About my male friend

[septdouleurs]

Okay, I could really use some help. I have a male friend who I initially slept with who then explained that he was looking for 'the one' and wasn't interested in a relationship with me. At the time I told him off for not being honest with me up front, and expected he would disappear into the ether. Somehow, however, we ended up becoming pretty close friends, with no further sexual contact. We do however have a pretty casual attitude towards each other's personal space, are often affectionate, etc.

 

We tend to disagree fairly often about various things, mostly small stuff, but we have had a few really big arguments where I have ended up not speaking to him for a while. The worst of these was when he made a comment about having tested negative for STDs 'even though he'd slept with me'... he was trying to be funny, but I got really offended because it sounded as though he didn't respect me and I thought it was a very unfriendlike thing to have said.

 

Anyway, my big problem now is that I've been really depressed of late (am seeing a counsellor this week) and came back from a party which he also attended feeling really awful about myself. Long story short, I spent almost an hour literally searching online for the best method of suicide. Then he signed on to MSN, having just come back from the party himself. I had just replied to an email he'd sent me with something about how it had been nice knowing him if I didn't see him again, and he asked what I'd meant by it. I told him that I was looking for ways to kill myself, and he said he was too tired to say anything sensible, and he was drunk and going to bed, and not to do it. Then he signed off.

 

I felt even worse after this because I felt like he didn't think I was really in a bad state (which I was) and that he didn't care about me enough to reach out to me when I really needed someone. He sent me a casual email the morning after offering a 'chat' if I wanted, but hasn't tried to contact me at all since then or check on me. I've been really upset about this, as I feel like he's not really my friend. I don't think I would be this casual about someone who was talking about killing themselves, especially as I've never said anything like that before, and he knew I was having a bad time and thinking of seeking professional help.

 

So I'm wondering whether to confront him, and what to say if I do, or whether I should just break off the friendship. I wouldn't feel comfortable just acting like it didn't happen, because I really feel betrayed and as though he has failed me when I actually needed him. Is this unreasonable?

[FELIZE]

Extremely!

You really should hold off all communication with this guy, until you get your self together. It sounds like he could be toying with you and is just not that serious about (whatever type of) relationship you have with him as you are.

Please continue in your efforts to seek counseling

[Raleuse]

First of all, please do get counselling. Suicide pulsions require professional attention. Altho your friend probably did not take them seriously, he isn't a professional and would not be able to help you anyway. Plus, he's clearly too self-centered to do so.

 

I have had (and am still having) a pretty similar experience. Slept with a friend, fell head over heels in love (that's the main difference between us I guess) to be told the next day he wasn't interested (or rather he didn't know what he wanted but was too taken by other problems to start a relationship). I asked if we could stay friends (bad, bad move) and he took it happily, using me as companion, guide, counselor, emotional punching-bag, while I get... to be with him.

 

We are co-dependent for all the wrong reasons. I'm now trying to find myself back and get out of this 'friendship' but he keeps pulling me back and messing me up. He too is abusive. Keeps saying hurtful things to me that are supposed to be funny... but they are belittling and I and you are worth better. We should be respected at least. Everyone should be.

 

I wouldn't confront him (I keep confronting my friend, can't help it, and we just end up in huge arguments but he still doesn't get it because he's a bloke, mainly interested in himself and he doesn't understand why on earth I need to confide my every thought and feeling - especially if they're about him - and even manages to make me feel guilty for "hurting" him). But don't do the same mistake. And if you can avoid him, do. Cut him out of your life if he isn't bringing you anything you want and need. You deserve much better.

[BlueEyedGirl]

I have been there. That's pretty much the worst place you could be in. I have given my all for someone who didn't care about me (a friend with interminent make out sessions but no sex). I couldn't get out, I tried but like a quicksand, he would pull me back in. Then he got into a serious relationship and started avoiding me. He deleted me from his MSN list because he didn't even care to talk to me anymore, left my life gradually without a good bye. I felt more used and discarded than I have ever felt in my life. PLEASE GET OUT!!

