stagnant

[canitbeme]

I'm a Junior in college and I'm in love.We've (my best friend and I) been best friends for three years and our relationship has been a roller coaster of emotions. Our Freshman year of college, while we were still best friends, we faught all the time and practically hated each other (mutually). I think this was because we were both immature and weren't ready to be friends with one another. However, even during that rough period, we went everywhere together and did everything together. We aren't really social people, so we have a tight group of friends we hang out with all the time (I know all his friends and he knows all of mine). Freshman year he was infatued with one of our friends and they were playing around with one another. At the time he would talk to me about her and his relationship with her all the time (they never went out - but they both liked each other and expressed intrest in one another multiple times) He would tell me everything about what went on between them and I talked to him about it for hours. Their relationship didn't work out because she complained about the fact that I was always with him and that she felt like he liked me more than her (If he really liked her, she argued, he would stop hanging out with me all the time and spend alone time with her instead of bringing me around all the time). At the time I didn't really have strong feelings for my best friend, so I had no intentions of ruining their relationship= but he didn't stop being my friend to be in a relationship with her.

 

Sophomore year he was still involved with this girl -talking to her - hoping that she would like him and be in a relationship with him - and yet, he was still my best friend.

 

Let me clarify our relationship ---> everyone on campus who knows who we are thinks that we are dating because we are always together. We're attached to one antoehr and we share everything about ourselves with each other. He comes to me for advice constantly and we have a certain understanding. Netiehr one of us stalks the other - every part of our relationship is mutual. However, I have fallen in love with him and I dont know whether or not he reciprocates my feelings.

 

He frequently expresses the desire to travel and begs me to go places with him - alone or with a group. There are other people who would go places with him - but he won't ask them - he only asks me. I am not financially able to travel with him at this time - and so in the past he has agreed to go places with me that I can afford rather than traveling with other friends.

 

The only thing really lacking in our relationship - were it to be a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is the physical and the commitment. We do not touch one another the way that he and the freshman year girl touched one another. They would constantly play around with one another and he would sit on her lap...etc. He doesn't do this to me. We are completely comfortable with each other - but if we go watch a movie somewhere (not at a theatre - but by ourselves) he will sit on another couch or a few chairs away. He says that this is just him - that he is the same way with his family - but he was not this way with the other girl.

 

That girl is now completely out of the picture (she has a boyfriend and she and my best friend have stopped talking to one another) and now I am the only person he spends time with. When he's not working he hangs out by himself or he hangs out with me.

 

Over spring break I wrote him a letter asking him where he felt our relationship was going - subtly implying that I had feelings for him and that I wanted to know if he saw our relationship developing into anything more than just a friendship. I told him in my letter that I was scared that by hanging out with him all the time I was denying myself the opportunity to meet other people and if he wasnt interested in a relationship I needed to move on. I never actually said "I love you - can we get married" LOL....although I wanted to.

 

He responded with the classic lines - "Im not ready for a relationship - we're best friends and if we're in a relationship things will change - I don't want to lose you." He concluded the letter with "If you dont have a husband by your 21st birthday, come find me and I might help you out." I took this to mean he just wants to be friends - I was heartbroken but I told him that we could take a sabbatical and I'd try to find some new friends.

 

That didn't work out - he was upset that I wasn't hanging out with him and he kept on trying to find ways to hang out with me. Now we're back to normal and are together all the time. We've become more physical (just joking around and poking and proding each other - more touchy feely that before) and I think he understands that I want our relationship to become something more - I can imagine myself married to him. He has been treating me a little differently - in a good way - and I've become less stressed about the situation. However, I don't know where to take things from here. I don't want things to remain like this - just friends - but I don't want to stop being friends with him. However, if he doesn't love me back - I need to move on (for my own sake). I'm too emotionally attached to him to continue to be friends like this. And as long as we're just friends - he can always find someone else and leave me in the dust. (Not that he would "leave me in the dust" but I would be hurt.) The thing is - I can't see him getting someone else - because he's not going to let me go - but I can't be in this relationship as just a friendship any more. I'm looking for a husband and need some kind of commitment - even be it "We will be in a relationship in the future - but right now we shouldn't put that responsibility on ourselves."

 

What do you think???

 

1. Does he like me?

2. What should I do?

[Delectable]

1. He loves you as a friend.

2. Find another love interest and cherish your friendship

 

Not what you wanted to hear...but the truth

[Art_Critic]

1. He loves you as a friend.

2. Find another love interest and cherish your friendship

 

Right on the mark Delectable.. I agree