Anita,

Lets talk about my male friend issues. I remember putting it off for Gyunnie a few weeks ago, sorry for that.

I was not really comfortable putting on any kind of focus or attention to any other guys but Gyunnie, but now I am comfortable and is willing to talk to you about it. (lets refer the friend as Jake)

Jake was a friend that I have been close with for around 3 years. But we become “really” close only after I moved to Korea this year. We were already close as friends when I was dating Gyunnie, I always refer him as a friend to everyone including Gyunnie. Always.

There is NEVER a moment where I refer him as more or somehow giving him hope that HE is MORE.

To give you a background on Jake, he never fall in love with anyone for 19 years of his life. All of his relationship are “fun” relationships, or basically him picking up any girls that he thinks pretty, dates them and break up.

Jake is not a good looking guy (for me personally) – but he is popular and is a very nice person. He has quite a lot of friends, both girls and guys, but none of them really connect with him on a personal deep level except for me.

It is in my nature to build a deep friendship with someone. I do not have tons of friends, but I have a lot that I can always talk to about ANYTHING. From death to love to marriage to my parents problems, basically I love to explore and talk about deep things in life.

Here is the catch on everything, rather than me liking being admired, I still continue being friends with him because I truly like him as a friend.

I feel like his gender became the problem, not necessarily his personality. If Jake were a girl, I would still be good friends with her, and we would not have such problems. There aren’t a lot of people that I can connect deeply and personally so even one friend is precious to me.

After an improvements on my side after the whole fiasco with Gyunnie ended, my mind became a lot more cleared, I feel like I provided a few informations to you when I was very mad and defensive over someone trying to replace my ex boyfriend so the information does not seems so accurate right now.

He never actually said anything about my “pretty face” or refer me to it or even implying that he is friends with me only because of my face. It was all an assumption that I believed in my mind. Like I have told you above, I have this very negative mindset that all people can see from me are material values and superficial values, I know that they actually see me beyond that, and that is the main reason why we are good friends.

Jake sees that value as well, that he won’t get judge by me, and that I can be very open minded and straight forward when I am close with someone. My close friends are aware they they are always welcome to criticise me about anything and I won’t get offended. It is true. I accept the advice of others when I trust them.

Jake was one my friend that actually cared about me during this 4 months. He even looked up articles about depressed people to help communicate with me, Jake is a very good friend and there are a lot of times when I feel very touched and supported.

I care about Jake as a friend and as a human being, I really do.

I LOVE him as a friend and I LOVE being his friend. I feel like I had found another friend that could lasts for a lifetime thanks to my depression. That was one of the good that comes out of those 4 months, I became closer to Jake (as a friend) and I gained another diamond friend.

The problem is, I think Jake himself is very confused on his feelings about me. He had never fall in love, so he ASSUME that what we have right now is love. My friendship with him was probably his first real relationship (as a human being) that is personal, honest, loyal and constant. I get the sense that even though he has a lot of friends and even though he trusts them as well, our friendship is deeper and more accepting.

We both know that when one of us is at the lowest point, no matter how low, we will help each other. We won’t judge each other and we will definitely support each other. We have that kind of bond.

That friendship bond vs love bond is a very different bond for me.

It is almost impossible for such bond to turn into love.

I like eating both noodle and chocolate. For me noodle is Jake, and chocolate is my boyfriend. I love both but they are different and cannot be combined together.

More than that, I do not feel any attraction to Jake as well.

He is the best friend ever but he is not boyfriend material to me. Do you get what I mean by this?

When it comes to friendship, my standards are : they have to be good people , not a judgmental person, is accepting of me, is fun, is able to carry deep conversation with me. When it comes to their outer appearance, I do not care at all.

When it comes to love, my standards are : he has to be smart (smarter than me if possible), open minded, definitely have to go to a college, he has to be able to lead my future family both financially and socially, he has to treat my parents well, he has to be a logical but kind hearted guy. When it comes to their outer appearance, I care since my preference is skinny guys and guys that dresses well.

Does it makes sense to you that I love him as a friend but I hate him as a partner / boyfriend?

For me, friendship and love has a very different standards and there is a very clear line.

My first love (lets refer him to Ryan) and Gyunnie were good friends to me as well, but they have their limits as friends.

I can tell 80-90 percent of what I am feeling to my boyfriend, while when I am with my best friend, I can almost tell them 100 percent about anything.

I am comfortable with Ryan, Gyunnie and Jake for different reasons.

Ryan and Gyunnie`s support is a lot more intense, as they are biased with their love to me, my boyfriend often went out of their way to defend and help me with any problems, they are that one special person in my life because you can only have 1 boyfriend, right? While you can have a few best friends.

Jake`s support is steady and unbiased, he is not wiling to go out of his ways and lose friends just to defend me, he is willing to help but not get directly involved with my problems while my boyfriend are willing to.

That is how I see it. Jake is the perfect best friend but not a suitable partner for me.

My question are :

1. How can I make Jake understands this?

2. Jake has never directly confessed, so me bringing this out to him first would be very rude and presumptuous.

3. I have described everything in details, do you think I am wrong for having a very clear standards and put Jake on the friend-zone?

4. I still want to continue being his friends, as I like being his friend and I appreciate him as my best friend. I want him to understand what we have (as friends) is as good as a love relationship, and that i love both my friends and boyfriend in a very different way, but what I am feeling for BOTH of them are indeed love in a different perspective and aspect.

5. Even If I am attracted to him, our relationship won’t work out, our personality is way too different and I already “knew” too much about him, both bad and good things, because we have a very deep and personal relationship as friends already.

Sorry if it is too long, too much unnecessary details as well but I feel like people cannot really understand why cant I date Jake but still want to be his friend

-Monica