TL;DR brought up that I was interested in dating my friend, thought it was all fine but now they don’t interact, do I ask them about it?
So I met this friend a while ago and at first I thought he was interested so had someone pass on my number as I didn’t have a way of contacting him after we first met, never heard anything and we became pals later on through social media. I thought we were quite close friends but assumed from him not using my number, that we were just friends, which was fine though I was obv interested.
I recently brought it up again in person just to clarify that I was interested, he said he just wanted to be friends and that was fine by me, I was happy with either, just wanted to clear it up cos idk it kinda sucks to not know?
In person it seemed fine, we moved along and later on I thanked him for being kind about it, but ever since, he’s not really interacting like he used to and I’m worried I’ve made him uncomfortable by bringing it up again… which was the opposite of my intention, I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable by having him wonder if I thought it was a date or whatever every time we hung out. I know it might be silly to notice these things, but he went from liking everything on my social media to liking nothing, ever, and not really talking to me anymore like he did before. I’m just kind of sad and confused? Should I bring it up again? Or just accept that I ruined what was a nice friendship and leave it?
1 comment
I think this can be quite a common response.
I’ve had friends confess that they have feelings before and ask me to go out on dates with them, I usually change how I interact with them entirely and give them a lot of space to process their feelings. I also bring new boundaries into the friendship.
I’m not too keen on remaining friends with people after that though, as I always think our interests are in different places. It’s not so much an uncomfortable thing as a lack of compatibility thing.
But, this is just my experience, we can’t tell you why he’s behaving like this.