Q.I’m a 28 year old female. I fell in love with my best friend who is 30 years old. We have been friends for nearly a year. We see each other mostly every day, we do all kind of activities together and we use to be close until I told him about my feelings when I was rejected by him. This hurt me like anything and made me very angry. I hurt him with words and I was really hurt myself for being rejected because he is truly really important to me.
I have thought about how I feel towards him and I feel I really am in love with him. Now we are acting very cool with each other but he is angry with me because of the way I reacted when I got rejected by him.
I’m lost and confused and do not know what to do. Do you think dating someone at this stage might help?
Please help.
-Neha, Delhi.
Photo by silje/vaniljeA.Your feelings are perfectly understandable Neha. Friends, especially the ones who become close, form a very important part of our lives. Friendship is a relationship which lets you see each other exactly as you are, without pretences. And that’s what’s amazing about this particular type of bond between two people which is different from romantic relationships, family ties and everything else.
That’s why it’s very common for people to fall in love with long-term friends. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, what’s a relationship but a combination of friendship, empathy and mutual need fulfilment?
But of course how your friend feels about you is not under your control.
The first thing here is, Neha – confessing your feelings to him all of a sudden was probably not a good idea. May be he was surprised and shocked. May be to him your feelings signified the end of your precious friendship, given the fact that he doesn’t share them.
To those who feel like they’re in love with their friend, I always suggest they spend time dropping hints and observing their friend’s reactions before confessing anything. This way, you can easily make out how likely your friend is to reciprocate your feelings. If they respond with romantic signals, you know they share your feelings and you can go ahead and tell them you love them. On the other hand, if they seem uncomfortable with your hints, or they seem to not notice them, or they start growing cold to you or avoiding you in reaction to your signals, you know you’re not in luck. In that case you can forget about them as a romantic possibility and continue your friendship as it was. The advantage of avoiding a direct confession is that in case the feelings are not mutual, you can continue life as usual without the pain and embarrassment of confessing, apologizing, making up etc.
But anyway, that’s all in the past now.
Your course of action now is to take a break from him for a while. I’m not suggesting you sever ties. But given your feelings, it’s imperative you stay away from him for a while now to give your friendship another chance. In the current situation, if you continue hanging out with him, you’ll never be able to give up hope that he might turn to you. Life will become a never-ending cycle of joyous hope and depressing disappointment for you. This will be an extremely draining experience which will add nothing but negative value to your life. At the same time it will keep you available to him forever as a fall back option – something you don’t deserve to be. And most importantly, it will keep you emotionally unavailable for investing in other romantic possibilities around you.
Photo by JahnicoI suggest you take some time out so that you can understand your own feelings better. May be a second look at yourself will reveal your feelings have resulted only from an infatuation born out of spending too much time together? If not, you can at least use this time to shift your focus to yourself, and conquer your romantic feelings towards him. Wait till you’re completely over him before contacting him again.
The immediate next step for you now is to drop him an email genuinely apologizing for your angry outburst. Do not mention anything about continuing to be friends OR cutting off ties in the email. This email is meant only for offering your heartfelt apology for an unwarranted reaction.
As I mentioned, the email should be the last and only communication between you for some time to come. You’d of course not contact him thereafter. If he contacts for a second time after replying to the email, tell him politely but firmly that you don’t want to sacrifice your friendship by disturbing his life with your romantic feelings. Hence you want to stay away from him for a while, and that you’d contact him whenever you’re over him. Emphasize that you don’t want to destroy your friendship for any reason, and end with saying that you hope he’d be OK to be friends with you once again when you’re ready.
Let me know how things go.
All the best. :)
Hi Neha,
This is really a painful moment when you got rejected by some one who was a special person for you. As sulagna has suggested you for a couple of things you should take care of your self at least for next few weeks. Then you can meet him but try to forget the old things, in the mean while try to realize the fact that you can not forced some one to love you instead you should take some time to overcome from this. At the age of 16 I was fall in love with one of my friend who was the dearest one, but for some specific reason she did not accept my proposal. Later she came to me with a common friend to tell the reason and we both agreed. Now it is 13 years passed and we still in touch and our friendship is still so much strong as it was before. In another words I can say we still love each other but in another way. So accept the truth and be happy with your friend, some one more special then him is waiting for you. wish you good luck for your future.
Hey Riyaz,
Thanks so much for your empathetic advice. :) “You can not force some one to love you.” That’s as simple a fact of life as “We’ll all die one day” – it’s not a happy fact, but it’s true, it’s final, it’s ultimate. We have to adjust our thought processes and actions accordingly.
Thanks for commenting. :)
Hai sulagna , sorry to pop my question in the middle of this discussion , but im so desperate that i dont know where else to go, hope u understand my situation and help me out
So here it goes, Me and my gf have been in this relationship for 5 months now she is 17 and im 20, my parents know about my relationship and they are happy with it too. we have been very happy even tough we had small fights, but one thing was bugging me from our very 1st fight, that is when ever a fight some she is just stops talking irrespective of whose mistake its is, she never try’s to solve the problem she just quits then i would just spend hours trying to get her to talk. this same scenario continued for all the fights, i would tell her to talk about the fight so that we can solve and prevent it too, but she never listened to me, she would just turn silent when ever i try to make her understand, its like she doesn’t wanna listen to the advice, and sometimes she would get angry on me and speak harshly, at that time also ill only convince her and make her understand. i know she loves me but some times i feel so depressed thinking about my future with her. she is also concerned about my looks and keeps reminding that looks my are also important for her. its like she has two faces when she is happy she would be so sweet to me but when she isn’t its completely ah different story. she has even told me that our relationship has come this far only because of my understanding and adjustment but at the same time she bolts when a fight come, its like she doesn’t wanna fight for my love. now im worrying about our relationship all the and gets sad when ever she says something harsh. please tell me how to make her understand and solve this
To be frank i am very she guy i dont speak to girls very often and she is my first love and i dont wanna loose her and i have already faced a lot life and i don’t i can survive a heart break now. On the contrary my gf is very cute and confident girl and unlike me she gets a lots of proposals
I hope atleast you’ll help me
vijay
Rejections are part of life but in my life I hate to get rejected by a girl. I would love to die but I feel very anguish being dejected by girl.
I loathe feeling of dejection whom once I love very deeply but she choose handsome dude and ofcourse money which drools many many girls.
I’m sorry for what happened to you dear. But I’m sure you understand that she wasn’t right for you, because your priorities and values are vastly different.
All the best for your future. :)
Hi Neha,
It’s really pain full hear about you but it’s life & life just continue go on. we can understand how would you feel when you were rejected. Neha I must advise you. Now you need to live your life. Don’t think much about that person as much you think about him, you will be hearted. You should Divert your Mind. Try to build up your self-esteem.
“Try to build up your self-esteem”. I think that’s the best advice a friend can give a friend.
Thank you Vivek. :)
Same story Neha…I am also going through the same situation,only the difference is that I broke my friendship with him bcz of my feelings :( bt I miss him like a hell…
Hi
same story here
i also truly love a boy
but he have a gf
and he love his gf
my heart is broken now
but true love is true love
and it is very difficult to forget him;(
I luv u haroon
plzz dont hate me
I love my girl aloot bt she is geting married because im of different religion n she is of different v cant marry.she is geting married next week. And now she does not even talk to me. Her parents have searched a guy for her. Its arrange and she is not happy with the marriage. I want to know weather she will for me and start loving her husband. Will she ever contact me? How can some1 love her hubby when she loved her me aloot.can you pls help me