On friend zoning: I'm not leading you on just because I'm female, right?

September 6, 2014 9:55 PM

Does simply agreeing to hang out one-on-one with somebody of the opposite gender send the message that I'm possibly into them? If so, oops. What are some good next steps? Details inside.

I met and have hung out with a guy (about seven years older; I’m in my early twenties) on a handful of occasions. He knows that I have a long-distance boyfriend. He seems respectful of my boundaries and time, and for the longest time I didn't think anything of it until a friend who witnessed us interacting pointed out that it was "obvious" that he was into me. Well, it wasn't obvious to me until I thought about it some more and asked myself, "would this guy be hanging out with me if I were male?" The answer: probably not.

He regularly invites me to hang out (every one to three weeks) and is willing to travel a reasonably long distance (on the scale of hours) solely to hang out with me. I accept about half the time. No physical contact, no touchy-feeliness. No sharing of life stories or life complaints. I am not a flirty person at all, unless somehow being a normally affable female is equivalent to or construed as flirtiness in this society. We talk about once every two to three weeks and hang out once every four to seven weeks.

His company is fine; I feel neutral about it. I enjoy socializing with people outside of my program from time to time, and sometimes it's nice to hear the perspective of somebody older and get out of the house. But I don't think I'd want to hang out with him more than I already do.

I recently found out that he is looking to move to my city in the next year for job-related reasons-- let's say there's a 70% chance that he will move to my city. We have no mutual friends, and I believe I am one of very few people (if not the only person) he knows in my city. I don't know why this fact fills me with a gut feeling of "ugh, that means I might have to semi-actively try to avoid him if he moves here," but it does.

I feel like I've been hanging out with him for too long to just cut him off entirely without any explanation, and honestly, that feels like very drastic action for such benign, mildly pleasant interactions. He hasn't made any explicit indication of his interest in me aside from consistently asking to hang out and paying for my sandwich/coffee (if that even counts). I hate to be so presumptuous-- and definitely tell me if I am being so-- but my general sense is that there is some friend-zoning going on here: I have had guy friends that I've hung out one-on-one with for hours on end, and I've never felt like I had to keep them at arm's length. I am tired and feel like I'm possibly wasting this guy's time (since I feel like he keeps hanging out with me with a slight hope that something might happen, which, it won't). I don't want to waste this guy's time!

What do I do? Do I maintain the current invite acceptance/rejection ratio? Do I reject more of his invitations to taper off the frequency of hangouts? Do I start to incessantly make reference to my boyfriend? Do I simply cut him off? Am I worrying about nothing? What are some good ways to deal with this? How can I be considerate, direct, not presumptuous, and appropriate?

posted by gemutlichkeit to Human Relations (32 answers total)

I feel you're a little bit worrying about not that much?

I'd have a brief, kind speech written in your head and ready to go if (and only if) he makes a move, then deal with the consequences from there.

If he moves to your city and wants to hang out more than you're comfortable, just say 'no' whenever you don't feel like hanging out with him?
posted by Sebmojo at 10:03 PM on September 6, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you're not flirting, and he knows you have a boyfriend, you're not leading him on, no matter what he may think or believe. If you like hanging out with the guy, hang out with him, if you don't, don't. His emotions are his problem, not yours, and I wouldn't expend any mental energy worrying about this.
posted by desjardins at 10:10 PM on September 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

Letting him pay for your coffee and food seems a bit out of place given what you are describing. I would stop doing that.
posted by needs more cowbell at 10:25 PM on September 6, 2014 [42 favorites]

I recall from your past questions that you're in med school, yes? Should he move to your city and suddenly start upping the frequency, it'll turn out that med school has started getting even busier. Huh, how about that!
posted by obliterati at 10:35 PM on September 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

I think your friend could be completely mistaken, and probably should have kept their mouth shut, because this all sounds harmless to me. He's made no move, you are clear on having a boyfriend, the two of you are not crying on each other's shoulders--that just sounds like a friendship to me.

