to get rid of this infatuation and have a normal friendship.

 

But how do I go about killing the infatuation?

 

I know that this was a long post guys, but thanks for reading through it! I really appreciate it.

[tadams]

I can understand how difficult it must be that the more time you spend with her and the more she reassures you, the more infatuated you just may be... However, I think the best thing for you to do is imagine your infatuation ruining the friendship. It may be the hardest thing you do, but try to separate that from the friendship. You know what you're losing if you can't keep yourself "in control". - Not that you're out of control, but I'm sure internally you may feel that way...

 

Sometimes, it takes sacrifice to maintain a friendship. I am a girl, but I can sort of relate. I have a friend that is very emotionally withdrawn from society, and I have to walk on eggshells around her because she doesn't know how to be here for me emotionally. If I push her to far, I will lose her as a friend. She has ADHD and cannot process her deep thoughts into any sort of concrete conversation. Your friend sounds like a very good one. I'm glad you have found her. Best wishes.

 

If you have time would you please read my last post? It has something do do with relating to your post. Any input is appreciated...

[misssmithviii]

You can't go about killing an infatuation - but you can separate yourself from her and start doing things more on your own or with other people. Start putting your mind onto other things, having your own fun that doesn't include her at all will help you keep things in check because in all reality you DO need to respect her relationship with her man.

 

As for your "this isn't your standard woman. She's very understanding and comforting." I must say please do not generalize genders, you'll find it's quite offensive.

[lonelyboy802]

Wow, I thought i was the only one with this kind of problem. Well it's not so much a problem anymore.

 

In a nutshell I met a girl we had a great friendship before I started developing feelings and they just grew as time went by. Needless to say she didn't feel the same when I told her how I felt. She really valued our friendship and wanted to stay friends even when I told her I didn't think I could do that but for her sake I did. It was killing me spending so much time with her and knowing i couldn't be with her then I snapped so to say. Things happened and I was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts or some crap. I stopped all contact for a year.

 

Anyways, we met up again and we talked about things and now we're the best of friends again and get this, no infatuation with her. How did I do it? I'm not sure, but when I think back on it I guess i finally realized how important this friendship really was to me, and that it wasn't worth losing over a "temporary lapse of judgement" is what i'd like to call it. We often sleep in the same bed together when we can. We could spoon, and cuddle and just talk for hours sometimes in what would incite romantic feelings toward each other but I don't feel any for her, not anymore.

 

for missssmithviii I get what he's saying about how she isn't your standard woman and I don't think he meant it as a negative thing, he could word it better like "she's a special woman" or "she's unlike any other woman i've met before"

 

 

But to reiterate, think about what's important to you. I know it's not the same for everyone, I hope anything i said was helpful. Though I doubt any of it was, just kinda talking out of my ass.

 

 

This girl and i have been friends for 6 years, 7 if you include that 1 year hiatus.

[geoffparker88]

you can separate yourself from her and start doing things more on your own or with other people

 

So, basically, your saying that since I developed feelings, oops, gotta throw this friendship in the trash, regardless of how important a friendship it is to me?

 

I'm sorry, but that's just bullcrap. It's not fair. I couldn't help that it happened anymore than she could. She's got a flirtatious personality, and I'm heterosexual. But, I'm also a human being, and so is she. And we had an awesome, unique, deep, lasting friendship before this stupid infatuation creeped into it, like a damn cancerous tumor on a beautiful body.

 

If it sounds like I'm taking out my anger on you, misssmithviii, I'm sorry. I'm not. I appreciate your help and your consideration. It's just that, even if it was feasible to just "move on" from her, i.e. never see her again, or even not see her as much, it wouldn't be fair for some stupid feelings to kill a friendship that was very important to me.

 

As for your "this isn't your standard woman. She's very understanding and comforting." I must say please do not generalize genders, you'll find it's quite offensive.

 

I know, I'm sorry. That wasn't right. I said it because I've run into nothing but shallow, unsympathetic women (other than the ones in my family of course) up until this girl. It was all a seduction game with them. If you were good at the game, you got in. If you weren't, you were shut out, and they would have nothing to do with you. This girl is such a relief. She's REAL. And I'm sure that you are the same way.

[misssmithviii]

All I'm saying is that I personally do not think it is appropriate for her to be in a relationship yet still close with you who has feelings for her, and it's not fair to yourself to have such feelings yet knowing she is unavailable to you.

 

I never once said to kill off the friendship, I think you got a little ahead of yourself there, I said separate yourself from her as in spend less time. Respect her relationship with her man and spend less time cultivating these feelings/torturing yourself with this infatuation until you can know that being around her won't invoke those feelings anymore, or you can at very least keep yourself from having to watch her with another man while your eyes sparkle in the distance.

 

Let me just say from my point of view, I don't keep friends who have infatuations with me because I feel that would be disrespectful to my relationship and my relationship's mutual boundaries - those boundaries are beautifully set and have never conflicted with friends ever. I had a lifetime close friend named Shayne who loved me for years, and although we gave it a shot once, I could only ever see him like a brother. Even still, when I began with my man now I realized I could not speak to him anymore because he could not "just be friends". It didn't hurt to let him go, because I knew it'd be better for him and I knew he wasn't as important to me as my man now.

 

Point I'm trying to get to is friendships don't have to die to be cut off. I'm sure one day when Shayne gets over me we can be friends, but for the meantime he needs to find another woman who he can love, and he doesn't need to silently feel a pain in his stomach everytime he knows/sees me kiss and cuddle with my man. It's just easier on everyone.

 

I don't think you can just kill infatuation unless it's worthy to be killed as in, she does something to aid in killing it - which won't likely happen, ever. But what you can do is focus on yourself, see her when you do but try and find other people to associate with.

 

There are many beautifully amazing women in the world, trust me. I know that you love this girl to some extent, feelings like that don't just go away. So keep your distance to make it easier on yourself and to maintain the respect you have for her relationship.

 

Best wishes.

[yelak12]

pray, pray, pray. It is really hard to know what to do when you have feelings for one of your best friends (i know speaking from experience). Pray for her and yourself that God's will will be done. I think it is important to keep her as a friend, just maybe spend less time with her and try to not spend much time alone together. It is a lot easier to control your feelings when you are in a group of close friends. You never know what will happen... just Trust in God.