slept with a close friend and now heartbroken

[confusedgradstudent]

THE SHORT VERSION OF THE STORY:

 

Recently, I slept with a friend who I have known for 6 years and who knows almost everything about me. This year, we slept together (it was his suggestion to visit me). The first time, it didn’t seem as if our flirty friendship had changed too much. The second time, though, I stayed at his place for a week and somehow, things changed. We had unprotected sex in the heat of the moment, and after that, the sex was insanely passionate. We have always had a lot of fun together (we both think the other person is funny), but staying with him made me see other sides of him too: he is kind, patient, and thoughtful. The reason I didn’t see him as dating potential before is that I didn’t think he was mature enough. When I left and came home, we continued chatting for a few days and it was great but recently he has cooled off and doesn’t contact me unless I initiate. I am sad; I now have feelings for him. I don’t know if I should contact him or not! What if he thinks of me as just a friend?

 

 

 

Here is the much longer version, if you need more details.

 

Recently, I slept with a friend I have known for six years (we met in high school). We have always had fun chatting with each other about our lives, and we both think the other person is funny, but in recent years we've become even closer because I started taking him more seriously as a person (I have always liked him, but we are young--he's 22 and I'm 8 months older than him, and I didn't feel that he was that mature). Whereas before, he was obsessed with smoking pot and engaged in destructive behavior sometimes, I have noticed that in the past few years, he has started taking control of his life and his health. He's an even more pleasant person to be around now (although he was always pleasant and has never taking anything out on me or anyone else, as far as I know).

 

Because I didn't consider him to be real dating potential and we never lived in the same city, we stayed friends online for many years. We chatted, emailed, skyped, and called each other occasionally, even. We have 1000s of emails and chats put together between the two of us, letting each other know about our lives and thoughts. He knows a lot about me. There has always been a lot of flirting, and we admitted many times that we were attracted to each other, but we kept it under wraps because I think we both thought it made more sense to keep it platonic.

 

Two romantic things happened in this past year. Since I started taking him more seriously, when he suggested that he might come visit me for Thanksgiving break (he suggested several times before to come visit me wherever I was living in previous years), I accepted, much to both of our surprise. He came, and although for the first two days it was friendly, on the third day he kissed me, and we slept together. It was fun and affectionate; we laughed and giggled in bed all day long, but the sex was only neutral and when he left, I think we both thought to ourselves probably (or at least, I did), "Hmm, that was fun," but neither of us was heartbroken that it wouldn't continue. It was friendly and lovely and affectionate, but somehow I still felt only mostly platonic feelings for him (sometimes it takes me time to grow on someone!) We had a great time though, and I felt warmly towards him.

 

However, he suggested I visit him again, and I decided I thought that it would be fun to spend more time with him. I did want to sleep with him, but I also thought that even if that didn't happen, at the very least, we would have a great time as friends. He obviously had sexy plans in mind though: as soon as he picked me up at the airport, he kissed me, and when we got back to his place, we slept together straight away (I have to admit that I didn't protest). I stayed with him for a week and he showed me around his home state, and it was fabulous fun. At first, the sex was also just neutral, but then something about the aspect of being in his house (and he cooked for me, which was an added bonus--he is an excellent cook, much to my surprise!!) made me feel taken care of by him, and I felt even more attracted to him. He was kind and thoughtful and polite, which is a side of him I hadn't really seen as a friend (as a friend, he tended to be more just rambunctious and funny). I am also terrible at falling asleep, and he was very patient. Then, somewhere towards the end of this week, we had unprotected sex in the heat of the moment. This was a game-changer. I have met men who don't like condoms, but he really doesn't like condoms. It seemed as if it changed everything for him; he was a better lover, more interested in sex, and it basically made the sex insanely passionate. It was the passionate kind of sex that really made me wonder if maybe, I actually loved him. By the end of the week, things were getting insane. Somewhere towards the end of the week, I also had dinner with his mom and had dinner with his brother and his girlfriend (although to be honest, he is very friendly with his family and I don't think it was a big deal to him to introduce me--I'm sure he would have done the same with any friend). So anyway, by the time he took me to the airport, I felt close to him. He gave me one of his shirts and insisted on giving me his sunglasses (they look good on me too) which I had admired (even though I protested and really didn't want to take them from him!) Then, he told me to call him when I got home, and I did. The next few days, we texted all day long, and it was just Joke Central every day, all day. He even called and we laughed for an entire hour. He also mailed me an envelope with a drawing in it which has significance for me.

