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Old 03-04-2006, 11:47 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Dating friend, might need to break up... How?

Ok, about 2 months ago, I was at the bar with a friend of mine, and we ended up kissing for a while. We were both pretty drunk, but the next day decided that we'd date some more and see where things went.

So, here we are, two months later. We've gotten a lot closer, and I've found out a lot of things about her that I really like. Personality-wise, we're very compatible, intellectually we connect quite well. But, I'm just not that sexually attracted to her, and I don't really thing that that will change.

For one, how can you possibly tell someone that you care about that she just doesn't get you going? I would really like to maintain the friendship that we had before all of this happened, but I've got a pretty good feeling that that won't happen. That really saddens me.

To make matters worse, I think she's really quite interested in this relationship. I know that if I do break up with her, it's going to hurt her a lot. Obviously, since I care about her, I don't want to do anything to hurt her.

This really sucks. I'm sure that prolonging things will just make it worse in the end.

Does anyone have any suggestions or advice for me? (Other than to not ramble so much when posting; It's late and I'm trying to collect my thoughts)
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Old 03-04-2006, 11:57 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Give it time. While physical attraction is typically the first thing to develop, sometimes it's the last thing. As you get to know her a bit more, you may find yourself growing more attracted to her. Try imagining her as a romantic interest and see what happens.

If this is not at all a possibility, then talk to her. Let her know that her friendship means a lot but that you aren't sure you want pursue anything further than that. If she asks why, you don't have to tell her it's because you're not physically attracted to her. You can come up with a reason that spares her feelings. Sometimes, honesty is not the best policy.

Good luck.
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Old 03-05-2006, 12:05 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JumpinJesus
Give it time. While physical attraction is typically the first thing to develop, sometimes it's the last thing. As you get to know her a bit more, you may find yourself growing more attracted to her. Try imagining her as a romantic interest and see what happens.
I've thought about that, and still haven't come to any conclusions. I don't want to prolong this unnecessarily. I think it would probably be worse to let this carry on for a few months and then end up still breaking up with her. I'd really like to salvage a friendship back out of this...

Quote:

If this is not at all a possibility, then talk to her. Let her know that her friendship means a lot but that you aren't sure you want pursue anything further than that. If she asks why, you don't have to tell her it's because you're not physically attracted to her. You can come up with a reason that spares her feelings. Sometimes, honesty is not the best policy.
I agree completely. I really don't want to have to say "Sorry, I'm just not into you the same way you're into me." And like you said, her friendship really does mean a lot and I'd really like to maintain it, or at least be in a position where it could carry on down the road.

Quote:
Good luck.
Thanks
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Old 03-05-2006, 07:05 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Dating a good friend is always a very tricky situation. It's one thing to date someone and have the friendship evolve into something wonderful, but to start out dating a good friend and wanting the romantic and sexual connection to evolve doesn't always work. I just got out of a relationship with a good friend not too long ago for the reason that I just wasn't sexually attracted to him. I let it go on for a year, because I thought that of course that connection would develop. It didn't. And perhaps, because I let it go on so long, I've lost him as a friend, at least for now. I don't have any suggestion on how to break it off, it's different for every relationship, but if you don't feel it, you just don't feel it. You can't force yourself, trust me.
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Old 03-06-2006, 08:11 AM   #5 (permalink)
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No idea how to deal with it but if it was me i would just slowly back off spend a little less time together whatever it takes. really depends on what kinda friendship you have i suppose. with most of my friends i would just be able to tell them yep im bored with this lets do something else.

just a tip but next time when your drinking... stick to only same sex friends to drink with. at least that way you wont end up doing anything you will regret getting yourself into. unless.... you get way way too drunk and end up wearing a dress in front of some guys that are also way too drunk. but hey in that case at least you have something to laugh about with your therapist for the next few years.
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Old 03-06-2006, 09:18 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Plaid13
just a tip but next time when your drinking... stick to only same sex friends to drink with. at least that way you wont end up doing anything you will regret getting yourself into. unless.... you get way way too drunk and end up wearing a dress in front of some guys that are also way too drunk. but hey in that case at least you have something to laugh about with your therapist for the next few years.
No man, drinking is way more fun with the ladies.

