Not really saying that this applies to all cases, but I've always typically been in relationships with women I've known on short term, much much less than long term. Not sure why but a lot of people who befriend you and spend time with you like that aren't looking for a relationship with you. Either that, or they don't want to pursue you just because they don't want to risk losing the friendship.

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Nothing to say except for oof.

Could you tell her you just had a drunken moment and to just ignore all that?

I think you're absolutely right! I can't say I really go into these relationships looking to be friends first, hoping for something else later. It just seems that circumstances usually guide the relationship into friendship and then I guess I just misread the situation and end up making a mess of things. Appreciate the insight!

I sent the text this morning after we left the gym, not sure she'd believe that one. I guess all I can do now is play it by ear and try not to botch the situation any further.

You can't be just friends with a person who you wish to date. When you catch feelings, summon your adulthood and ask the person for what you want; do not make it an ultimatum, but also know that there is only forward going your way or the highway. Your feelings are terminal to the friendship, it's over already, so you have to move on to romance or turning the page.

Exactly this. Speaking as a woman, it SUCKS when you’ve been friends with a guy you thought was genuinely a friend, only to later discover he “fuck zoned” you the entire time and was just waiting for you to be available. It feels like he was just waiting in line for “his turn” and the entire friendship was a farce.

You have to make it very clear to your prospective romantic interests that you’re not interested in a friendship at the beginning of the relationship. “I’ve got enough friends, I’m not interested in adding another. I’m interested in being in a romantic relationship and it’s ok if you don’t want that with me. But if so, then I hope you have a happy life.”

You’re being honest by saying something like that and you’re not going to put a lot of effort into a friendship that is more likely to never be more than a friendship.

And frankly, you’re doing yourself and your girl friends a great disservice by continually getting into these friendships hoping to one pick up the girl. She broke up with a long time boyfriend; she needs time to get over the pain. She’s probably not in he mental space to be in a new relationship right now and needs time.

And hanging around a girl hoping to win her over is so stereotypical. Every girl has guys hanging around them Hopi to score one day it’s no wonder so many people think that men and women can’t be friends.

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LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!! I don’t have the emotional capacity to have to tell friends of mine “well when we met you (or I) were in a relationship so I absolutely don’t think of you that way” EVERY FUCKING TIME!!!

1. Don't internalize this rejection. She just got out of a long term relationship. Probably dealing with a lot and the timing honestly sounds awful to me.
2. The fact that you are able to build and maintain a long-term friendship with someone of the gender you're interested in is already a good indicator that you can be in a successful romantic relationship.
3. What doesn't bode well? It sounds like you're into people who are unavailable/unattainable to you.
4. Friendships don't have to end because of situations like that. If you genuinely value her as a friend (not just a potential partner) and you are open with her that you want to continue the friendship ya'll can recover if both parties are mature enough to do so. Some of my longest friendships went through this very awkward experience. Just make sure you are able to actually be a friend though and are not sentencing yourself to be in a friendship where you are always pining for something more or being resentful.

With such an important conversation, do you wish you had talked face to face? You could have seen her reaction. I think asking via text is your only mistake. You could have started the ask and pivoted to non-date if you judged it not going over well.

I definitely appreciate the brutal honesty in your response. I should note that it wasn't necessarily my intention to establish a friendship before anything else. We met just before covid hit and I didn't know much about her personal life at that point. I never saw any indication that she had a boyfriend already and was planning to ask her out at the next happy hour (not work related). But, covid struck before that happened and we didn't reconnect again until everything settled and that's when I found out she had a boyfriend.

As I mentioned, I was fine being friends with her while she had a boyfriend because I genuinely enjoy her company and knew that nothing else would ever come of it because she had been in this relationship for so long. The only reason I made a move at all is because I didn't want to miss my opportunity by sitting on the sidelines. The fact that the breakup is so fresh means it was obviously a bad idea to ask her out and that's all on me.

I'm really just hoping we can move past this awkwardness because at the end of the day she's still the best person in my life regardless of our relationship status. I dunno, I can't help catching feelings for someone that I connect with on such a deep level, it's not like I meant for it to happen, ya know?

I really appreciate your thoughts on this, it's very helpful! You're absolutely right, the timing was terrible and I immensely regret it. My thought process was that I should make my feelings known before it's too late and she ends up choosing someone else. But, that obviously doesn't matter if she was never interested in the first place.

