I (25m) fell for a close friend of 7 years (25f) this last year. Told her my feelings, she didn’t feel the same way. She asked for space and time to process this information. I’ve been respecting her decision and giving it to her, for the last 3.5 weeks. I’ve been using this time to heal, and work on myself and my career.
I miss her friendship, what should the next steps be? To keep waiting until she reaches out, or send her a quick text to check in? Does that violate her need for time and space?
She also introduced me to her company for a freelance job a couple months back. Which is on July 9th. So I think we will definitely see each other in person.
TL;DR
Told my close friend I had feelings for her, got turned down. She asked for time and space, gave her 3.5 weeks of it so far. Should I reach out to reconnect?
25 comments
Go NC and move on. Keep focusing on yourself and keep your distance from her. Don’t talk to her until you feel teady. Even if she contacts you tell her you need space and time to process.
Sit on your thumbs until if/when she’s ready to resume friendship. You agreed to space and it’s up to her to decide *how much*.
Leave her alone. You apologized, even though that’s probably not necessary.
If you contact her now you’ll come off as desperate and needy. If you give her time she *might* come back into your life and be willing to be just friends. If that happens don’t expect anything more.
You will know what to do when the time comes. Don’t worry about it now. Just focus on the present. And that isbnow you man
She put up the boundary so only she gets to take it down (if she ever wants to). Don’t be intrusive. Sorry but this is the risk we take when we confess feelings to a friend. Stay focused on yourself.
If you’ll see her at her company next month, take her to lunch one day and ask her what’s up. I think it’s only fair that she give you an answer.
Mmmmm maybe go on with YOUR LIFE, idk just a thought. You’re a grown man, stop sitting waiting and wondering when “your friend” is going to get over the fact that she doesn’t want anything to do with you romantically.
There is no next step for you only for her if she wants to. If she never brings it up again even when you see each other at work then you never gbrimg it up again either.
Quick question, did you tell her your feeling before or after she introduced you to her company? If it was after then that’s really sucks for her.
Just don’t say anything about it and focus on work. It doesn’t matter if you miss your friendship as you are e the one that changed the parameters not her.
I mean I guess you should have realized this was a possible outcome of you confessing your feelings for your friend?
You missed the friendship but apparently you needed to get this off your chest more than the friendship and this is the consequence of it so just wait and if you guys never talk again that’s just the nature of how she handles the confession.
I say this because there are several different ways a person can respond to a confession and it looks like this is the option she chose where she tries to avoid you and interacting with you and talking with you etc
Girls only react this way for an easy way out. She’s not hitting you up. Do not hit her up. Time to see what’s out there and work on your bank account, self confidence, and muscle mass. The more you tend to care, the less they respect you. Hard truth learned here, boy. Don’t waste time.
Move on to another relationship. Be present in that relationship. If she sees you secure and happy with someone else, she will likely be happy to be friends. It will be different,and not what you want today, but it may be the best for tomorrow
Did no one ever explain these two things;
1 if something hasn’t escalated with a friendship within six months it never will
2 you don’t make a mess anywhere near your work?
Your next steps should be to leave her alone. You chose to risk the friendship by trying to form a romantic attachment. The minute you decided to tell her how you felt the friendship was over one way or another. She gave you an answer. Leave her alone.
>next steps?
Move on. Probably stop being friends.
The ball is in her court, so you wait until she reaches out. If you respect her as a friend, there’s nothing else you can do.
3.5 weeks of NC? She has given you the answer. You can’t go back and fix this. Move on. Find someone better.
Main thing is, next time you have ANY contact or proximity for anything, be very casual, only friendly, keep things brief. Probably her biggest fear will be that you’ll bring this up again in some form or fashion, and you’re going to have to show by your behavior that there’s no chance of that, ever again.
Give her space.dont message her the ball is in her court and leave it there. She will reach out if and when she is ready.
