My close guy friend has a girlfriend. Should I tell him how I feel?

[todesfallhammer]

Let’s just call him John—he’s the first person I met when I went away to college. We hit it off right away and became pretty good friends. During this time I was trying to maintain a rocky long-distance relationship. After a while of hanging out with John regularly, he asked if he could take me on a date, and at that point I had to tell him that I was involved with someone back home. I asked if we could still hang out, because he had pretty much become the best friend I have here, and he said of course we could.

 

As time went on, my relationship continued crumbling apart, and I grew closer and closer to John. One day when we’re casually chatting, he mentions a girl that he’s started seeing, and suddenly I feel an unexpected pang of jealousy. As he went on, it sounded like he wasn’t actually that into her. That made me feel better, and I stopped worrying about it. However, I was getting concerned with my reaction to the news. I had thought that I only saw him as a friend, but this was making me question that.

 

Recently, my boyfriend and I broke up, as we both agreed that the long distance thing was not working. A few days later when John asked me how my week had been, I mentioned what had happened. He acted very sympathetic and tried focusing on other things to make me feel better. A little later in the conversation, though, he revealed that he was still seeing the girl he brought up before, and this time he referred to her as his girlfriend. That hurt to hear a lot more than I expected.

 

Right now, I’m not really sure what to think. I have never met or seen his girlfriend. I’ve never even heard him say anything especially positive about her. He’s said that all they really do is watch TV, she doesn’t share many interests with him, she never tells jokes, and she doesn’t like to get out much. He is a music major and invites me to his concerts, but not his girlfriend for some reason. I was sitting next to his friends at one of them and they made a joke about us being “lovers,” which I tried to casually laugh off. John invited me to go out to dinner with his family and friends… again no girlfriend to be seen. He compliments me pretty much very time he sees me and notices when I do something different with my clothes or hair. The other day I was wearing a red sweater and he mentioned that it looked good on me, making sure to clarify “not that you wouldn’t look good in anything else.” And then he went on about how he likes when people wear the color red. He texts me nearly every day about random stuff or to invite me to do something with him.

 

I can’t decide if he still has feelings for me, and I’ve come to realize that I definitely have feelings for him. I just don’t know if I should tell him. I want him to know so that he doesn’t stay with a girl he doesn’t really like just because he doesn’t think he has any other options, but I’m worried that it will make our friendship weird if he actually does really like her and I’m just misreading things. What should I do?

[preraph]

If you're friends, it shouldn't be that hard to ask him where his relationship with this girl is going. If he downplays it, tell him you could use a date right now.

[SycamoreCircle]

Maybe the reason all of you people feel wishy-washy about you boyfriends or girlfriends is because you're hanging out with other men and women. If that seems like a rigid judgment, consider this: if you and John should start seeing each other, will you be OK with John hanging out with Yoko?

 

I think what you're doing is unfair to John's girlfriend and that's partly John's fault. If he's not so into his girlfriend, he shouldn't be disparaging her with someone he "genuinely" seems to admire.

 

I know you're young, but I would advise you to take a step back from this---let John make a choice.