Should we become roomates?

[walkingcontradiction]

Yes, so, here we go.

 

I'm completely in love with my male best friend. He knows this. We already act like we're in a relationship and while he's acknowledged that it's "sometimes unclear what we are," he still maintains that he's "emotionally unavailable" (although believe me, he's not at all with me--everyone who knows him agrees) and that he "doesn't understand himself" and he needs to deal with that before he can be with anyone. It's been this bizarre relationship that none of our friends/family can understand whatsoever for a couple years now. While I would love to submit complete, detailed evidence of all this, I'm sure you guys don't want to read everything I would have to explain. There are, however, a few details you should be aware of.

 

To ease confusion but retain anonymity I shall refer to them as Zack (the ex) and Slater (the friend).

 

1) Slater, Zack, and I all used to be very good friends. After I broke up with my Zack, I eventually told him about all this but said I wouldn't pursue anything because I didn't want to screw anything up. Well, Zack told Slater everything and this caused a giant rift between them but pushed me and Slater closer together. They didn't speak for several months, and then one drunken night Slater and I made out. We stopped and talked about how it was wrong, but we couldn't lie to Zack. The morals of this are irrelevant at this point, but just know that this is why Zack and Slater are no longer friends.

2) As long as I have known Slater, he has never had a girlfriend, but has in the past. No serious ones, though. Lots of girls like him but he's really shy. Also, he's not gay. (Just in case you thought that might explain things.)

3) Slater is the completely atypical guy. He's not just after sex and he's not a jerk, but he's not effeminate either. Actually, nothing he does/thinks/says can be rationally explained by anyone, generally speaking.

4) We pretty much function as a couple minus the sex. We run errands and do mundane things together, go out for coffee and movies together, call each other more than we call anyone else, e-mail each other several times a week, etc. All of our friends view us as a couple even if this is technically not the case.

5) We've discussed this whole scenario on several occasions, but every single action he takes pretty much goes directly against what he tells me.

6) He's admitted that he is attracted to me and that I'm his best friend, yet for some reason won't date me.

7) I've had other boyfriends throughout all of this, but they never live up to the non-relationship I'm already in.

 

He does things like making me CDs, saving every e-mail I've ever sent him, talking to me for hours when he's a self-proclaimed telephonophobic, traveling with me, etcetera.

 

Recently I decided to make a big move across the country, and of course he was the one who drove out here with me. He stayed for a while and we both went to check out some grad schools he was looking at and cities he was thinking of moving to. When we parted ways, he e-mailed me the next day to say that he was miserable and hadn't considered how sad my move would be and that "he thought he was going to cry on the way home, and indeed there was activity in the eyes and throat."

 

I went back to visit over Christmas/New Year's and on New Years drunkenly told him that we should kick off 2005 by not being friends anymore because I was in love with him. He begged me not to do this and to talk about it the next day (we were in different cities as our group of friends split for the evening and we both had to prove we wouldn't go wherever the other one went since they all asserted that we would).

 

The next day we talked for almost 4 hours, which is when I got that whole "emotionally unavailable" speech. At first he told me I couldn't just cut him out of my life and got really upset and told me I was his best friend and everything, but later said that if I really needed to do this then it would be unfair of him to stop me and he doesn't want to see me hurting in any way. To summarize, somehow I changed my mind, mostly because I realized I didn't really want to stop talking to him so much as I wanted to give him an ultimatum. After I left we didn't talk for a couple days, but then I e-mailed him to see how his move was going and what not. He said he was, "so glad I wrote" and he "knew he had more to say but was too confused to say it properly right now." We never did really clear that up, but the point is we just became even closer, if that's possible.

 

So, he tried living elsewhere out for a little while but then randomly decided to come visit me for a week. At any rate, at some point he asked if "the idea of us living together is completely crazy." This went on for a bit as I thought it was sort of a passing thing, but has now become a good possibility. In fact, he has a job interview out here in two weeks. This would be a two-bedroom sort of thing, by the way.