Maybe for some perspective of what she might be processing. She thought she had a solid good and trusting friend in you now she’s is going through all her memories of the things you did and said and how close you became as friends and comfort you may have given her all of that now gets filtered through . “Oh I guess he was only doing that to get in my pants” how much of this was genuine and how much was flirting. How do I stay friends and not lead him on. Is he gonna. Screw me over at work is he gonna become angry when I start dating someone. Is he gonna want to be my friend still. How many egg shells will I have to walk on to not hurt him.”…
In no way am I accusing you of any of those things I’m sure you went into this as friends and catching feelings just happened as you spent time. That’s totally okay and you did nothing wrong. I’m just saying that’s the type of thoughts that might be taking place in her head. I am sure she misses your friendship too. But I really think she is probably questioning the whole friendship now. And she hope that it isn’t going to turn into the toxic idea of a ” friend zoning” relationship. Just food for thought.
No sir. Good luck and go find some other ladies (;
Your next step is to leave her alone and move on. She isn’t interested in you that way it happens to everyone.
Ya know what. Kudos to you for being forward with your feelings. I mean this sincerely. You could have never told her, kept it to yourself, and sat around miserably watching her go off with someone else without ever having told her how you felt. You might feel like this was the wrong move since now you’re stuck in this limbo of unknown. But in my experience it was the right move. You will have your answer. Either she sees you as a friend, or she may return your feelings.
You have to think of it from her POV and not just yours. You had time to decide. Obviously waiting for a year. In that time you were able to recognize why she is attractive to you, and why she was worth the risk of admitting your feelings to even though you knew it could change the dynamics. In the last 7 years your friendship grew, and it took you a year of realizing you liked her to admit it.
She has had only 3.5 weeks to process that her good friend actually likes her as more than a friend…3.5 weeks…She has been cruising through life seeing you as her friend and you want to go beyond friends (possibly rather sudden). There is a good chance she hadn’t even thought of you in a more romantic way as it has been a long time, but maybe had considered it before.
So when you ask about how much time. The answer is she will tell you. You already waited this long. That being said, yes you do have a time frame as to when you will see her again, but allow her to bring up the subject. You can still go talk with her and what not. BE HER FRIEND, but let her decide. That will give you the most honest answer, and if you worry about it to where it consumes your thoughts…create negative energy for yourself…you might end up making decisions you will regret later. Be confident that your choice was right, and that she will be honest with you.
Frankly the friendship is over. You took a shot, it is what it is. All things die, and the sooner you accept that the sooner you move on. Go on dates, social events, meet people. If you see her at work be cordial, smile, say hi, and keep moving. Don’t linger, make it weird.. Honestly just pretend it never happened, be professional, and have some damn respect for yourself. You’re awesome, with or without her. The ball may be in her court forever, and that’s how these things usually go.
When you express sincere interest in your best friend of 7 years, those 7 years are gone now.
You are not seen as a friend anymore.
You are seen as someone who is trying to get at her.
You knew the consequences of the “game” when you did it and now you pay for it.
Your steps are irrelevant now.
It’s all in her hands if she wants to continue the friendship or not.
If you are bickering her if she’s okay, she will never want to be your friend again and yes that does violate her time and need for space.
Personal experience of my girlfriend encountering this.
She went to college with this guy (she was never interested in him).
She saw him as a very close friend where she can tell everything to him (problems, daily tea, etc.)
On one day, he confesses his feelings to her and got rejected.
Then the relationship between them were never as close because my girlfriend always had it in the back of her head that he still like her and is still looking for something.
Moral of the story is that, for guys, if the value of the friendship is worth more than the chance of being in a relationship, don’t fucking do it.
Hello evryone, this may not be an advice but a doubt. If the one who expose his feelings is Op I don’t get this kind of reaction of the girl.
I now this can bring to a lot of akward situation and girls tend to be more emotional than man, but isn’t OP the one with his feelings crushed. I feel that in a normal situation is OP the one who needs to understand if beeng “only” friends is ok to him. I really don’t get why you should push away a good friend for such a reason.
The ball is in her court right now. She’ll let you know (or not) whether or not she wants to remain friends.
If you meet each other on July 9th, then so be it. Just be professional since it’d be a professional setting.
ETA: Per your friend group, I’d say, stop ‘not hanging out’ with them. She asked for time and space from you personally. I think meeting up when there’s a friend group meetup shouldn’t be in that request of hers. You should be able to still hang out with your friends, if the friends invite her then so be it.