Ask Me Help Desk - Falling for Friend

I have a dilemma that is causing me a lot of grief right now. I have a good, male friend who pretty much knows everything about me. We've been friends for over a year now... and nothing more. Recently, I've found myself being attracted to him, thinking a lot about him, and I'm starting to think that I might be falling in love with him. I do care for him deeply as a friend, but my feelings are clearly starting to cross "friend territory." The problem is that he has a girlfriend. I would never make any move to affect his relationship with his girlfriend... I've been trying to stay away from him and not talk to him much, but that is difficult cause our paths keep crossing and it is starting to hurt to be around him or thinking about wanting to talk to him, while knowing it is not the best idea. He's starting to notice that something has changed, and has asked me "what is wrong." I've been evasive in my responses and always respond with something like "i'm tired; I have a a lot on my mind; I'm busy etc. etc." Any suggestions on how to get over this guy that is unavailable to me, and who I happened to care about before I started having romantic feelings? I know that I might just my friend here, if I can't keep my feelings in check. It's causing me more and more pain here and don't want this to turn into some unrequited love story! Help!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by chelsearose

I know that I might just my friend here, if I can't keep my feelings in check. It's causing me more and more pain here and don't want this to turn into some unrequited love story! Help!!!!

That was meant to read "I know that I just might lose my friend here..." Any feedback would be appreciated... Thanks!:confused:

Chealsea, the only advice I can give you is to put some distance between you and the man-and you already know this.

The option is to come clean and tell him how you feel.
And run the risk of losing the friendship.

However, the friendship's already changed as you have feelings for him.

Mostly in this kind of situation I would say, distance yourself until you feel you can handle the friendship again.

He's taken at the moment, so any involvement is off-base, but I do want to stress that many best friends do become more in time.

It's normal and sometimes inevitable to be attracted to him. You've become good friends because you have seen qualities in each other that you find attractive, so don't feel bad that you feel that way. If you really want to keep the friendship platonic, you got to focus on returning to reality. Whenever you see his best side, try to divert your attention to his worst side. It helps. From being the good looking, almost perfect best friend to his burping like a frog, or something. :)

I have tried making several "mental lists" of how he would not be a good romantic partner and how it would never work out with us romantically... trying to convince myself that it is best to enjoy our friendship as is, and continue to wish him well with his girlfriend. I am working on keeping my distance and would never be the type to get in the way of someone's relationship. So, I'm choosing to keep my feelings to myself for the time being. As hard as it continues to become... whether I'm around him or not! The other thing is that I know a couple of things about him that his girlfriend doesn't know, and that as of now, he is not planning on telling her. I'm keeping my mouth quiet with regard to my opinions of him keeping certain secrets about himself from her, when he has talked about wanting to marry her someday and knowing that she is the one. I know I need to stay out of it, but it makes me quite uncomfortable to see someone that I care about keep a secret that I know in the longterm will hurt both he and his girlfriend because of my solid belief that without communication in a serious relationship you cannot go very far. I don't want to give away anyone's business here, so I know I'm being vague. But, it's just hard to see a friend (whether I'm falling in love or not) be in a serious relationship where he is being deceptive in not revealing certain aspects of himself that he knows will be a "big deal" to his girlfriend. It would definitely add a different dimension to their relationship and I don't think he is being fair to her by not giving her the opportunity to make a decision with regard to whether marrying him or not would be in her best interest. Sorry for the rambling... but I'm just having a hard time keeping my distance and my unbiased feelings out of it all. I'm working on removing myself and only venting here... which helps since I can't tell him any of my confused thoughts on our relationship and his relationship with his girlfriend. Thanks...

Vent on,it certainly helps people.

As for him keeping secrets,as you said,there's nothing you can do about that.

Keep your focus on your own life and stay busy with school or work and see your other friends.