Hi Az,

If a guy haven’t made his intentions clear in 2 years, he is either not interested or afraid. With romance, someone will have to take a risk at some stage and traditionally it’s the guy. Instead of feeling uncertain and wondering what happen, wouldn’t it be nice for someone to just take the lead and make their intentions clear? If his fear of rejection is greater than how much he likes you, he’s probably not the kind of man you are looking for. I mean, can you imagine being the driver for every intimate step of the relationship? Ack.

As for guy B, if you are interested, you might as well give him a chance and see what happens. You can always say no if things didn’t work out but at least you gave it a go. Thing will romance is that no one hits a home run every time and as long as you keep your boundaries clear, you should be fine.

Hey there,

I agree with Heart in that the most important thing to consider is how do you feel about this? One of the things with people is that once the relationship is defined, it can be difficult to change the dynamic so even when her heart becomes open, she maybe too comfortable in your existing relationship to risk a romance.

Self love as the term indicates starts with ourselves. Most people have experienced pain in our lives and the journey of going from trauma to healing is a personal one. Though friends and family can be a comfort, it can also hold us back from moving on by being the sympathetic ear. Sometimes a heart needs to break before it opens and being the man in the relationship, you can try to encourage her to move forward rather than taking the safe road of being her friend. Again this comes down to what you want in the relationship because encouraging her to move forward means you are challenging her comfort zone and risk loosing what you have with her. Sadly there is no middle road because without friction there can be no heat. We are attracted to people who challenge us so we can be better rather than someone who enables our weakness.

An easy way to see whether this is the case is to think about how often have you two argued. If it is something that occurred rarely (or never), it means that you are in the friend zone.

Hi Daydreamwr,

I agree with Maria. If you are the anxious type, it might be best to organise something active like a walk in the park, bike riding, bowling or something similar. This will help you get outside of your head (which is where most anxieties comes from) and just be in the moment.

If you are not sure about how you feel about this guy or what you want out of this, it may be best to avoid drinking around him the next time you meet. The reason is that alcohol and sex have a way of creating a false sense of intimacy and cloud your judgement about the person you are with. Having done that a few times myself, it’s got a way of putting me in relationships that I should never have agreed to in the first place.

Hi Ian,

One of the most beautiful and crippling effect of love is that it’s something we give voluntarily and cannot expect anything in return. That’s why when it IS returned, it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. When it’s not, throwing more love behind it often doesn’t work, especially when it’s in the early stages. For example, in your case you were both at a 5 to start off with but the she went to a 3 while you’ve gone to an 8. You feel hurt because you feel that she is not returning your feelings but she is frustrated because you are feeling too much. Having experienced this on multiple occasions, it’s a tough one to navigate.

My suggestion re distancing yourself away from her is keep yourself busy by creating events that you look forward to in your calendar. Also look at this as a growth experience in that it’s a step that helps you meet the woman of your dreams. DO NOT loiter around her life hoping for another shot through the back door.

Hi Dude,

I have two questions:

1) Career wise, what do you want to do? Like what is the dream job that will energise you everyday and that you are willing to sweat over it to make it work?

2) What is stopping you from doing that?

If you don’t know what the answer is, your 20s should be the age where you explore your options. With acceptance, I think it works on things that you can’t change but in the case, it’s something that is within your control. It’s important for men to know what our purpose is because we thrive on challenges and you are doing yourself a disservice for settling for anything less.

Hi M,

Your story reminds me a lot about myself in that I have also spent years building up walls only to discover that it’s a prison. Then one day, one woman managed to break in despite all odds and she suddenly held the key to my happiness. Like you things didn’t work out for me and I also subjected myself to similar humiliations but now that I am in the other side of it, let me share a few things I’ve learned.

1) The more you beg her, the less she will feel attracted to you because it comes across as needy and desperate. So don’t wait for her to break up with her bf. In fact go no contact if you can and delete her from Facebook.

2) Even though you two are no longer together, she gave you a wonderful gift in the form of letting you know that you can love. Think of it this way, just because your car broke down it doesn’t take away your capacity to drive.

3) Women that always need to be in a relationship is a major red flag because it indicates that they can’t stand being alone. The more you feed this, the worst it becomes until one day you realise that no matter what you say or do for this person, it’s not enough and they moved on to someone else in order to get that feeling if falling in love again.

There’s a lot of great advice here about getting over a heart break. The key is to take this as a lesson and learn to open your heart not just to romantic relationships but all kinds of relationships in your life. When you let more people in, you will become less fixated on just one person. This is important if you want to move forward to having healthy loving relationships.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 9 months ago by Yue.

Hi Steve,

The others have made some valid points about letting go in that it’s a gift you give yourself rather than your ex.

Reading your post, I noticed that your anxieties mainly come from 2 sources. The first is when you compare your life with someone else (e.g. Your ex). There are a million articles here about why this is a bad idea but the fact is when you had your divorce, you made a choice to be the primary cater which means that you will not have time to travel the world or date as much as your ex does. I think you’ve made the right choice here since you can do the other stuff later but you will never get your time with your boys again. Things might be a bit tough now but remembering why you made this decision and that it was your choice can help.

The second is when you feel that the world didn’t work the way you expect it to (e.g. why nice guys finish last). Let’s be honest here Steve good things don’t always happen to good people and people who lie and cheat through life always seem to get ahead in the short term. But you know what, that’s ok because we don’t do good things because we expect to be rewarded. We do it so that we can bring something positive to the world and sleep at night. As for dating, being nice and a gentleman is good but there is a little something extra that’s required for chemistry to happen. So don’t get jaded when things didn’t work out because I am certain that you are not attracted to every nice woman out there either.

Hi Strawberry,

There is a lot of great advice here and one of the things that helped me through a break up is music. Obviously we all have different tastes but here are a couple of my favorite break up songs:

Stay – Rihanna
Let her go – The Passengers
Gonna get over you – Sara Barellis
Somebody that I used to know – Goyte
Someone like you – Adele
Wonderwall – Oaisis