But I do think you should at least offer to pay half the time, or the two of you should agree to each pay your own bills when you get together, because that's what friends usually do, anyway, and otherwise it seems like maybe you are taking advantage of him or sending the wrong message, and you definitely don't want any mixed signals going on here.

Also, your boyfriend knows about this guy, right? Have they ever met? If it's at all possible, I think they should. If this guy balks at the idea, that's a bad sign.
posted by misha at 11:13 PM on September 6, 2014 [9 favorites]

Best answer: is willing to travel a reasonably long distance (on the scale of hours) solely to hang out with me

Does he, by any chance, have relatively few friends, or seem introverted/inexperienced/quiet? And he regularly buys you food/coffee? This really sounds like a "friend-zone" situation. He should have asked you out weeks (months?) ago, gotten rejected, and moved on, but I'm guessing he's not used to asking people out and just doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, stop letting him pay for stuff. Like, actually say, "I need to pay for my own food because otherwise this seems too date-like. Clearly, we're friends who have no chemistry or interest in dating, and I have an awesome boyfriend, right?" A well-socialized person who is actually a friend will totally understand and would be glad to hear this (save some money on coffee).

I'm guessing, though, that this guy will visibly squirm if you say this, or if you talk about how attractive your boyfriend is. Try it and see. You might have to follow up with something more direct, like "you know, it causes all kinds of awkwardness when a guy tries to be a friend with someone he wants to date. It's really uncomfortable because blah blah blah and never works out for the guy. The guy should actually ask people out and get rejected a bunch of times, because he will eventually find someone compatible." But, this is potentially awkward and risky (though less so than him moving to your city), and probably also means no more free conversation from him. While it's legal to keep being "friends" with someone who wants more (people of all genders do it), it's usually not praiseworthy. Good luck.
posted by sninctown at 11:20 PM on September 6, 2014 [12 favorites]

When you spend time together, is it just the two of you?
If it is him driving [hours?] just to hang out with you and only you,
then yes, I would be concerned about whatever signals he is reading.

If he comes over and spends time with other friends and/or you two socialize in groups most of the time, then I wouldn't worry. If it is always and only you two, then you might need to be more clear about how you see this friendship.
posted by calgirl at 12:27 AM on September 7, 2014

These two statements lead me to worry:

He regularly invites me to hang out (every one to three weeks) and is willing to travel a reasonably long distance (on the scale of hours) solely to hang out with me.

and

He hasn't made any explicit indication of his interest in me aside from consistently asking to hang out and paying for my sandwich/coffee (if that even counts).

Along with you having a gut feeling that there's a friendzone situation happening. A gut instinct that something isn't quite right is usually telling you something important. Driving hours to see you is a huge indication that something is up here beyond just hanging out. And yeah, always paying for your meals is maybe a little weird. I honestly think he believes he's slowly easing his way into making you his girlfriend.

You need to find a way to nip that in the bud, if it is happening. It doesn't sound like he's going to make an obvious move any time soon, for whatever reason, so you might need to gently but bluntly make it obvious that this is totally just a friendship. (If his interests really are platonic, you two can have a laugh about it afterward.)
posted by naju at 12:41 AM on September 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

Like, actually say, "I need to pay for my own food because otherwise this seems too date-like. Clearly, we're friends who have no chemistry or interest in dating, and I have an awesome boyfriend, right?"

I would say the first sentence here but not the second. If he's into you--and not, like, record-breakingly dense--he'll understand what you're getting at, and based on his reaction you'll know if you need to be more forceful or not. If he's extremely sensitive or inexperienced with women, telling him you have "no chemistry" may be unnecessarily harsh. If he starts acting like a desperate stalker then yes, you need to be firm. If he gets embarrassed and starts defending himself with things like "well I knew you had a boyfriend but I wasn't sure how serious it was and you seemed to like talking to me so...," then you interrupt him and say "I understand, it was an honest misunderstanding, and I'm not mad at you, but we need to be clear that I am not interested in having a romantic relationship with you and I never will be."

