Good friends falling in love with you

[13788]

Javierdude22: Hi

A friend of mine called me last night, totally sad. A friend of him, who he has known for 8 years, and who was a very important friend to him, confessed that he was developing feelings for him with which he didnt know what to do.

My friend is dealing with some bisexual feelings, like myself. And we are actually the only ones that know this from eachother. Everyone considers him to be the straightest guy possible, for how he acts, but also for how he looks. Kinda a getto kid, somewhat like Sean Paul.  So his friend would not have even the slightest reason to believe he would get an affirming answer out of his confession. Turned out he was going to a shrink, who was gay, and who encouraged him to tell how he feels. The more I hear shrinks give advice, the more I wonder i will ever seek help from them.

The two of them left very queasy of course, and mentioned how they now probably will not be friends anymore. My friend is totally beat up about this, as it was a very important friend to him, and he is having a rocky time in his life already. I told him to just hang out within the group, and just act normal, like he never mentioned anything. Hopefully, the friend will not be ashamed anymore then.

The thing is that he has lost two friends now like this. The other was his best friend in life. He told him he was pursuing a singing career in London, and left Holland. Later it turned out he was struggling with his sexuality, and had fallen in love with my friend. He never mentioned it though.

You can feel the situation. My friend is already beat up about his own issues around sexuality, and now he has lost two friends for the same reason, reasons he never expected from them.

I could hardly believe it...man, twice.

Ive experienced a couple of times that gírlfriends I considered important confessed having a crush on me, but thats different. Never a dude, the frienship is definately lost then. Out of shame, discomfort on both sides or whatever.

Does anyone have experience with this? Guy or girl, either way. Any advice on how to deal with a guy confessing a crush to you? That last friendship might still get better, but how should he react?

 

[13788]

Tender: That last friendship might still get better, but how should he react?

i would the ball is in the friends court...
whether the friendship survives or not will be based largely on how the friend reacts to the confession...

but then im no good at this kind of thing lol

yes you are right about the shrinks messing people up. i think often times they do more harm than good...
definately have to choose who you use very wisely...

Tender

 

[13788]

bradleeM: Javier,

Let me see if I understand you:

- you and your friend are having issues with being bisexual

- your friend has had two of his closest friends come out to him by expressing their feelings of love for him

What I do not understand about your friend is this.......

if he truly is having feelings of bisexuality, as he stated to you, what better way to find out if they are real or just a passing fad or is just an unrealistic fantasy of his, by experimenting with TWO of his closest friends?

Something as personal as sexual orientation is something you would not entrust to anyone, and if one cannot trust two of his closest friends, then whom can he trust? Or whom should he?

Apparently he trusts you because you know about his issues and the others do not. The others apparently are not as "close" to him as he has stated or as you have interpreted, since he has not divulged his true feelings to them and put them in a position of shame and lost two good friends in the process.

I am bisexual.................I can successfully have sex with male or female and feel total satisfaction. I can also choose one or the other as my focus for an extended period of time if that is what I want. My current focus is men rather than women.

Your friend apparently has chosen not to experiment with those two close friends because he has no sexual attraction to them. That is what he should have told each of them in order for them not to feel shame or awkwardness in coming out to him. Just because one can have sex with either gender does not mean one is sexually attracted to every member of each gender. One still has their preferences, regardless of their sexuality.

I am willing to bet that your friend is sexually attracted to you, that is why you know about the issues he is going thru. Also, you are probably sexually attracted to him, not only because of the way you described him, but because he is aware of your issues.

What to do.................what to do..............exactly what the shrink recommended.................Do you really want to go thru your life without finding out if there is a mutual attraction between the two of you? The shrink is trying to do a couple of things..........1) save you a lifetime of regret where this friend is concerned and your sexual attraction towards him; 2) help you to escape a pattern of behavior that only leads to unhappiness by "not taking the bull by the horns" so to speak, or grabbing for the "brass ring"........Think about it.............what does one have to lose? In the short term, a friendship, even a close one; losing that friendship of his may have hurt the other two guys, but, both of them are in far better mental health, than both you and your friend!!! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy, because they took a chance at love and lost, but, they are prepared for the next love battle and will do better, each time they try!!!! As that ole saying says, it is so much better to have loved and lost in our lives, than never to have loved at all!!!!!!

Do not give in to your inhibitions...................release them.........and live life as a free person..............if you tell 10 people that you want to have sex with them and only 3 agree...............that is still better than not saying anything to anyone and no one agrees to have sex with you except your Hand!!!! [But always Be Safe]

Tell your friend you and he need to have a discussion and then the two of you need to decide what to do about it!!!!!

