[Phoenix]

Hey guys,

I’m new here, and hopefully I’ll be able to extend a hand to all of you when you guys need help, but unfortunately, I need some help myself right now. To establish things, I’m pretty young, I’m a 16 year old male. Here’s the background to my current problem:

There’s this girl (let’s call her Sam for convenience) that I met in 8th grade (nearly 4 years ago) by circumstance, and after we met, we began texting/talking quite a lot. We literally texted every single day but one that summer, so naturally, I began to develop feelings for her (and the way that she is, I thought she was for me as well). By “the way that she is”, I only mean that she’s a sweet, caring, and energetic girl, who often comes off as flirty. Anyways, Freshman year rolls around, and I decide to ask Sam out. Unfortunately, she said that she just wanted to be friends, so I was pretty surprised and heartbroken about it, but to my delight, it didn’t hurt our friendship, but it strengthened it. In fact, in the last few years, she has become my closest friend, and I couldn’t possibly imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t met her (probably not too different in reality, haha). Regardless, skipping ahead through some girls that I had a thing with, but never really ended up going out with, we arrive to about a month ago. I had decided to ask her to our Homecoming, and to my delight (but not much too my surprise, as we would only be going as friends) she said yes.

So we went to Homecoming, and had an *okay* time. It wasn’t not fun, but definitely not my most memorable, and for me, it was partially because they didn’t play a slow song for us (us being the entire school). It was disappointing, but not the worst thing that could have happened. I think that it was a little bit before this dance though that I began to realize the emotional rollercoaster that she has thrown me onto for the last few years, and it’s becoming fairly taxing on me (I think about it constantly). For example, the other night, she asked me to go to one of her choir concerts tonight, and so I did. Afterwards, she was with two of her friends, one of them has thanked me for coming a total of 4 times between now and when the concert ended, and the other twice. Despite the fact that I talked to Sam afterwards for hardly even a minute, she didn’t even thank me for going. She is really one of the nicest girls you’ll ever meet, but I swear this is just one of numerous instances that have thrown me around emotionally relentlessly. Normally, that shouldn’t, but I think I’ve accepted that, in reality, I still like her.

I feel like there’s little to no chance of me going out with her at this point, which really blows, as we are, and I say in full confidence and not just in my blindness (I promise), seemingly perfect for each other. However, I just can’t deal with it anymore, and even though it seems like a little thing, again, this whole concert incident has me very… not angry, but very disappointed that I went out of my way for 1.5 hours to watch it without even a thank you from her.

So getting to my actual question, how do I cope with this? I feel like I really need to get myself less attached to her, but any time that I try, she seems to pull me right back in. I have never been so confused before, and any advice would be immensely appreciated.

Thanks a lot,
Phoenix

[April Masini, your AskApril]

The answer is simple, but you won’t like it: You need to move on. That means from the friendship, too. She’s made it very clear to you that she doesn’t want to be anything other than friends. And I’m here to tell you that men and women can’t be friends — because one person always likes the other more, and this creates a dynamic in the relationship that has nothing to do with friendship.

I know you think that you’re perfect together, but you’re forgetting one thing — she doesn’t want a romance with you. Take the rejection as a gift and move on so you can meet someone who IS interested in you. 😉

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[Phoenix]

Yeah, I think I’ve known this for some time, but I didn’t want to accept it. Hearing it from someone else enforces it, thanks so much, I’ll definitely consider what you suggested.

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re welcome. 🙂

[b]Everyone likes to be liked! If the advice you found on AskApril.com was helpful “like” us on FB — and tell a friend!
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