Personally, I have a rule about dating friends... either I need to be okay with losing the friendship if it doesn't work out, or the friendship needs to be so strong that it can survive the damage done when I break up. If it isn't either of those situations, I don't ever date friends.
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Old 03-06-2006, 09:40 AM   #7 (permalink)
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Quote:
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No man, drinking is way more fun with the ladies.

Personally, I have a rule about dating friends... either I need to be okay with losing the friendship if it doesn't work out, or the friendship needs to be so strong that it can survive the damage done when I break up. If it isn't either of those situations, I don't ever date friends.
so how do you differentiate between when you're just hanging out with your guy friend one on one vs an explicit date with him?
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Old 03-06-2006, 03:31 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Toaster126
No man, drinking is way more fun with the ladies.

Personally, I have a rule about dating friends... either I need to be okay with losing the friendship if it doesn't work out, or the friendship needs to be so strong that it can survive the damage done when I break up. If it isn't either of those situations, I don't ever date friends.
I really hadn't thought of that... On hindsight, I wish I had.

Well, I'm going to bring this up with her tonight, we'll have to see how things go. I hope I don't lose her as a friend, but we'll have to see how she takes it.
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Old 03-06-2006, 04:07 PM   #9 (permalink)
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man, it might be too late...but i'm going to suggest that you just tell her you don't feel the chemistry. there's a lot more to sexual attraction than just whether or not you find them physical ugly or not. the way i see it, there's no reason to hurt her feelings, and there's no reason to lie to her. just tell her it's not working for you, you still see her as more of a friend, and that you want to back off.

hope is goes/went well.
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Old 03-06-2006, 04:28 PM   #10 (permalink)
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So, you haven't done anything sexual with her?

I'm sure after a while she's gonna get the hint that you don't like her in that way. Which means you should have kept your tongue to yourself two months ago.
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Old 03-06-2006, 04:43 PM   #11 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by World's King
So, you haven't done anything sexual with her?

I'm sure after a while she's gonna get the hint that you don't like her in that way. Which means you should have kept your tongue to yourself two months ago.

Oh Lord, we've done lots sexually. That's part of how I started realizing that the chemistry doesn't seem to be there. She seems way more into things sexually (along with emotionally) than I feel. It's been two months, and it's been a pretty steady relationship. I thought felt really really good at the start, but now things just don't feel right.
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Old 03-06-2006, 04:57 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Well, in that case...


Tell her how you feel. No harm in the truth.


Unless the truth involves you being more sexually attracted to her cat...
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Old 03-06-2006, 05:56 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by World's King
Well, in that case...


Tell her how you feel. No harm in the truth.


Unless the truth involves you being more sexually attracted to her cat...
Well, there will be an element of tact involved in it... It's not like I can just say "I'm not sexually attracted to you." I would like to salvage a friendship out of this, although I realize it'll probably be a while before that can happen.


Now... about that cat...
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Old 03-06-2006, 09:05 PM   #14 (permalink)
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And that's that . It went worse than I hoped. I think I did the right thing though.
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Old 03-06-2006, 09:14 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Sorry to hear that, fat-tony. In the long run, though, you're both better off than if you let it continue.
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Old 03-06-2006, 11:05 PM   #16 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by JumpinJesus
Sorry to hear that, fat-tony. In the long run, though, you're both better off than if you let it continue.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I justified it to myself. Explaining that to her was really quite difficult, although I think she understands it a bit better now. At least she hasn't just blocked me from IM and all that.

And no, I didn't do it over MSN. This all took place in person. She's home now and has just said a few things...
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Old 03-17-2006, 03:42 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Well, here's a bit of an update. Last night we were talking again (pretty much have every day since we broke up), and as per usual, I kept thinking about how much I miss what we had and how I think I made a big mistake.

We ended up deciding to give it another shot and ended up just lying there and holding each other all night. This is the first time I can ever think of that I've made such a mistake, and hopefully the last.