Before I decided to go and mess everything up, we had a great relationship and now I don't know where things will end up. I just wish I had the forethought to not say anything. The older I get, the smaller my friend group gets, so messing up a relationship with someone I truly care about has really taken a toll on me. I also am acutely aware that she's still going through shit with her recent breakup and here I am making it all about me, definitely not cool.

I do seem to find myself in situations where I fall for people that are unavailable. It's not something I try to do and it doesn't happen all the time. I really only fall for people that I have a strong connection with, but that feeling never seems to be mutual, so that's clearly an issue on my end that I need to figure out and address.

I absolutely want to continue the friendship and honestly just try to forget that any of this even happened. I spoke with her a bit more and it seems like she's willing to not let this affect things, so the ball is in my court to not fuck things up like I seemingly always do. The hardest part is trying to bury these feelings that I have, but I'm down to do whatever it takes to not lose her as a friend.

Honestly, thinking it over for most of the day, I'm still not sure what the best approach would have been. I think the timing was horrible on my part and something like that should really never be done via text. However, I really didn't want to spring something like that on her in person in case she would have felt trapped or cornered. I think texting allowed her to really take a bit to interalize things and provide an honest answer without the "threat" of coercion.

That said, would I have done things differently now that I've had all day to pine over it? Absolutely. I probably shouldn't have done anything and just been content with the friendship that we've built these past couple of years. But, of course, I had to go and make things complicated because I caught feelings for her.

In the future, if you find yourself in a similar situation, have a mutual friend feel out the situation for you confidentially. Like, have her girlfriend say, "you and OP seem like really great friends. Do you ever think about dating him?"

Nothing better than being dumped and subsequently losing all your ‘friends’ who were just waiting for this very thing and don’t take well to being rejected

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That would have absolutely been the best approach I think. It's something I had thought of after I already messed up. I did consult one of my other friends before pulling the trigger, but a second opinion with a mutual friend would have probably saved me a lot of anguish.

Glad you found some value in it. Good luck!

Just one thing you have to think about is if you will be okay whenever she ends up in a new relationship. Would you be comfortable being around? You don't have to force yourself into a friendship if you feel uncomfortable.

That's honestly what I'm struggling to figure out right now. I have a very strong feeling that I'm going to spiral when it does happen and that's obviously not good.

But, it has been a few days since I posted this and to be honest nothing has changed, we fell right back into our normal ways without any awkwardness. I'd like to tell myself that I'm mature enough to handle it, but I just don't know.

I fully understand your problem and fear of loosing the relation with her. I find myself in a very similiar situation. I have known my best friend through 20 years, we have not been best friends all 20 years, we started out as co-workers and through that we got a closer and closer friendship which also included our partners. Throughout the 20 years we have supported each other through almost every kind of problems, and thereby building a very strong friendship. A few years ago she broke up with her boyfriend, I supported her best possible with building a new home for her and her children. It meant the world to me, to be able to support and help her and I felt the strongest, honest and must relaible bond to any person, that I have ever felt. Approx. 18 months ago, I felt that she suddenly from one day to another, changed her behavior towards me, not a lot, but I felt it and it scared me very much and made me very afraid of loosing the special bond we had. Because the change was small, I didn't bring it up with her, because I was also uncertain, if it was just going on in my head. I thought a lot about the change and in some degree I guess it also changed my behavior towards her, because I got afraid of increasing the distance between us. We were still very supportive to each other with many things, but I felt a change, also by seeing her using other friends more and more instead of me. Through the past 18 months I have divorced my wife for completely other reasons, but through these 18 months my feelings towards my friend also got more romantic, probably in some degree driven by my fear of loosing her as my best friend. It have never been my intention to develop these feelings or to start a relationship with her, I have always considered it to be my problem, which I had to deal with. My friend has been through some health issues and got an operation 1.5 month ago from which she have a long recovery period. A couple of weeks after the operation, she went from being in daily contact with me to contacting me more rarely, maybe one or two times per week, I have of course tried to maintain the contract, but with little success. This is very very hard on me and I can't see how to get by. I have tried to figure out, what went wrong. In this proces I wrote her, what I felt 18 months ago, and how it made me scared of loosing her as my best friend. She tells me nothing is wrong, she just don't want my help so much anymore. But I fell something else must be wrong, but I don't know what it is. I blame myself a lot for this situation, and I think a lot about what I can do. For now my conclusion is, that I must try to give her peace and space and see what happens, but this is also very difficult, because giving up is not a thing I normally do. So for misspelling english is not my first language.