 

What I need to know is whether or not this is the worst idea ever or the best thing in the world.

Doesn't he realize how weird this seems? I mean, he does. I know he does because when we talked about it he asked me if it was "too much...the whole me moving across the country for you and all." But, as far as I know, it's not to "be with me" so much as to be with me. I hope that makes sense.

 

Thanks for any advice/comments/questions you guys have, and sorry this is so long. I didn't intend for it to be, but it's complicated.

[sleeplessindallas]

Yikes! What a mess!

 

For you, moving was a healthy thing, and coulda/shoulda resolved this whole unrequited love issue. Instead, you get to deal with him following you, or trying to follow you. Hmmmmmm...

 

My kneejerk reaction is that you should simply tell him "No", and that until and unless he gets his 'stuff' together, you need to continue trying to establish a new life for yourself without him. There is no rule that says you can't be long-distance friends. Mainly, though, what is unfair is that he is asking you to put your heart and your life on hold while he figures out why he's a commitment-phobe, but at the same time, he doesn't want to let you go. There is simply nothing fair about the way he is treating you. You might tell him that. You might tell him how his waffling is messing with you, how it hurts, how it affects every aspect of you getting on with your life, and that you just can't let him do that any more. I would probably even go so far as to suggest counseling for him, really. Partly for his lack of emotional availability, as he perceives it, and partly to try to figure out why he thinks it's okay to keep someone on a string the way he has with you.

 

His presence in your life is preventing you from finding someone who would love you the way you deserve to be loved. Is that fair? No matter how much you love him, you can't fix him, and you can't change him. Only he can do that, but he seems perfectly content to follow you around, tying up your heartstrings and stumbling through life. It's entirely possible you could spend an entire lifetime dealing with this behavior if you don't put your foot down now.

 

FWIW.

[moimeme]

I partly agree with sleepless. However, I ended up sharing an apartment with my very good guy friend after I graduated because the vacancy rate in my town was hopeless. It was a three-bedroom place. Living together proved to be delightful. He went out with people as did I, but it turned out we were each other's favourite companions. A bottle of beaujolais about a year after we set up housekeeping facilitated a change in the relationship and we were engaged some months later.

 

If this man is someone you think will be the 'bar' others will have to meet in your life, it might be worth it to see if living together cements the deal for you. Yes, you could be 'wasting' time that might be spent meeting other people, but unless you're headed for the end of your fertility years, there's no real emergency in terms of finding someone. If it were me and this person was someone I couldn't bear to lose from my life, I'd give it a try.

[sleeplessindallas]

Moimeme, you make a good point (or two or three). Because I am probably older than you ladies, I tend to see things from a longer perspective, but a shorter one at the same time. I just don't have any patience left for people who jerk me around. I have teenage and twenty-year-old kids of my own, so I have watched them go through the wishy-washy finding themselves stages, and I am just beyond being patient with it in my own relationships. People my own age are well old enough to have figured themselves out, and it makes my perspective a lot different, I know. I am at an age where I expect people to know what they want or don't want, and to act accordingly. I tend to forget that younger people are still working on that.

 

With that being said, beyond my knee-jerk reaction, I tend to agree with you, Moimeme. You may very well be exactly, right-on-the-money correct about this. What do I know? I'm an old fart. LOL!

[walkingcontradiction]

Yeah, thanks everybody. For clarification purposes, we're both 23, so neither of us really knows what we're doing in life yet. I'm finishing another degree and he wants to go to graduate school in a year or so, but isn't absolutely sure in what field so he just wants to get out of the rut of indecision he's in currently and work while he hopefully figures it out.

 

The biggest problem is that I live in an INSANELY expensive town, but that happens to be where my school is. It's beautiful; it's great; it's just that housing is easily double or triple what I'm used to. I'm also not great at living with many people and we know we could live together, which is simultaneously wonderful and a curse. Otherwise I might have already said no to it, or at least told him to get his own place.

