Thoughts on this complicated friendship?

[gypsycat]

Anyone have any thoughts on this complicated friendship! Have a great friend I met online maybe 6 months or so back. I guess we flirted with each other a tiny bit but it was entirely for fun and certainly nothing serious, and the friendship had nothing to do with looking for relationships, it arose out of a common area of interest. He talks all the time about who he is seeing and vice versa but because we are friends and not involved with each other, that's a perfectly normal conversation.

 

Ok so time goes on, I meet the guy, we see a band, we both have too much to drink and end up spending the night together. Kind of a surprise to both of us I think. Truth I let the thought of a one night stand cross my thoughts but I didn't really take it seriously. Ok so both of us managed to walk away the next day with the friendship intact and neither of us looking for anything more. Kind of weird I know.

 

Time goes on a bit further, we travelled a lot over the summer to see bands which we would normally see anyway, it's economical to share a hotel room, we kind of ended up setting ourselves a precedent to share a room, sometimes we have sex, sometimes we don't and it suits both of us.

 

So I'm great friends with this guy and still am, but there is no way I would want a romantic relationship with him. I don't find him particulary physically attractive, he is a little loud for me, a little self obsessed, nothing wrong with any of that but not the type I would want to get seriously involved with but a lot of fun and someone I can be great friends with.

 

Ok so here's the problem. Why oh why given all of that do I now start to feel jealous when he dates other girls? Go figure....

 

I'm thinking that i was kidding myself that I could just switch off the emotions attached to sex, and see it as nothing more than physical. I'm trying to work out if deep down I actually like this guy but am blocking it out or something. So now I'm thinking I need to do this properly and say either "we date"or "we are friends"cause I'm finding this whole "friends who sleep together" thing hard to deal with. Can't see the point of dating if I already know he's not my type for a serious relationship. We're seeing a round of concerts again in the next couple of weeks and I'm inclined to bring an end to the shared room arrangement

 

Has anyone else been in this kind of situation or am I the only one? Sometimes you feel like you're some kind of weirdo to then find the rest of the world has the same problems. Maybe I'm being somewhat rhetorical here, I think I know what I need to do. I don't want a relationship and I do want to be friends so I need to cut the sleeping together arrangement. It's not a huge problem but the fact that I'm feeling any pangs of jealousy would indicate to me that somewhere in all of this I'm kidding myself as to what this is all about. After making some major mistakes in the last 18 months, I'm not about to go get myself hurt again so I'm trying to head this off before it happens.

[Jewelkeeper]

I have been in a similar situation before. I ended up sleeping with a 'guy friend' and it started to become a habit. Same thing, I wasn't overly attracted to him and didn't think I would seriously date him. But major jealous if he went out with other girls or talked about it at all. I couldn't see it at the time, but in retrospect I think I wanted him to want me more than I wanted him because I would still have control over the situation and it wouldn't have to stop until I wanted it to, not when he did. I hated the idea of being rejected by a guy I didn't really even WANT to be with, you know?

 

Of course it's possible too, that you do actually have more intimate feelings for him, but your words don't suggest that to me. Will you talk to him about it or just stop sleeping with him???

 

J.Keeper

[sunlight]

I am doing the same crap to myself right now. I think he is amazing. But in the end not for me. The strange part is that I am almost scared that he doesnt want me. He has already told me NO about being more then Ffriends. Yet in reality we are practically closer than most couples. I have tried the "Lets not have sex bit" it doesnt work when your body starts to say "yes please". So you either ride it out and get hurt, in the end such as you are now or Deal with it now. But do not be like me and think to yourself, I should ride it out, maybe he will come around and want to be with me. If he wants to be with you he will, and probably already would be. It is definitly a self esteem killer.

[gypsycat]

Thanks for your comments. Both of you hit on some points there

 

I couldn't see it at the time, but in retrospect I think I wanted him to want me more than I wanted him because I would still have control over the situation and it wouldn't have to stop until I wanted it to, not when he did. I hated the idea of being rejected by a guy I didn't really even WANT to be with, you know?

 

Deep down I suspect I like the attention, even though I don't want to get involved, and maybe that's what I'm thriving on and why I'm starting to get jealous. Cause in a roundabout way then he must find some new date more attractive than me, which doesn't really make sense, these things are not competitions.

 

Yea and am totally with you on the don't want to be rejected by someone you don't want to be with.

 

Will you talk to him about it or just stop sleeping with him???

 

mmm never thought about that. Maybe I'll just stop sleeping with him and hope he doesn't notice lol. Ok seriously I should say something but I won't make it a serious heart to heart or anything. Not my style or his.

 

So you either ride it out and get hurt, in the end such as you are now or Deal with it now. But do not be like me and think to yourself, I should ride it out, maybe he will come around and want to be with me. If he wants to be with you he will, and probably already would be. It is definitly a self esteem killer

 

This really hit home for me. My last disaster I believed a married guy who subsequently got cold feet and destroyed my marriage. Long story short I rode it out thinking if I didn't stress him out he'd come around. Huge huge mistake. Now looking back since I've recovered from that, I'm not ever putting myself through that again. It's actually one of the reasons I'm not looking for a relationship.

 

This is small stuff compared to that. I don't think I can handle the ambiguity of this friendship and I'm spotting the warning signs that I can't handle it early on. I know I don't want a relationship and I do want the friendship, so I need to kill the sleeping arrangements or I'm going to end up with neither. Trick will be as sunlight points out sticking with that. This guy is a decent guy, what you see is what you get. If I tell him I can't handle it, he'll accept that and we'll just be able to continue on. I think one of the things I'm scared of is if I stop the sleeping arrangements it may make him think about a romantic relationship and I don't want that, so if I don't want a romantic relationship he may decide he doesn't want the friendship. Seriously I doubt he would think like that but it's kind of nagging away at me back there.

 

The other thing that's worrying me is if he develops a romantic interest in someone else, then relatively speaking I'm getting the raw end of the deal. She gets the sex and the romance, and I just get the sex and that kind of sucks. Also I suspect that when I find someone I want a relationship with this arrangement is just going to get in the way and be harder to break then.

 

I have learned enough to know you don't keep ignoring an issue cause you don't want to confront it, better off dealing with these things real early on.