Good Luck, be good to yourself, you deserve it!!

Brad

 

[13788]

Tender: boy am i confused.
think i got some of the HIMS mixed up with his hims hims. ya know?
this is a confusing story...
so one of us got the story backwards...
i thought the posters friend confessed to his friends that he had feelings for them, and they didnt want to be friends anymore....
well nevermind ugh!

:-/
Tender

 

[13788]

Javierdude22: Tender: yeah, I kinda wrote it down very confusing I realize. I shouldve used names. Here goes:

My friend, John Doe, has had a friend of his (let's call him Tom) run off to London not primarily because he had feelings for John. Primarily he left because he was ashamed of his sexuality (he is Ethiopian, not allowed) towards his family, so he left. A bonus was that Tom was getting feelings for John Doe, his best friend, who in his eyes was straight.

Now John Doe had another friend, Bubba (  ;D I dunno) confess it. Bubba is a 27 year old black dude with two kids....so it came as a shock to him. Bubba is now so ashamed, after not getting affirmation, that he cant look John in the eye. John is feeling discomfort as well, but they have a lotta common friends, and he just wants things to be normal again. Howcan he make Bubba feel comfortable again? Sould they just talk it out? Or should he just ignore it and be friendly as usual, upeasing Bubba that nothings lost?

Bradlee, thanx for your response man, that was cool. Yeah we have been involved actually...its weird to describe, but were cool.

 

[13788]

bradleeM: Tender: I did not misread Javier's story.............I understood exactly who he was talking about . I just felt that the real impression I got overall was that Javier was talking about himself and his best friend and being afraid of coming on to him for fear of losing him completely.

There are times that people do not like to be so expressive about their feelings about someone, even on the net.

I got the impression that the reason that Javier's friend was telling him about those incidents was because he wanted Javier to know the truth about himself, to see how Javier reacted to that information.

That is why I responded in the manner that I did.

Did not mean to confuse you..................but, hopefully what I wrote will be helpful to Javier.

Thanks for both of your comments and good luck to you both.

Brad

 

[13788]

Tender: yes,
you were right...
you had the story staight,
*I* was the one that read it backwards lol!
but i think you sorted it out...
well anyway point is to offer some sort of ideas...
maybe something here will help him...


Tender

 

[13788]

MN8.5x5.5: Man, does this topic hit home.

I have bee and have always considered myself straight and open to other lifestyles. Never considered a man in another way until about 4 years ago, when I met a friend who I developed "uncomfortable" feelings for. Feeling as if he had the same type feelings, I confessed one night over several beers. Things got weird. I sought out counselling, even went on medication. The friend, who was difficult to distance myself from since I worked with him, continued to make me feel less and less of a person for the way I felt, all the while hanging on to this friendship for some reason.

Well, making a long story short, it turns out he DID have feelings he wasn't confortable with either, similar to mine. But he was married, had a small baby, and had no desire to ever experience what it might like to feel anything for a man, so he shut it out.

As a few months went by, he began to retract what he said, then just saying he was trying to make me feel better by admitting to something that wasn't true, which sent me again spinning into a depressive state.

This is a very long and involved story that actually went on for the last 2 years of our 4 year (so far) friendship.

My advice to anyone who develops feelings for a friend of the same sex....keep it to yourself, and work on distancing yourself from them. Being hurt this way is far worse than anything else I've ever felt. Anything.

 

[13788]

nacard01: a friend of mine in Chicago after several months told me that he wanted to have sex. I do not have sex with friends. I have a hard time going from friends to more because I dont have the same type of feelings for friends. He was hurt. We didnt talk for a few weeks. Then we started hanging out again. Things were okay until one night at the bar we were dancing and he started getting on me. Honestly I am sorry to say I was drunk enough that I let him and got on him as well. We went back to my apartment, we did have sex and started going out the next day. More because I felt guilty about what happened, that I let it happen. We went out for about a month when he decided that he didnt feel our relationship was going anywhere. I am sure this was simply because I was constantly feeling bad about how things started. He doesn't know that though. We are still friends but the fact that I did what I did bothered me all the time.

Kermit
Oh and on a side note. I was the bottom during our sexual experiences. He was about 6". The amazing thing was, his ex-boyfriend was the same size I was and Tim was a bottom for him. I was relatively surprised that he didnt want to bottom for me although I didnt ask him.