We'll have to see how things work out. We talked a lot of things through and the biggest thing is promising that we'll talk to each other about what's on our minds instead of just jumping to conclusions...
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Old 03-17-2006, 04:18 PM   #18 (permalink)
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but the fact still remains.. you're not attracted to her. From a bystander's point of view, I can only hope this develops into a really tight best friend situation.
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Old 03-17-2006, 05:00 PM   #19 (permalink)
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Ooooh Fat-Tony, what are you doing? She obviously wants this to continue and you just don't want to hurt her. Take it from someone who's been in her shoes - stop it now, you're not doing her any favours. It does hurt ... alot. No one likes rejection, but no ones like pitty more. Give yourselves time, salvage your obviously very close relationship and in a few months / year, you'll be able to look back on this, laugh and you'll be able to confide in each other more because of your intimacy. One of my closest friends now is an old bf (broke up because of 18 yr age gap) but we're so, so close & we talk about everything and I mean everything. I'd much rather the relationship we have now than hating him because he continued on and didn't want to hurt me.

sorry for the ramble.
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Old 03-19-2006, 10:08 AM   #20 (permalink)
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Shit... Well... The truth is, I'm really confused about all this. Last night she came over and we ended up lying in bed and talked for hours and just held each other and it felt really good.

I'm not sure, but I think that was part of what freaked me out before, was that it didn't feel like we were clicking on a emotional level or something, because it felt like she was way more interested in sex than I was. We talked about that last night too.

I don't know where it's going to go from here I guess.
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Old 03-19-2006, 10:40 AM   #21 (permalink)
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OK, let's talk about what you want. You've talked a lot about not hurting her, which is admirable, but what do you want? Do you want to go on or not go on? You have to decide. Even if you can't you have to be honest with her. If you're honest and she wants to keep trying with the full knowledge that she may get hurt, I don't see how you're responsible.

But really, you have to decide what you want here. Maybe it's just me reading between the lines, but I get a sense that this is scaring you for some reason and you're trying to find a way to back off by saying you're not as attracted to her physically as you should be.

just my $.02.
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Old 03-19-2006, 10:59 AM   #22 (permalink)
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There is room in any relationship for sexual attraction, on all scales. The key is honesty with each other as to where it fits into the friendship. I have a wonderful friendship with a woman I truly love, and though it has a good measure of sexual attraction , we have mutually decided this is not the basis for our relationship, but is instead just a damn cool part of it. I am sure there is frustration felt from us both because of the descision not to act on this attraction but, that is a part of most relationships between a man and a woman, regardless of what anyone tells themselves.
My point is quite simple, just because you CAN become sexually intimate, does not mean you Must do so. My advice is to relax and let things go where they will, as long as you are honest with each other in the first place.
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Old 03-19-2006, 08:17 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Well, for one, she's fully aware that I'm not sure about things and is willing to give it a shot anyways. I realize that I do need to completely make up my mind about pursuing this.

To SirLance, you're right. Something is scaring me, and I don't know what. For one, I'm very used to relationships where sex is right up-front and centre what it's all about. Another thing I think is that I'm going to be graduating university next year, and I don't know where that's going to take me. Maybe I'm looking into that too hard.

Either way, I think I had convinced myself that it was a lack of physical attraction as an easy way out from a situation that was good but I wasn't entirely comfortable with and I didn't know why. I do suspect that stress from school/money/life in general plays a good part in that.

Another part of why I think I was thinking physical attraction is because she, well, really likes sex. I think I might just be in a low-libido spell right now, but I can't keep up.

To savvypup, I agree that if pity were my reason for giving it another shot then it would be a really really bad situation. That's not it though. It's more like I thought I knew what I wanted (out), and then soon after I started to think I had made a really bad mistake. I've never had that feeling after breaking up with someone before...

We've been way more open about things recently too, in particular how we're both feeling about things. This didn't really exist much last time around. I hope I'm not making a huge mistake doing this, but I think I'm going to give it another shot and make sure to keep everything that we're feeling completely in the open. That way, if things aren't working, we'll both be aware of the situation and can decide where to go from there.

Well, I'm going to go finish up a lab report due in the morning and keep pondering this. Thank you everyone for your input and concern.
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Old 03-20-2006, 04:13 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Relationships are hard.

Let's get drunk.
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Old 03-20-2006, 07:13 PM   #25 (permalink)
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Relationships are hard.

Let's get drunk.

Hahahahahahaha
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Old 03-29-2006, 08:44 PM   #26 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by match000
so how do you differentiate between when you're just hanging out with your guy friend one on one vs an explicit date with him?
Well, I'm a straight male, so I'm switching the genders around here...

If I'm out with a female friend of mine, I'm out with a female friend of mine. I don't feel the need to label it.
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