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I have a friend that i've been knowing for about 8 years and we've been ride or die. From the beginning we dated but he didn't want to be in a serious relationship so after some years of getting over him we've became the best of friends and been there for each others and I eventually got married but we was still friends. I've been around and was introduced to his girlfriends that he was dating. We told each other that no matter who we're with we'll always be friends. Lately he told me about a new lady he has and I told him that I was happy for him and he deserved to be happy. He wanted me to meet her I told him that's fine but get to know her first and then introduce her to me. Out of the blue with no explanation he won't answer my phone call or texts and I've asked him whats wrong or was there anything I did and he won't answer me and this has been going on for about 2 months. It really does bother and hurt me because I thought we was the best of friends. When I got married I invited him to my wedding and he didn't come and earlier part of the year he made the comment that he let the best thing slip through his hand and I told him it's okay he wasn't ready and I understand and moved on. I'm happy for him and his new girlfriend but why would he shut me completely out without no explanation?
I have a friend that i've been knowing for about 8 years and we've been ride or die. From the beginning we dated but he didn't want to be in a serious relationship so after some years of getting over him we've became the best of friends and been there for each others and I eventually got married but we was still friends. I've been around and was introduced to his girlfriends that he was dating. We told each other that no matter who we're with we'll always be friends. Lately he told me about a new lady he has and I told him that I was happy for him and he deserved to be happy. He wanted me to meet her I told him that's fine but get to know her first and then introduce her to me. Out of the blue with no explanation he won't answer my phone call or texts and I've asked him whats wrong or was there anything I did and he won't answer me and this has been going on for about 2 months. It really does bother and hurt me because I thought we was the best of friends. When I got married I invited him to my wedding and he didn't come and earlier part of the year he made the comment that he let the best thing slip through his hand and I told him it's okay he wasn't ready and I understand and moved on. I'm happy for him and his new girlfriend but why would he shut me completely out without no explanation?
Maybe it was something he needed to do in order to move forward in his life and find love. I couldn't imagine keeping a friendship with someone I regret letting go, wouldn't be a healthy place to be.
Maybe he was more attached to you, maybe he wasn't.
My experience is that male friends are often more likely to step back when you have a serious relationship, because it can be awkward and feel to the male friend like he is horning in (particularly if he doesn't have a significant other, himself).
I have a very good male friend, we became friends in college, and were never anything more than friends. Our adult friendship has lasted the 20 years since we started college, through living near and far from one another, but it has ebbed and flowed in its intensity, and in how frequently we communicate. I have noticed that when either of us was in a serious relationship, our contact was less frequent and intense. Since my marriage (which coincided with a large-scale move and professional starting over on his part, timing-wise), we communicate less frequently, but I attribute that as much to his starting over in a new part of the country at a new job following the end of a serious relationship of his own, etc., and don't attribute it to my having gotten married. He and my husband have spent time together, he even had Thanksgiving dinner with us and our families on his way out of town when he was moving. They get along well. We are just in one of those phases where we are a less obvious presence in one another's lives. I don't sweat it, because we've been here, before, and we always stay friends. I imagine we will always be friends.
The bolded part answers the OP's question perfectly. That's how it is. I've had good female friends but if they start dating a guy you just focus on other friends for a multitude of reasons:
-Want to give them space
-Hanging out with girl+boyfriend is totally different (worse) than hanging out with just the girl, even if guy only sees her in a platonic sense
-Perhaps feelings arise, however intense, once dude's chick friend is with someone else
-Many guys will do just about anything to squash any other guys out of his girl's life. He will do this completely out of his girl's visibility so it looks like the guy friend just cut her off out of nowhere
-straight guys would rather ghost a good long-term female friend than hear that friend constantly talk about her bf, which all girls do, especially early in the relationship. your platonic friend doesn't care about that
I have a friend that i've been knowing for about 8 years and we've been ride or die. From the beginning we dated but he didn't want to be in a serious relationship so after some years of getting over him we've became the best of friends and been there for each others and I eventually got married but we was still friends. I've been around and was introduced to his girlfriends that he was dating. We told each other that no matter who we're with we'll always be friends. Lately he told me about a new lady he has and I told him that I was happy for him and he deserved to be happy. He wanted me to meet her I told him that's fine but get to know her first and then introduce her to me. Out of the blue with no explanation he won't answer my phone call or texts and I've asked him whats wrong or was there anything I did and he won't answer me and this has been going on for about 2 months. It really does bother and hurt me because I thought we was the best of friends. When I got married I invited him to my wedding and he didn't come and earlier part of the year he made the comment that he let the best thing slip through his hand and I told him it's okay he wasn't ready and I understand and moved on. I'm happy for him and his new girlfriend but why would he shut me completely out without no explanation?
He might have just decided it's more respectful to his girlfriend to not be friends with someone whom he dated in the past and for whom he still as feelings.