 

And then, something changed. I'm not sure exactly what it was. I really missed him, and I started to worry about what he was thinking. I started to think that I was doing most of the contacting/initiating (which I think was actually true), and I decided to see what would happen if I didn't contact him first. It's true that he responded right away when I contacted him, but I noticed that when I didn't contact him, he wouldn't contact me for days. And I got miffed. And worried. And sad. Eventually he would send me some stupid text or message, but it would usually be something silly. I think that I wanted him to tell me something like that he missed me or...I don't know. Something!! I was feeling so close to him, and I didn't see how it was possible for him to not want to talk to me, or to ignore me for two whole days! When I asked him how he was doing last week (finally), he offered to call me and did, but then got off the phone after 15 minutes. And now I haven't contacted him and he hasn't contacted me, and it's been almost another full week!

 

So, that's the situation. Here's my question: I'm not sure what to do--should I talk to him about it, or just let him take the reins? I come from a traditional background, and I think men should do the leading. Also, now I"m just worried he's not interested in me (maybe it was just friends with benefits to him, and he's worried that I'm too interested so he's ignoring me on purpose!!?) Most of my close friends believe that I shouldn't contact him until he contacts me--essentially, they advise me to keep it cool. The issue is that it takes an enormous amount of my energy to keep it cool, because all I want is to tell him that I have developed feelings for him and that I miss him so much. I stay up often at night, writing draft emails to him which I never send, based on the advice that I should keep it cool. In my head, I also think that if he felt half of what I feel about him, he would contact me or at least want to talk to me more than just texting me once a week (it seems this is where the direction is headed). So, in a sense, his silence is an answer in and of itself. Or is it not? That's what I'm not sure of. Maybe he's confused because I live across the country, and he's only 22 and not sure what he's doing. Even though I often visit where he lives (a few times a year), and I think it would be possible for him to visit me a few times a year, maybe long-distance doesn't seem feasible to him right now, so he's keeping his distance from me at the moment. I don't know! I just miss him terribly.

 

Should I write to him and tell him how I feel, or would that scare him off? I know him, and although he's nice, he can get arrogant about girls and thinking that they're super "into" him. I'm afraid if I write to him, he'll cool off and think I'm crazy.

 

I don't know what to do. I want to handle this situation with dignity (which my friends claim would be radio silence except in the case that he contacts me), but it is taking so much energy from me and making me so sad to not talk to him.

 

Thank you SO much for reading.

Edited July 8, 2014 by confusedgradstudent

[d0nnivain]

If you started acting all skittish & freaked out rather than being calm & cool woman he initially liked, that may be why he pulled back.

 

 

Try to relax & not over think things. Figure out when you can be together again & talk about it then, not before.

[preraph]

Now with texting being the norm, I've seen a lot of people basically say that it started out with lots of texts and then they're freaking out when it goes back down to a normal level. Texting is a pain in the ass and no one who has a gainfully employed or scholarly life has time to do it that often. Also, once you get to know each other, there isn't that much except mundane things to text about, so it gets dead boring really fast. I wouldn't want to be bothered with meaningless texts all the time, too time consuming.

 

He may be just busy, he may be sick of texting, he may be dating other women, and all of that is okay because you have no commitment. He may be taking some time to think. It sounds like he's a pretty good guy and does really like you and so I wouldn't worry too much about him just totally disrespecting you or walking away without explanation. I think you need to let him live his life and not do random texts and just wait and see what his next move is, because this is not a man who doesn't know how to bust a move.

[confusedgradstudent]

If you started acting all skittish & freaked out rather than being calm & cool woman he initially liked, that may be why he pulled back.

 

 

Try to relax & not over think things. Figure out when you can be together again & talk about it then, not before.

 

First of all, thanks so much for reading. I have been freaked out in my own head but I don't think there's any way that he would know that. Otherwise, I've been the same person I've always been. Thanks for the advice though, always good to keep calm, for sure.

[d0nnivain]

I was usually my own worst enemy with stuff like this.