Anita,

You wrote : “This does not fit, it is not congruent, with you expressing appreciation of him as a good friend to you, a woman, a pretty face.”

Can you make it clearer? Why it does not fit?

I respected and appreciated him as a good friend. He is indeed a good friend, I have never mentioned anything bad about him as a friend besides the fact that he sees me as a potential girlfriend. He is a good friend but in my opinion, he is a terrible partner for me – that is why I keep refusing him and going back and forth. I am not sure which side of him to see. To see him as a good friend or see him as this guy who likes me.

You asked and wrote : “but it is my understanding that you don’t value him, and your motivation for a friendship is self-serving, manipulative and dishonest. After all, you wouldn’t tell him what you shared about him here, would you?”

Well, I do value him as a friend. My motivation could be self serving and dishonest and manipulative as you have wrote, I am also well aware of that. But .. is it really wrong? I do not feel that much of a guilt. I still listened to his stories and gave advices too. I mean it did not go one way only, and I do care for him. I think he deserves someone, that isn’t me. Someone that will love him sincerely, just like how I loved my ex boyfriend. I wish him that in his life.

He does not need to know my motivation. Unless I treated him like a bad friend, he can call me out on that and criticise my motivation whatsoever, but I have always been a good friend. I always tried to understand him and always tried to be nice. Never really broke a promise or an appointment that we have together to have fun or go somewhere. And I mentioned him to my ex a couple of times to get my ex permission to hang out together, I also complimented him in front of the person that I respected and loved the most. Like… that is the biggest proof that I care about him as a friend.

I do not see him as “nothing” – he is definitely something but he isn’t everything to me.

What puts me off the most is that he is just so greedy about relationships. He is so desperate most of the times, to get a girlfriend. Sending me pics to chose a girl for him was an example. I did not mind at all as his FRIEND, I love helping him out but I wish he isn’t so desperate sometimes. He does not look that bad, and is rich, like I am sure a lot of girls would date him if he would just change his personality a bit to be less desperate. As a partner, that makes him look very unattractive.

I have no problem with that personality / traits of his that I have mentioned above as a friend. I also have my own weird trait that not all people can accept and he accepted happily ALSO as a friend so it feels really good. The problem arises when HE started to think that because I accepted this trait of him as FRIEND, I can perhaps accepted this also as a PARTNER. This is where he is 100 percent wrong. He isn’t very good at seeing lines.

My criteria of a good friend and a good boyfriend is very much different. Maybe that is why you are confused, Anita. My boyfriend will definitely be my best friend as well, but my best friend is very unlikely to become a boyfriend. It has always been like that for 19 years. I do not date my friends. Once I put someone in the friends zone, they are most likely will always stay there.

I want to keep this friendship if he is on the same page as me. I will somehow try to talk to him and make him understand this. I am not expecting much out of him, because we usually never really think alike on serious stuff but who knows?

That is why I am not sure what the next steps are.

-Mina

• This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Mina.