Also, what, specifically, did your friend see that made her think he was "obviously" into you? There isn't really a smoking gun in your description of him, just some dubious behavior that could mean a lot of things. Him driving a long way to see you could mean that he has feelings for you, but it could mean that he, like you, doesn't get many chances to meet people outside his field and is willing to make an extra effort to maintain the connection you've had. Him paying for your meals is admittedly a little weirder, but it could just be his way of being polite. Or it could be that he has a tiny subconscious crush that doesn't necessarily come with all the desperate feelings of a deep, conscious infatuation--i.e. that he isn't even aware of what he's doing and that once it's out in the open he'll gladly agree to respect your boundaries more.

But yeah, if your friend saw something more glaring it would be helpful to know what it was.
posted by urufu at 1:28 AM on September 7, 2014 [17 favorites]

And I'd also add that, if you're just tired of being friends with this guy--never mind all the romantic stuff--that's fine too. Your post kind of gets away from this side of things at the end but it seems like that might be going on as well.
posted by urufu at 1:33 AM on September 7, 2014 [11 favorites]

He's hoping you and your long-distance boyfriend break up, at which point he'll have a chance.
posted by michaelh at 4:48 AM on September 7, 2014 [7 favorites]

This scenario reminds me of one I've witnessed recently. In that scenario, the guy is into the girl; however, he also really liked her as a friend and values her friendship, so he's never made a move and has never poured out all his feelings at her. Would he hang out with her if she were a guy? Definitely, he just wouldn't also have a crush on her (him?).

In that scenario, also, the girl and her long-distance boyfriend broke up, and the other guy still didn't make a move, on account of valuing her friendship too much to wreck it all by confessing what he knows to be unrequited.

In your scenario, your friend's analysis is not something to take to the bank. I have a dear, dear friend who's a man. He goes out of his way to see me; he brings me gifts whenever he travels; he's once gave me an indulgent, all-expense paid vacation. Any outside observer would say he's totally into me (and there have been many). He's not. He just isn't. I don't want to date him, he doesn't want to date me, but we like each other's company enough to take a long drive for it. Sometimes a friendship is really, truly just a friendship.
posted by mibo at 5:51 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the red flag to me is he's paying for your meals. Unless you're also paying for his an equal number of times ("It's my turn to get this"), that's not the way friends work.
posted by rikschell at 6:22 AM on September 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

it's loserish for this guy to be traveling hours to see a girl who is "neutral" about his company. he's racking up serious expenses, plus your food and beverage (!) just so you can be all "meh ... he's fine." yikes. to me its clear he has ulterior motives and he sounds like a bit of a sad sack. I think you should at least clarify that nothing is ever gonna happen, in tactful way.
posted by jayder at 7:16 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: He's into you. You should become unavailable for one-on-one hangouts.

Has he met your boyfriend?
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:19 AM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't think the food/drink payment is necessarily so strange since you're a student and he's (I assume?) not. The issue could very well be that he makes money and you don't, so he'd feel like a jerk splitting the cost of lunch at the sandwich shop or wherever.

I thnk it's likely that he's crushing on you, but that doesn't mean he expects anything to happen or that he isn't hanging out with you now, not as some long campaign to get in your pants, but because he values your friendship.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about this unless he makes a move. Though if you just don't like him that much as a person and are using him as a sort of surrogate boyfriend because your actual bf is long-distance, then it might be better to start declining more of his invitations until you're not hanging out with him at all. I mean, you don't HAVE to hang out with the guy regardless. I wouldn't worry about some move that it sounds to me he's probably never going to make, though.
posted by rue72 at 8:01 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Taper it off, down to nil. If you really don't like him all that much and he's just your excuse to get out of the house...he's not even really your friend.

When I bought my condo, the lady who was renting it moved to another condo in the building. She was hell-bent on being my friend. As it turns out, in the Venn Diagram of our friends, there was overlap so we'd occasionally run into each other at happy-hour, or parties. The problem, as nice as we each were, we had SO little in common! But there was no harm in her, just that long evenings together just weren't in our future. But we lived in a 20 unit building, we saw each other EVERY day! So I came up with a plan.