I can understand this, there are guys who do that, yes every is different but then by and large most guys like this as far dealing with feelings and emotions are concerned. The way you have put this it seems that he certainly liked you a lot, more than friends. It seems he did have strong feelings for you, who knows may be even loved you deeply. I think he saw you as a potential partner. I am sure he wanted to be with you. Although yes it is strange that he didn't make any attempt or any moves on you, now there could be plenty of reasons for this as well.
This is what it sounds like to me. And that he feels betrayed, in a way, because you got involved with someone else, and took the final step--marriage--that eliminated the possibility that you and he could ever be more than friends.
The one thing that doesn't make sense is the mixed signals: he'd say he truly loved you, but then would add that your future husband (whoever it may turn out to be) would be lucky to have you. If that was supposed to be a hint that he would like to see himself in that role, he had a mighty strange and ambiguous (at best) way of expressing it. It comes across as the opposite of that; him saying he's just a friend and wishes you all the best. It's really too bad that he never tried to step things up, if that's where his heart really was, because the OP was open to it, but it never happened, so she finally moved on. His lack of confidence, or his reticence, whatever its cause, cost him what he apparently felt would have been the relationship of a lifetime. That's really sad. If it hadn't been for that type of mixed signal, the OP may have chanced a gesture of her own, like snuggling up to him sometime, when they were together.
OP, what were the occasions of your interactions with him like? Did you just go out to coffee together, or did you go to events together occasionally? I'm just wondering if there would have been a chance for you to make subtle attempts to take things to the next level, to test the waters and see where he was at.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 10-04-2016 at 03:17 PM..
This guy I was friends with for a few years suddenly seems to have shut me out of his life for no reason that I am aware of. We never actually dated or anything throughout our friendship- I waited a bit when we were hanging out to see if something might move further with our friendship but he seemed to never make Any moves or anything. He would make Comments and things towards me that were flirtatious and that's what always kept me thinking he may want to be more than friends but than nothing. He would say things like, I love you Vanessa, I really do, stuff like that. He would say I was beautiful, and that my future husband is so lucky, things like that. I always had to reach out to him and he would never imitate any contact ( is the way it seemed) after about two years of this up and down stuff, I moved on with another guy and another year later I married my husband. He doesn't know this guy very well but that's because I could not get any time for all of us to get together. We had gone periods without taking before and everything was still pretty normal and now it seems like since I got married ( the only thing that has changed), he barely communicates at all with me, and it was just so unlike him. We are happy now but anytime anyone ever asked me how this person is or have we talked I say, you know not really And it seems that anytime I talk to him he is very short with me, not the same, if he sees me out somewhere he literally avoids me it seems.
My feelings are kind of hurt now because it seems like he is done with our whole friendship totally out of the blue...No goodbye, No explanation, No nothing?? , I don't contact him to go out or anything, there are times I just check in to see how life is going, see how family is, stuff like that. Our friendship started at school and we would talk about that all the time and now when I bring up how I am doing, he has just become totally cold....and it was with no real warning. I feel like I did something but don't know what it is. I am afraid to ask and make it worse...should I just forget everything, and never talk to him again?
You are answering your own question. You never saw him as more than a friend despite his statements that you were more than a friend to him. You never did anything to take it to the next level - perhaps that is why he felt reticent to be more aggressive. Guys have difficuty being only friends (esp good friends) with women because our biology gets in the way.
Be a big person and maintain your friendly contacts with him even if he never replies. In time he may get over you and just be friends. In the meantime don't push into his space that he needs to forget his feelings.
You are answering your own question. You never saw him as more than a friend despite his statements that you were more than a friend to him. You never did anything to take it to the next level - perhaps that is why he felt reticent to be more aggressive. Guys have difficuty being only friends (esp good friends) with women because our biology gets in the way.
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I think the OP may have held back from doing her part to move things to the next level because of the mixed signals he was giving out. The whole thing is unfortunate; they both missed out on potentially a great relationship, and now he seems bummed out about that.
He had stronger feelings for you, and all those comments were his way of "fishing" to see if there were any way you'd be interested in him romantically. You weren't. He's done. Respect it and let it go.
If you are wondering why he's acting the way he is, I suggest watching "Love Actually" and seeing the attitude that Andrew Lincoln has towards Keira Knightly . . . :-)
He had stronger feelings for you, and all those comments were his way of "fishing" to see if there were any way you'd be interested in him romantically. You weren't. He's done. Respect it and let it go.
But the sad thing about it all is that she WAS interested in him romantically. She said that in her opening post. She waited for him to demonstrate his interest in a concrete way (beyond just words, which seemed ambiguous), but that never happened. He never made that move. So she concluded he wasn't interested in her that way, and began to look elsewhere.
But the sad thing about it all is that she WAS interested in him romantically. She said that in her opening post. She waited for him to demonstrate his interest in a concrete way (beyond just words, which seemed ambiguous), but that never happened. He never made that move. So she concluded he wasn't interested in her that way, and began to look elsewhere.
The opening post is from 2014. Post 21 is someone new that I replied to. Is there a spot for lessons on how to read messages?
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