Dear Mina:

It’s all in the definitions of the words we use. The word “friend” and the phrase “best friend” or “best guy friend”- what do these mean to you? To him? To me as I read your posts. If you sat with him and gone over the definitions by the two of you and compared, that would be interesting.

In my definition, two best friends like each other. From your posts you don’t like him. And so, for me, the two of you do not qualify for the term “best friends”.

The very fact that this “friendship” (which I would term “association”) troubles you, over time, as much as it has is troubling to me. There is something wrong with the association, otherwise it would not have been a source of conflict and distress as it has been for a while.

Let’s look at a couple of the benefits you experienced in this association: “He paid for my food, picked me and dropped me off”- that felt good and was convenient for you. On the other hand, look at the cost-to-you of this convenience: conflict and distress.

I see lack of honesty in this association, on your part (I am not reading his posts). You simply don’t like him. I think you like the benefits of the association, not the oneyou are associating with, not the person that he is.

To your questions in your last post:

1. Yes, because he doesn’t fit (my) definition of “friend”, especially “best friend”.

2. No, you are not wrong not to care. But you are wrong to… pretend to care for him when you don’t, to pretend to care so to not lose the benefits of the association.

3. It is partly your fault and partly his fault that he overestimated your feelings for him. It is partly your fault because you have been pretending to him that you like him, being dishonest in this regard (see #2).

4. No question there, but my input nonetheless is regarding “one less burden in (your) life”- drop the association and you drop the burden. The benefits of the association do not justify the burden. You are not a victim in this, Mina, one betrayed by your “best friend”. You have been dishonest on your part in an association with a man. If I was you, I would end the association.

anita