How should you handle a situation where a friend is in love with you, but you don’t feel the same?

19 comments

1. Friendship is over. Might as well bang em and tell em have a great life.

2. You tell them the truth.

   If they can’t handle that. That’s on them.

3. Understand that you cannot control how they will react when you reject them, but reject them you must. Do it knowing that it may end the friendship. Do it with grace and respect, and try your best to express that you care about how this rejection will make them feel.

   What you don’t want to do is let it go on.

   Have they confessed their love or are you speculating based upon actions this person has taken?

4. She told me she saw me like a brother. I was crushed, but she could have cruel about it. We’re still friends 🤷‍♂️ I’ve loved many others over the last 20 years.

5. What does “in love” mean to you?

6. Just tell them you don’t see them in that light and think it would be best to not pursue that type of a relationship.

   What you don’t do is freak out and accuse them of stalking you after you spent two years flirting with them and you got caught by them with a pornographic painting you made of them and hung in your bathroom over the toilet.

7. Honesty and empathy

8. Tell them the truth and that you don’t want this to ruin the relationship. If you want, tell them that you won’t bring this up so they might feel a little less awkward and stand to that.

9. IMO always honesty when love is involved

10. I’m probably not the best person to answer this since I lost a few friendships as a result of not knowing how to handle them seeing me as more. I can, however, tell you what I did wrong, which was I ignored all the signs thinking they would understand, feel embarrassed and move on from that so we could resume the friendship.

    I froze in fear of losing the parts I loved about the friendships, what they gave me. And this happened over a long period of time, until it all exploded on their side. This included calling me cruel, leading them on, etc.

    Cut it from the root and tell them clearly you do not feel the same way. There is no way to sugarcoat this, and the more you ignore it, the worse the result will be.

11. Just tell them you don’t see them that way, they’re gonna be crushed and it might ruin the friendship but that’s just life

12. This has always been an issue, i never love me…

13. I love all my friends, otherwise they wouldn’t be my friend

14. Set boundaries. If they break those boundaries, they don’t have respect for you. Let loose people who don’t respect your boundaries.

15. Wouldn’t know

16. it has happened before, someone i know told me they had a crush on me after 5 years of being in love with me. i considered the guy no more as a brother to me. so i sent him a message back telling him that i appreciate the feelings he has for me but that i dont share the same feelings back and i don’t want that to affect our friendship whatsoever. he was really accepting out and thanked me for being honest to him 🙂

17. ive had at least one male friend be in love with me. that was an easy one to deal with, because i dont swing that way.

    more complicated is another friend of mine who i have a very flirty friendship with. i kindoff see her like my little sister because ive bailed her out of so many guys at this point. or teased her with other ones.
    ended up in her bed once, didnt really do much and that was the point i realised i couldnt have anything with her.

18. Loving someone who will never become part of your life is a symptom of much larger issues – you have to get stronger. Relationships cannot be built on one-sided efforts

19. I was the person who once fell in love with a friend. And I tell you it will hurt yes or yes how you say it. Just don’t play him with what you say. If it is a man, hints are useless, we are abnormal in detecting them. Just get to the point.