Unrequited Love

Hi Eric. Sounds like a complicated situation, but its good that you are still friends with him even though he has not acknowledged what you have said since then.

You could try talking to him and saying something like, "hey, it's ok that you don't share my feelings, I'm just glad that we can still be friends" This will at least open the conversation back up. If he shares your feelings he might say something to that effect, and if he doesn't say anything at least you still have a friend.

To get over heart ache I've noticed that physical activities like exercising or other goal-oriented activities help to keep your mind off of it while you slowly process the heart ache. Hopefully the heartache will pass quickly.

Hope this helped.

 

This is definitely a tricky situation because you don't want to ruin your friendship, but you also have to keep your emotional health in check. I agree with Kaiken that talking to him is a good idea, however I would honestly prepare for the worst. If it has been that long without him even so much as mentioning it seems like he might just be hoping that you forget about it and move on.

With that being said; don't pressure him into giving you a definitive answer on anything if he is unable to. It would be hard on the friendship and hard on both yours and his emotional state. He could be struggling with long held feelings for you, so you don't want to push him away by being pushy.

Finally, don't have the conversation with him until you are absolutely 100% ready to have it. If you go in emotionally unprepared tensions could run high and you may create a rift in between you guys. I would also suggest maybe taking a break from him for a few days. By removing his immediate presence it may help clear your mind without the object of your affections staring you right in the face. Also, it will give you a chance to process everything and you may even make a few self discoveries!

Best of luck to you dude and everything will turn out great even if it isn't the result you want right now at this second.

 

hi eric, that's a bad situation to be in. we all have been there in our teens, 20s, 30s, 40s and beyond. but what i have started to realize is, you cannot make someone love you or want you the same way you want them. sure it would be nice. especially if the person is awesome but we cannot make it happen, so we truly have to accept a few realities:

1. Your feelings for someone does not bind them to have the same feelings for you.
2. You can only control what you do. You can't control how someone feels.
3. The only thing you can do is to make your interest known. Then you must let it go if it is not returned.
4. Spend your energy on meeting others who may like you.
5. Accept and let go.

it's been hard for me even. i mean there have been some really awesome guys that i thought things would be perfect with but they did not like me or they were not gay/bi. it's really easy to get down on yourself and think, "if i looked better, if i had more muscles, if i wasn't like this or if i was like this more, etc etc etc. but it's nothing to do with you. it's just not a match.

When your friend said, "i'll think about it". he was trying to let you down easy. he does not like you like that and even if he remotely does, risking the friendship is not worth it to him so you have to accept it. rejection can make you feel cold inside and make you feel like, "why even try" but if i know one thing, i know that you miss 100% of the shots you do not take. So all you can do is take a shot, and move on. eventually you will meet someone that likes you the same way you like them. but you won't be able to do that clinging onto someone that does not to or cannot return your feelings.

better things are ahead.

 

I had this unhealthy hope you speak of a while ago. What I had to realize was that I would not be in a relationship with him, and I needed to hear it from the person myself. For me, I had to cut off communication with him in order for things to be easier, and while I wish it were to be different, it took my a ole to realize that's how things are going to be.

I hope that doesn't happen to you, losing your best friend hurts a lot. Good luck bud.

 

eric -

i don't really where to begin other than to let you know you are not the only one going through this situation. i'm sure you probably know this already, but i also know the feeling of being so broken by love that it doesn't seem that way. i came to this website today i'm assuming for the same reason you did - to try and find and answer to this situation and possibly some peace of mind. i've only told several people my story, but felt compelled to reach out to you after reading yours.

i am a 26 year old male also from NY. i am bisexual although i have never directly came out to anyone before apart from a counselor i have been seeing. and i am currently experiencing the same unlivable pain of requited love that you so poetically make mention of. the only difference between our situations is that i am in love with another male who identifies as straight.

