If your friend fell in love with you, would you just walk away?

[penelope13]

who is saying that it's an act of evil?

[cadmiumblue]

I actually held off on telling her for a long, long time. The problem is that our situation was not typical. firstly, because she was aware of my feelings for a long time before I even said anything, Secondly, because she never dated anyone during the time we were friends (and to my knowledge she has never dated anyone).

 

It's not about arguing. I'm just trying to understand why people think it's okay to abandon a friend.

[Batya33]

It generally seems that falling in love with your friend is some horrible act of evil. I don't understand why, especially since it's not controllable. I never asked to fall for my friend.

 

I read many of the posts here and never saw anything close to as extreme as you write. I am sure you have had feelings you chose not to react to -whether feelings of love, anger, or sadness. You never asked to fall for your friend and your friend never asked you to share with her whether you had romantic feelings for her. If she did then that would be a different story.

[happpybear]

It generally seems that falling in love with your friend is some horrible act of evil. I don't understand why, especially since it's not controllable. I never asked to fall for my friend.

 

she never asked for it either, and you expect her to ignore that and just deal with your feelings knowing that the friendship is no longer that, and she will never be able to be just a buddy to you. Think about her and what she is going through as well

[cadmiumblue]

she never asked for it either, and you expect her to ignore that and just deal with your feelings knowing that the friendship is no longer that, and she will never be able to be just a buddy to you. Think about her and what she is going through as well

 

I think she thought about herself enough for the both of us.

[cadmiumblue]

cadmium sounds like you want to argue, and maybe are not open to what people are posting here. She decided to end the friendship probably because it made her feel uncomfortable to continue further. I'm sure she didn't want to hurt you, but maybe you just have to accept it, and realize that it will probably be easier now to get over her and find someone new

 

Nope! It's not easy for me to get over her--she abandoned me six and a half years ago.

[iamkaylee]

That seems unfair. I believe people should fight for a friendship to last.

 

What does he mean to you?

 

He means an awful lot to me, and I'm not one to quit a friend easily. But I can and will do it if I need to.

 

It's not a question of want, it's a question of what's the right thing to do. If I didn't feel the friendship was worth fighting for (and I do) I would have cut him off at knees straight away this foolishness started.

 

But I also don't think it's right for me to ask him to stick around and be my friend when he clearly wants more and is mooning around like a poor pitiful lovesick puppydog. There is zero chance I could ever return the feelings so IMO that's just cruel.

[Beautiful Nightmare]

I would never *just* walk away. Not permanently, not without an explanation. But the thing is, once that line between platonic love and romantic love is crossed, and a confession of love is made, the friendship is irrevocably changed. The underlying notion that one person wants more will always be there, tormenting one friend and burdening the other. The only hope of returning the friendship to its former state is if the person in love gets over their feelings and moves on, and for that to happen, distance is necessary. They call it no-contact for a reason. But sometimes there simply is no way of saving a friendship once it enters the unrequited love category.

 

It was a crappy thing what your friend did--walking away with no explanation. There's no denying that.

 

I do have a question for you, though. If she had stayed and you two remained in contact, where do you see yourself now? What would the relationship between you two be like?

 

Because, right now, more than six years after her exit from your life, you are still hung up on her. Would things really be different if she had stayed? Would you be any happier than you are now?

[greywolf]

I had a friend confess his feelings to me a long time ago. I distanced myself from him for a couple of years, then we became friends again, but he again confessed, and then I cut all contact from him for a couple more years, and the cycle really just kept repeating itself. He recently contacted me after 5 years of no contact, and he has a girlfriend now that he's very much in love with, so we are good friends again.

 

The general feeling seems to be that it's okay to just end a friendship because someone fell in love with you. How fair.

 

It generally seems that falling in love with your friend is some horrible act of evil. I don't understand why, especially since it's not controllable. I never asked to fall for my friend.

 

 

Cadmium, people put effort and time into replying to your posts and trying to help you, but all you do is argue. You could have just said how you felt from the very beginning so that people wouldn't waste their time to reply only for you to argue and be passive-aggressive.

[Fudgie]

Had this happen. Usually if the friend wasn't close, I would walk away. It happened with my boyfriend through when we were close friends. I had a bf at the time so distance was key. I couldn't cut him off totally because he was a long time confidant for issues like past trauma, stuff that boyfriend at the time didn't really want to talk about with me. N (my bf now) was there for that whole mess in the past and when it came to that one subject he was the only one I could go to.

 

However, my boyfriend has cut off close friends when they began to like him These were girls he talked to for years! . He told them to not call him again and he stopped contact with them and avoided them. He told them that he felt uncomfortable knowing that they liked h and he didn't feel the same so he didn't want to talk to them anymore. Since he's bee with me, one contacted him of the blue and he told her to bugger off.

 

It's his choice and I respect him for it. Why be in a friendship that makes you uncomfortable and you don't want. No one should be guilted into staying with a friend.

[cadmiumblue]

Had this happen. Usually if the friend wasn't close, I would walk away.

 

...

 

Okay.

[cadmiumblue]

 

Cadmium, people put effort and time into replying to your posts and trying to help you, but all you do is argue. You could have just said how you felt from the very beginning so that people wouldn't waste their time to reply only for you to argue and be passive-aggressive.

 

Fine. I feel that it's wrong to leave a friend just because they love you. I can see if they're acting all nuts, but I WASN'T. I didn't deserve this.