[Raleuse]

I have been there. That's pretty much the worst place you could be in. I have given my all for someone who didn't care about me (a friend with interminent make out sessions but no sex). I couldn't get out, I tried but like a quicksand, he would pull me back in. Then he got into a serious relationship and started avoiding me. He deleted me from his MSN list because he didn't even care to talk to me anymore, left my life gradually without a good bye. I felt more used and discarded than I have ever felt in my life. PLEASE GET OUT!!

 

I often think that his falling in love would be the only way out for me. The OP, if I go by what I read, seems to feel able to end the friendship so I hope she can get out by herself.

[septdouleurs]

I've had my first counselling appointment, and so far it looks like things can get better. I asked my therapist if he thought it was a good idea for me to bring anything up with my friend, and we concluded that it would be best to work out what I wanted a discussion to produce first, and to put safety nets in place in the event that it was an upsetting discussion. I'm starting to recognise that I'm really vulnerable in some ways right now, and that what I need to do primarily is protect myself, and sort things out slowly.

 

I saw this friend unexpectedly the day before I had my counselling appointment. I was out with some friends, and I saw him come in and thought, oh no, I am not ready for this. I had not contacted him at all since the night he signed off MSN. He had sent me a quick casual email that same day because my national team had won a match, but had not contacted me otherwise or asked how I was doing. I hoped he wouldn't see me, but he did and came over, and ended up hanging out with me the whole night. He really likes to dance, and the people he was with were more interested in drinking and/ or chatting each other up, and he told me while we were walking home that he was really glad he'd seen me, because he felt like he could just be comfortable and himself. (Oh, the irony!) I didn't say anything about what had happened, and again, he didn't bring it up.

 

My housemates and I were discussing this over dinner last night, and whether I should just let it go/ accept that people weren't always logical/ basically let him off the hook; and I suddenly went, "No. I'm not going to do that. I'm angry, and I reserve the right to be angry, and hurt. Because I've never been the kind of person who expects the moon and stars from every casual friend. I've always had a really good understanding of the fact that not all your friends will be friends in the same way. What's upset me so much about him is that I thought he was in the category of friends who would be there for me in a time as serious as this one. I certainly would be there for him, and I think he KNOWS that, so I cannot understand how he could hear me talk about killing myself and not even care enough to check if I was okay."

 

As one of my housemates put it, I wasn't expecting that he would be THE friend, or my best friend, or anything. Your friends are not going to be the equivalent of trained counsellors. But I was expecting that he would be A friend. This sort of thing makes me now so wary of trusting my own ability to recognise the level of friendship that exists between me and anyone, and thus makes me wonder if I've miscategorised more than just him. And that's quite sad.

[septdouleurs]

I have had (and am still having) a pretty similar experience. Slept with a friend, fell head over heels in love (that's the main difference between us I guess) to be told the next day he wasn't interested (or rather he didn't know what he wanted but was too taken by other problems to start a relationship). I asked if we could stay friends (bad, bad move) and he took it happily, using me as companion, guide, counselor, emotional punching-bag, while I get... to be with him.

 

I think it's worse for you because it sounds like he was your friend before the whole thing changed (which has also happened to me, but in a totally different context... which was also messed up, but that's a tale for another time. Suffice it to say it's been quite a rocky couple of years!) My friend wasn't even my friend when we slept together, just this bloke at a dinner who happened to pursue me (balm to my wounded self worth at the time, and promising for what I thought could be a nice normal fun relationship without all the Big Drama of my last two). The funny thing is that he was doing all the chasing. I barely even noticed he was alive until late in the evening, and I certainly didn't have a clue he was after me until even later. My flatmate had clued in, evil thing, but didn't enlighten me.

 

So yeah, we became friends after the other thing didn't work out, and as I said it was quite unexpected. I sometimes wonder what might have happened if he'd given the relationship a chance, but sometimes I'm really glad he saved me from himself in that respect at least.