 

[13788]

blo1988: The first man that I ever fell in love with was my best friend. He considered himself straight and was a Naval Academy grad from a strict Catholic upbringing. Eventually his conflicts were so great that he became severely depressed and was admitted to the hospital for a short time for depression.
The relationship ended and he got married.
About a year ago (and three children later) he wrote me and said that he had eventually realized that he had always loved me and that it would never change. He felt that his commitment to his children obligated him, but he wanted to express is feelings because he had a lingering sense of regret.
Well, that stirred up alot of feelings, but there was nothing to do, but understand. I am sure that I will always love him, but our lives have taken different paths.
I guess that I am saying that sometimes all you can do is be true to yourself (which can require alot of thinking sometimes) and wait for things to sort themselves out. Sometimes insight comes late; it can be unfortunate but there isn't much that can be done about it.
One other thought: I haven't read anything from "shrinks" on these pages, but in my medical experience I can honestly say that the notion that "shrinks" can mess you up is folklore. There are bad eggs in every basket, but far and away people suffer more from a LACK of help than from quacks. Therapy is a threatening idea because it challenges one to explore one's defenses...an inherently threatening proposition.
I had very similar challenges sorting out my sexuality. I was married,etc. The best advice that I ever got from my medical school adviser was to sort things out in therapy. It was threatening at first, but an enormous blessing in the long run.
One last realistic note about therapy: the help of a professional will only be useful if you WANT insight.
Peace

 

[13788]

malito: As a professional counselor I'd like to wade in on this.
First; I'd say that honesty is the best policy. We as humans need to be honest to ourselves and to those around us.
Second; every human needs three things 1) affection, 2) affirmation, and 3) acceptance. The friend in question is looking to his friend for all of those.
Third; the only way you can ever be betrayed is to first trust another. It sounds like one friend is trusting another and not receiving honesty in return.
I'm not going to make your lives cheap by giving you advice. God gave you a brain use it. I have given you some facts and instruction to help you make a decision. Make the one that your heart says is the right one. The over-all friendship will be much stronger and so will your group.

 

[13788]

Tender: [quote author=MN8.5x5.5 link=board=relationships;num=1066934345;start=0#7 date=10/24/03 at 21:17:38]  The friend, who was difficult to distance myself from since I worked with him, continued to make me feel less and less of a person for the way I felt, all the while hanging on to this friendship for some reason.

[/quote]


i just want to say here, that this to me doesnt sound like the kind of friend you thought he was...
im sure that would have changed the relationship to some degree and even made some times ackward between you, but i think it sad that he would use that to hurt your feelings--not a friend at all IMO.
however on the other end of the stick, like you explained, he was struggling as well, and his ill treatment of you, could have been his way of throwing it back at you, so he could ignore it or tune it out. sort of like a defense mode, because he knew it was true and didnt understand it...hadnt made it to that place emotionally as you did at that time....


i agree that honesty is the best policy, but when you are not getting honesty from the other side, you open yourself up to hurt. sometimes bad hurts. and for that reason it is sometimes smart to weigh your depth of honesty first....
sometimes our heart ( or a few beers!) can lead us to do things, we later think with our brain...hmm. i shouldnt of done that!...
of course in many cases you just dont know, until you do it... and at that rate, you did what you thought was best at the time...and how HE reacted was in his court...

Tender

 

[13788]

jackinman: Malito...you hit the nail on the head with your reply buddy. Truth and honesty was the major missing link here. If everyone would've been more honest, it might've been better for all.

[quote author=Javierdude23 link=board=relationships;num=1066934345;start=0#4 date=10/24/03 at 03:18:56]John is feeling discomfort as well, but they have a lotta common friends, and he just wants things to be normal again. Howcan he make Bubba feel comfortable again? Sould they just talk it out? Or should he just ignore it and be friendly as usual, upeasing Bubba that nothings lost?[/quote]

Javier, I would say to your friend John to try and talk it out. That problem is not going to go away and it could end the friendship. In my book discussing it face to face in private will be best.

Good post Javier.

MN8.5x5.5......I'm really sorry that you had to go through all those hurt feelings. However, I can't agree with you about keeping it to yourself. Distancing yourself from a good friend will also bring all kinds of problems because your friend will be wondering what happened. I'm glad to hear that you're still friends.

So I guess the moral of the story is honesty and truthfulness is the best way to go. I know it's hard, but I think down the road we can all save ourselves alot of hurt feelings.