 

As for whether my life would be better if we'd stayed friends, yes, I think it would be.

[cadmiumblue]

I also googled "I abandoned my friend for falling in love with me" and similar searches, and found nothing, which confirms my belief that people who do this rarely feel that they did anything wrong, hence their unwillingness to put what they did in actual terms. Instead they'll say their friend made them uncomfortable and they had to end the friendship, conveniently leaving out the fact that they just stopped calling and left without a word. In what universe could that possibly be okay? It's not.

 

I read a book on both sides of unrequited love. I get that the people who are loved are creeped out, I get that they're uncomfortable, it's awkward, blah blah. That book provided no insight whatsoever to why my friend did what she did and my questions are no more answered now than before I read the book. I will never understand why people do this. I would never do it. Even before going through this hell I wouldn't have done it.

 

No matter what my ex friend does, she will always be an abandoner. It doesn't bode well for her ever having a relationship with someone she does actually want.

[iamkaylee]

The point though cadmium is that it's not just about what you want and how you feel. It's also about the other persons feelings and comfort. If they're not comfortable with how you feel, they shouldn't have to stick around just because you want them to. It might make you happy but it would make them miserable. Eventually, you would be miserable with the friendship too because you want more than that. At least this way there's a chance of salvaging something later on. The other way, there's not.

[cadmiumblue]

What do you mean salvaging something later on?

[cadmiumblue]

The problem is that it's NEVER about what I want. That's the theme of my life.

[journeynow]

Fine. I feel that it's wrong to leave a friend just because they love you. I can see if they're acting all nuts, but I WASN'T. I didn't deserve this.

 

As for whether my life would be better if we'd stayed friends, yes, I think it would be.

 

Cadmiumblue, I can understand where you are coming from. Friendship could be a good foundation for a more serious relationship, so why not express your deeper feelings if there's a chance a deeper bond is growing on both sides?

 

It does change things, though, and if one only has feelings of friendship they may be uncomfortable and need to ratchet down the friendship, or even create space.

 

Think if it the other way: When 2 people have been in a love relationship, and one's feelings changes and they see themselves as friends only, then it's quite common for them to go separate ways. Most people would not remain as friends because of the hurt feelings and difficult emotions. Maybe years later when feelings have died down they reconnect as friends, but it's not guaranteed.

[iamkaylee]

You are focusing on what you want and you are not thinking of your friend at all. So yeah, this is all about what you want and it's pretty dang selfish. What about what she thinks and how she feels? You don't know the reasons why she's suddenly dropped you except that you confessed you love her. You just don't know "why" exactly and speculating about it, trying to mind read her, passing extremely biased and unfair judgements on her to push your own rationale isn't working. A square peg won't fit in a round hole and you don't even know what what kind of hole you're trying to shove it into.

 

Accept it for what it is. She made a choice and her choice was to cut contact with no explaination. Doesn't matter if you like it or not, that was her choice. Let it go and leave it alone.

 

Maybe later on, you two can be some sort of friends again, but keep up this way and you will burn that bridge.

[cadmiumblue]

No, we won't. It's been six and a half years, the friendship has been over for a long time.

 

I don't know how she felt, and she never told me how she felt, so how am I supposed to think about something that's a big question mark? Am I supposed to just picture a big question mark all the time? Sure, I'll do that.

 

Yes, I'm selfish. So was she for leaving me. So are all human beings. We're all selfish.

[cadmiumblue]

I love how it doesn't matter how I feel about things that affect my life.

[cadmiumblue]

Cadmiumblue, I can understand where you are coming from. Friendship could be a good foundation for a more serious relationship, so why not express your deeper feelings if there's a chance a deeper bond is growing on both sides?

 

It does change things, though, and if one only has feelings of friendship they may be uncomfortable and need to ratchet down the friendship, or even create space.

 

Think if it the other way: When 2 people have been in a love relationship, and one's feelings changes and they see themselves as friends only, then it's quite common for them to go separate ways. Most people would not remain as friends because of the hurt feelings and difficult emotions. Maybe years later when feelings have died down they reconnect as friends, but it's not guaranteed.

 

Thanks for posting this. The problem is she didn't need space, she needed to abandon me without a goodbye or explanation.

[iamkaylee]

The problem is she dumped you in a very crappy way and it hurt your feelings really badly.

 

You've got every right to be hurt and angry about it, I think anyone would be. But you can't change it so you do need to accept it and move on. Your friend did a crappy thing, but you're letting that control you. After 6 1/2 years, hasn't it been long enough? Just accept it.

[cadmiumblue]

She needed to not leave me. Unfortunately, we can't always do what others ask of us. I should just accept it, she should just not have left me, but the world is far from perfect.

[cadmiumblue]

it hurt your feelings really badly.

 

Nope. It shattered my heart and quite honestly, I could have died. This is not an exaggeration.

[DieTeufelKatze]

Holding on to your resentment and anger about this situation and not accepting it is like ingesting poison and expecting your friend to be the one who drops dead. You're only hurting yourself by stewing in this... you've already spent 6 years of your life stuck in this mode, and only YOU have the power to change that.

 

I don't know how many people need to tell you this (ad nauseam) before you hear it. In fact, to be perfectly honest, your combativeness and anger makes you look like a BBS troll, even though I am still giving you the benefit of the doubt. For now.