i met my best friend in high school when i was about 16. we we never really close until we got to college and started living together junior/senior year. at the time, we were both in relationships with women and i had not yet fallen in love with him. despite this, there was always something very different about our friendship - we talked every day regardless of where we were and seemed to connect on a different level that most other people. we had amazing time living together right up until i graduated. after graduation, i left to pursue a master's degree about 4 hours away and he stayed behind to finish his senior year. when i left i was terrified that our friendship was going to suffer as a consequence, but to my surprise, it surprisingly strengthened it. i continued to talk to him very frequently and we made trips about once every other month to see each other. many times when he would visit me, we would sleep in the same bed, but nothing intimate ever happened.

i don't really know when my feelings progressed from platonic to love, but before i even realized, it had happened and it was already too late. i was in so deep there was absolutely no controlling it. despite trying to rationalize these feelings and place them into a "big brother" or "best friend" category, i finally realized that i was completely in love with this person. i had never felt this way about anything or anyone in my entire life, let alone another male. he consumed my thoughts from the time i woke up in the morning to the time i went to bed. the fact that we were so emotionally invested in one another and talking so frequently definitely did not make the situation any easier. i lived with and dealt with these feelings by myself entirely for nearly 3 years. during this time, i ended things with my girlfriend of 7 years due to "distance" even though i think much of my decision stemmed from the fact that i wasn't truly in love with her even as much as i wanted to pretend to be.

flash forward to last june when i moved back to the same city as him. right around the time i moved back, he broke up with his girlfriend and things went back right to the way they were before i left. we pretty much spent every day together that summer getting drunk and trying to chase women. it was evident that he was dealing with the loss of his girlfriend, and i truly believe he took comfort in the unspoken love he felt from me.

things changed that september when we began to get intimate. no intercourse ever occurred, but we did hook up on and off about 1-2 a month up until this past march. we talked about it several times afterwards, at which point he always made it clear that he "wasn't about that life" and that he didn't have feelings for me in that way. so i played it off the same way and denied that i had any feelings for him - that it was just getting off and meant nothing. yet it continued for over 6 months. i spent many nights after the bar sleeping in his bed during this time as well, even if we didn't hook up.

this happened right up until he started dating another girl back in march, at which point we tried to maintain normalcy in our friendship after everything that had happened; however, it was clear that there was tension that we did not want to address - a tension that i'm sure came from how deeply in love i was for him. i wanted more than i think he could ever give me and that alone was enough to break me. i had known from the very beginning of this entire situation that there was no good ending, but i was so completely consumed by love, nothing else mattered to me other than spending time with him and making him happy. this love was the most adult thing i had ever felt in my entire life and it has destroyed me over the past year.

despite all of this, we planned a trip to backpack across SE asia after i finished school in may. the trip was everything i had hoped it would be and despite feeling disconnected from him since he began dating his new girlfriend, i spent three weeks exploring the world with the best friend and the person i had fallen in love with. the most difficult part of the trip was watching him text/talk to his girlfriend and tell her how much he missed her/wanted her to be there. try as i did to repress my feelings, i ended up telling him about my love for him one night after we had been drinking. he was angry and upset for all of about 30 minutes while we ate dinner and then it was as if we never even had the conversation - very similar to the response you got from your best friend. again, i tried to deal with my feelings on my own and not ruin the trip, but it was almost too much. the second to last night we were together, i reached over while he was sleeping and tried to hook up with him again and he flipped out on me. he barely spoke to me that morning and we parted ways before the trip was even over. he left to go back to work in the states towards the end of june, while i stayed behind in vietnam to conduct research for school. he left without saying goodbye and i haven't really spoken to him since. i reached out to him several times, and even after clearing the air and telling him that things would be fine once i got back, i can tell something is different. i am almost completely certain that i have destroyed the most important relationship in my life all in one night.

i fly back to the US next tuesday and i don't plan on talking to him before i leave. at first the silence between us was more than unbearable, but each passing day, i feel like i get better. i've definitely made progress towards getting over him since being here and not talking to him, but i am still very worried about what things will be like when i get home.

anyway - i'm sorry for rambling. i just saw your post and really felt the need to reach out and share with someone who i think can related to what i've been going through. i tried to send this thru PM to you but apparently i am not allowed to message you as a regular user. feel free to message be back if you want to know more or want to talk. i would love to hear more about your situation and how you're holding up.