How do I get over feelings for friend?

[Ellener]

Help me out again people ( I love you undefined strangers on the internet I regularly turn to and bare my soul to! )

I had a few hiccups with setting up the online dating, now that's going fine. I got match.com to work and I've been dating a guy from there I like as a friend but it's just not very romantic as yet. 

( Hint for men reading- for goodness sake step up your game, it's so easy to flatter us women and some of you don't even try! And you want me to have sex with you?! Go to Dollar Tree, they have brilliant stuff there for $1.08! it's not about money- I can earn my own money! It's the gestures. I jest but only just because I am sure lots of people miss out because they're just not brave or confident enough to do these ver simple things which make such a big difference in romance and marriage )

I still have strong feelings for my friend which well he frustrated me, in that he said he feels the same, expressed the same, but for some reason won't connect with me in a proper relationship or even explanation of why he won't or can't do a relationship. Maybe he lied and he's really with someone else. Wouldn't be the first time a person lied to me! Okay so I followed the advice, no contact. Will these feelings just fade after a while? I really miss him so far.

It doesn't help that I'm in the middle of moving. Yet again post Harvey, since my home got wrecked I just haven't had a proper home. So I didn't even have time to follow up with another man who seems nice and wrote to me yesterday. I will tomorrow. If I'm already seeing someone I think I'm just going to be upfront about that, I can't date multiple people.

But how do I forget this guy? 

It also doesn't help that my son graduates in May and I invited his father to the ceremony ( my son wasn't going to but it's about time they reconnected and ceased parental hostilities in my opinion. I interfered ) This man was my childhood sweetheart, he meant everything to me but he hit me and that was the end of that. He was physically abused as a child, there is so much violence in their family and the last conversation I had with my father in law he said 'you should have let his father hit him, he had no discipline growing up'...my son had got addicted to pain pills, my father in law said 'well he's dead to you now, he's never coming back from that. Forget about him.' 

I didn't turn my back on him of course, and it was rocky but turned out fine, and now he's graduating university with his degree. But his father remarried and didn't tell the new wife the truth about our history. He also told her I was a bad mother for some reason...then left a bunch of unpleasant emails she wrote about me ( she never met me ) on my laptop where he knew I'd see them! Later my son stormed out of his home one day after a minor argument saying 'my dad's a hypocrite'. They've never spoken since, for several years.

I guess as I write this out I'm churning up a lot of emotions. And I did book a counsellor appointment for later tonight.

So- how do I get over falling for a friend who doesn't want me? I feel like no one else is going to be as attractive and lovely and stimulating as he is. Is that because we didn't test the relationship? It's just a fantasy?

Should I keep dating? I don't subscribe to all that 'numbers game' stuff and I don't really want to date more than one person at a time, another thing I am finding difficult with online dating, as soon as I worked out how it works on match I got a lot of requests and I can't date them all. I know, stupid problem to have...'bloody men are like bloody buses...' 

My latest man called me at 6.30 am on his way to work! He's very nice but he never talks about his children, I wonder why not? My kid's never far from my mind. Anyway we're going out for Valentine's Day, date number 4. 

 

 

[SumGuy]

Is this friend you’re trying to forget the one who is a widower?

On the new guy  I don’t talk about my kids early either.  will answer questions certainly.  One it’s some ingrained sense of privacy, and until you know someone it can come off as bragging or complaining.  

Edited February 13, 2020 by SumGuy

[Ellener]

I'm just surprised the kids never come up SumGuy, not even as an an aside topic. 

Yes my friend lost his wife 14 years ago; I guess he's not going to get over it now.

[chillii]

Well , imo guys are a lot more sensible about getting involved as we get older. Know the ropes know what she's probably thinking and wanting but so what , me personally , l'd take my time until if and when l felt like more . After divorce and l started meeting women , l knew what they wanted and how they's see things and they were always in a hurry but l wasn't about to hurry into anything . You show too much give too much that only makes it even worse and just complicates it before you've even decided if your even interested or not. l wasn't interested in all the bells and whistles and bs , all l was interested in was getting to know her for awhile first.Soooo, maybe that's what your encountering .

On the friend , much the same story , he might like you or feel something like the same , but that doesn't mean he wants to rush out and go getting tangled up in some new thing with you guys . You can still really like someone but somethings not quite right so you don't take it further .

l dunno for you how to get past things about him , for me l;d probably tend to just turn right off her in the end knowing it just wasn't gonna happen anyway, be looking at greener pastures and forget about it .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cookiesandough]

My dream would be to have a long time friend that I fall for... Then we both realize that we feel the same... sigh. I just think it sounds so ideal right? But yeah it probably sounds so good because it is in theory. Anyway, I think you should keep dating. The guy you’ve been seeing seems nice enough, but I don’t think he’s the right person. Seems like there’s not enough ‘fire’ there for you. I think when there is you will be less likely to pine over friend 

[Ellener]

21 minutes ago, Cookiesandough said:

I think you should keep dating. The guy you’ve been seeing seems nice enough, but I don’t think he’s the right person. Seems like there’s not enough ‘fire’ there for you. I think when there is you will be less likely to pine over friend 

I was married for many years to a genius guy and of course ordinary life is a bit 'duller' when there's not all those 'fireworks'. 

I've got to learn to love normal!

[Interstellar]

Gifts are nice on top of a relationship. But to raise a stranger’s  interest level? nah, it doesn’t work in the streets. If it does then men will be all over handing out flowers at all the models during NY fashion week.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Interstellar

[SumGuy]

On 2/13/2020 at 4:10 PM, Ellener said:

I'm just surprised the kids never come up SumGuy, not even as an an aside topic. 

Yes my friend lost his wife 14 years ago; I guess he's not going to get over it now.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a concern.   Although if after a dozen dates it’s not mentioned.   
 

Yes if she was the love of his life he may never be able to open up to another relationship like that, for many reasons.  Also one of his coping mechanisms may be to have his life scheduled and busy, which after many years is hard to change when the potential for a relationship comes along.  
 

Frankly I think as humans we are more than capable of loving another mate.  It’s only recently in our thousands upon thousands of years of cultural history, if not millennia as a species, that people can reasonable expect to not lose a spouse or child, due to child birth, war or disease. 

[Ellener]

3 hours ago, SumGuy said:

I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a concern.   Although if after a dozen dates it’s not mentioned.

It finally came up briefly last night, it's a sad topic for him because he barely sees them and he wants to but there is conflict when he does. And he said this as well in a slightly different context!- 

3 hours ago, SumGuy said:

I think as humans we are more than capable of loving another mate.  It’s only recently in our thousands upon thousands of years of cultural history, if not millennia as a species, that people can reasonable expect to not lose a spouse or child, due to child birth, war or disease.