I Love my Best Friend
Visitor's Question from a 21-30 year old FemaleI am madly in love with my best friend. We have been close friends for 10 years, flirtatious and we dated for 2 weeks when I was 15 yrs. old. It did not hit me until last April that my feelings have grown far deeper. I caught myself once in conversation from saying "I love you."
My best friend lives half way across the country and it wasn't until I spent time with him in person last April that I fell hard. We made out with eachother and it felt like time stopped when we were kissing. I have asked him how he feels about me. He said that he thought about sleeping with me 5 times over the past year during our flirtatious phone conversations. But when presented with the opportunity he did not.
We only became best friends over the past 10 months. I drew up a will and named him guardian of my daughter in case something ever happened to me. I trust him this much. And he was willing to tackle that level of responsability. We no longer flirt with eachother. I took a plane out to Minnesota to visit him 3 months after his April visit because missing him was killing me. I told him that I am in love with him and asked if down the line (when my schooling is over)if he thought we had a chance. He said probably not.
The reason that I hold onto this is because he always chases after women who are not smitten with him. He never goes for the women who want him. I wonder if I could just word things the right way if he would realize that he has latent feelings for me too.
He is more than a best friend to me. He is my buttress. When my world is crumbling I turn to him. Conversations with him leave me elated and feeling stronger than I ever believed I could feel. He is everything that I ever wanted in a man, but I just never recognized all that he was until fairly recently. I don't know what to do with my intense feelings for him because its all I can do but suppress the urge to profess my love to him in our conversations. Its painful to not be able to just tell him what he means to me.
RomanceClass.com AdviceThe best relationships begin with best friendships, so you guys have a really wonderful start here. I wouldn't obsess too much about future plans, because apparently there is still time in here while you are in school. If you pressure him now about what will happen in a year or two, he might balk and really, who can tell what will be in 2 years. Instead, focus on making the relationship stronger and stronger. Instead of making him tell you "OK I know 100% we will marry", SHOW him how wonderful you are as a team and how happy you are together. That way in 2 years when you are done with school, and say "OK I would like to move to the town you live in" he is likely to say yes.
The key of moving a relationship along is to do it in a natural way - not to add in stress. Sure, right now he likes the excitement of the chase. Many people do when they're younger. But as people mature, they value the trust and stability of having a respecting, trustworthy partner in life. That is what you offer. You can't force someone to mature from one to the other. They need to do that on their own. You can only be there to show them the value of the stability and trust, and how valuable that is. It's like how people go from wanting to date every person they meet, to wanting to have a family and a home. It's a different mindset. When you are done with school and ready to settle down somewhere, hopefully he will have made his own journey of maturity and be ready to settle down too.
-- from Lisa
One of Your Friendly Advisors at RomanceClass.com
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Be Patient
Tell Him