 

I have told him that all these mixed signals were entirely confusing and unfair, hence the chat we had on New Years where we concluded that we're just very good friends despite how it appears. Right, well, this was before the whole moving here thing.

 

He told me that he is still scarred by his parents divorce (he was 12) and that he therefore "has no faith in relationships." As far as the whole therapy thing goes, he actually recently started anti-depressants for anxiety but hasn't really done the "talk therapy" thing yet. Both of our moms are in the mental health fields, so no wonder we're screwed up, eh? (Kidding...sort of.) I, too, am a child of divorce and while I might hesitate to get married at a young age, it's not like I have this complete lack of faith in relationships like he does.

 

Man...this would be easier if he weren't the ideal guy for me in every other way. As far as the whole dating thing goes, neither of us tends to date much when we're together in the same city, but that was one thing I told him was going to change when he said he "couldn't give me what I wanted" on New Years and that I "shouldn't wait around for him because it wasn't fair."

 

Thanks again.

[SuperFantastico]

This guy sounded like how i was like 5 years ago. I think moving in with him

would be the biggest mistake ever. He is unstable at best, and who knows

if he would get all possesive or just moody every second day. When you

actually live with a person it is a completely different experience.

 

Up until this point every fight you've both had or if anything got wierd, you could

both go home and sleep it off. If you both move in together, you will not have

that very important safety inplace.

 

For your sake i would advise dont move in together, and keep the friends thing

until this guy can figure out his life. To his credit he realises this fact and trys

to protect you from his current state(not to say he is insane or anything. By

unstable i mean his life for whatever reason is like a maelstrom in his head.

Until he can collect the pieces and mature some more, it would be no good for

him either)

 

I would say wait a year or two. Two is probably better, 25 is a pretty good

age. 23 is too transitional.

[j.carsey]

Originally posted by walkingcontradiction

As far as the whole therapy thing goes, he actually recently started anti-depressants for anxiety but hasn't really done the "talk therapy" thing yet.

 

Wow, I am always surprised to read about so many people who have gone through the same kind of things I have faced. Same age, same questions

 

You know, sex does wonders to cure anxiety and depression. Seriously!

 

Maybe I'll sound a bit different here from the other responses. You obviously both really like each other. You're more than friends, there is no doubt about that. Why not put the icing on the cake? You're young and life is long. Let's say you moved in, had some fun, became more intimate but it ultimately didn't work out. What's the harm? You're not stuck living with him for the rest of your life right?

 

Or maybe it would work out. I don't know, you don't know... you can take a chance here if you feel like it. I don't know what kind of duration you're looking at for having to share the living space though.

[LucreziaBorgia]

The way I see it: if you are considering moving in with someone and its sort of/not really a "thing" - then consider exactly why it is you are moving in with them and how it would feel if this person who keeps you at a distance were to bring home a date one evening. Are you truly interested in roommates or more interested in the possibility that by being together it will blossom into something more? If it doesn't blossom into something more, then you are in a very sticky situation ripe for heartbreak and bitterness. Just play it careful before signing that lease.

[confused21]

My FWB and I considered getting a place together but we decided that it may be akward for each of us if we brought someone home. So instead, we got apartments right next to one another! lol Its been great.. we see each other a lot but still have our separate space.

[clynn]

Personally, it sounds like you have a great relationship, whatever it is.

And those aren't easy to find or establish, no matter what.

 

It doesn't sound like he is jerking you around, he is just uber-careful and unsure, and also HONEST. WOw. That is a good thing.

 

I say go for it.

 

A deep honest relationship / friendship is valuable no matter what and I can't see how this moving in can harm you or he.

 

Maybe it'll develop into more. Probably it will. Whether that means you'll be bf/gf or physical or what, who knows? But you'll be advancing the relationship in the simple fact that you'll be cohabitating.

 

GOod luck!