Well said Matlito

 

[13788]

malito: After i went to bed I thought about this more. I offer an old proberb: Do not cast your pearls before swine.

Our feelings are our pearls. Some have no concept of how precious they are to us. Some will just treat on them as if they are nothing. Others will accept them as the gift they are. Be carefull who you share them with.

 

[13788]

dable_wi: Well put, malito. I agree that honesty is the best policy, but honesty is not the same as openness. If a friend asked me about my feelings, I would be honest with him or her. However, I would be very careful about opening myself up without the question being asked.

I worked with a really atttractive guy about ten years ago. He was going through a very messy divorce and I had just relocated to the city where we worked. My girlfriend was in the process of joining me, so i was on my own a lot. He went out of his way to include me in things. He and I spent a lot of time together. He would make comments about sex and seemed to structure situations where we would be spending the night somewhere. For instance, we took his car to a party and he was too drunk to drive so we just crashed there, etc.

One particularly drunk night, he asked me to step outside with him and he broke down crying and started hugging me. he kissed me on the neck and it got really close to making out. For some reason, I stopped and just walked away. I don't know if I didn't trust him or if I wasn't genuinely attracted to him or both. The whole situation just made me very uneasy. After that, our friendship cooled off and he became a real asshole at work. Shortly thereafter, my girlfriend moved to the new city, so our friendship just fizzled and died. In retrospect, I am glad that nothing happened. I think it would've resulted in a more intense uneasiness between us.

I have gotten to the point where I can tell in a few minutes if someone is falling in love with me. I maintain that if you are not interested that you should downplay the attention. They will get the hint.

Oh, BTW - I am solidly with BradleeM on this one, I think Javier's friend is feeling him out for some clue as to his feelings.

 

[13788]

ish789: omg this kind of thing sucks my first gf was like my best friend at first then i asked her out... so like a year later we break up and everything just like sucked after that we didnt even talk to each other. Might of been my fault maybe hers no idea.

 

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joe22xxx: I'd like to ask another question in this same thread. Is it possible that a straight guy can fall in love with another guy? This doesn't make sense to me.

 

[13788]

Javierdude22: Joe,

That is indeed the question. And somehow it does seem to be the case. Referring to my friend John, and his friend Bubba, it seems to be so.

Bubba has had several (many) girlfriends, he is 26, has two kids from two grilfriends, and has been his friend for 8 years. John said that Bubba did always make compliments to him, but as he felt they were Matti's (best friends) he never thought anything from it.

And then Bubba confessed feelings for him. The only explanation I could come up with is that BUbba is from a harsh Culture, the women there are tough as well. Emotional talks or discussion, or gtelling someone about problems or issues is a no-no there. John and Bubba díd however discuss everything, and support eachother, and maybe this kind of attention has given him the idea he is in love with him. I don't know otherwise.

But, straight guys falling in love with another dude, comes close to the Sex and Sexuality discussion. Is someone really str8 when it happens etc etc. Kinda irrelevant. To me, in sum, it means that a str8 guy can fall in love ith a nother guy, but it'll be very rare, and it needs a very unique set of charcteristics and traits in the other person.

 

[D_Martin van Burden]

Granted it's a bit on the corny side, but isn't that the subtle difference with "I love you" versus "I'm in love with you?"

I don't have any qualms about expressing love to my friends anymore; it's just makes no sense to me to deny that feeling for someone when it's genuine, honest, and real. The same could be said for true love, too, I suppose.

I think it would depend on the extent of love you feel for someone, and I won't even go there simply because I think we all have different ideas of what true love is. I see it as this mutually co-dependent, lasting, deep, intrinsic care for someone else, the kind of love that, once had, you can't let go without a lot of pain and agony. Love between friends may feel that way, too. I guess there's some way to rationalize romantic love from friendship love that I'm having a tough time finding language for right now.

Maybe it's a love and sex thing. I don't know.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, regardless of sexuality, I know I'm able to open up and to embrace people that I really care about and that that embracing isn't necessarily represent of "I'm in love with you."

 

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joe22xxx: Well, a good male friend told me he loved me about a year ago. I was really overwhelmed by his sincerity and trust. But I didn't know what to say back to him. I think he took my silence as rejection. We haven't hung around together since then. He had been drinking & he just blurted it out, but then was ashamed to talk with me about it. He told his girlfriend that I don't like him any more. It's one of those things that we haven't resolved, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't think he or I have the language to talk about this yet. Maybe we're too immature and afraid to deal with it. It freaks me out for sure.