My plan was to spend Saturdays with her. Simple, we went to the mall Applebees, shared a wrap, shopped at Wal-Mart and went home. It was two hours tops, and it seemed to fulfill whatever need she had to hang with me. Besides, I had to eat lunch and I had to go to Wal-Mart. Bonus!

My point is you don't have overlap, and you don't live near each other. Just become less and less available. Don't initiate. Fade away.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:02 AM on September 7, 2014

Best answer: He regularly invites me to hang out (every one to three weeks) and is willing to travel a reasonably long distance (on the scale of hours) solely to hang out with me.

I as a man who has had a number of platonic woman friends, I think it is a very rare man who would regularly travel hours to see a woman he was not romantically interested in.

Also, maybe ask your dad/brother/lab partner who he buys coffee for. I would buy coffee for someone significantly younger than me, a very close friend, someone who is doing me a favor or a date.
posted by shothotbot at 8:22 AM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Totally different situation, and yet:

I'm a middle-aged married guy, a few months ago Mrs. Straw was out of town and I was at a big square dance weekend with a lot of gay attendees. One guy there who knows both of us came on to me pretty hard, I flirted back because it was fun, he later friended me on Facebook, I sent him a "you know, flirting is fun, but I really am pretty het and monogamous" email, and he wrote back, essentially, "that's cool, but flirting is still fun."

I share everyone else's concerns about the guy's socialization, I was that guy back in my early 20s, but I think clearly laying out a "just to be clear: I enjoy your company, but this isn't going any where romantic or sexual" is totally reasonable. Make it clear that you're doing this because you value him and his time and don't want to make him feel like he's wasting it, and it'll either taper off because he loses interest, or it won't because you've got an actual friend.
posted by straw at 9:54 AM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

If he is "friendzoned" it isn't your fault so stop apologizing. He put himself there by not making his motives clear. He said he wanted to be friends so you took him at his word, how is that your fault? My vibe is that he's totally positioning himself to make a move on you when the chance arrives. Or to just bitching on the internet somewhere about how come you aren't dating him when he's being so "nice".
posted by wwax at 10:04 AM on September 7, 2014

Related to the idea of wasting anybody's time: if the prospect of hanging out with him one-on-one gives you pause or stress, then the most important thing is that you're wasting your own time.
posted by Sticherbeast at 10:37 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm not leading you on just because I'm female, right?
Does simply agreeing to hang out one-on-one with somebody of the opposite gender send the message that I'm possibly into them?

No, you're not leading a person on just because you're female and agree to hang out with a male one-on-one. Of course not. Is that your actual question? Because if so, the answer is no. No more information required.

I am not a flirty person at all, unless somehow being a normally affable female is equivalent to or construed as flirtiness in this society.

No, being a "normally affable female" is not equivalent to being flirty. Who suggested it was? Thou doth protest too much!

He knows that I have a long-distance boyfriend. He seems respectful of my boundaries and time.

Great!

I didn't think anything of it until a friend who witnessed us interacting pointed out that it was "obvious" that he was into me. Well, it wasn't obvious to me until I thought about it some more and asked myself, "would this guy be hanging out with me if I were male?" The answer: probably not.

Wait, what? Why not? How do you know what he would or wouldn't do, or what his motives are? I can only assume that you're projecting here, as by your account he has not done anything untoward whatsoever.

He regularly invites me to hang out (every one to three weeks) and is willing to travel a reasonably long distance (on the scale of hours) solely to hang out with me. I accept about half the time... We talk about once every two to three weeks and hang out once every four to seven weeks.

I don't think that this is exactly abnormal or questionable behavior. I have done up to this and much more to spend time with people I care about, including people that I have no sexual interest in at all! Is that really so odd? I hope not.

His company is fine; I feel neutral about it. I enjoy socializing with people outside of my program from time to time, and sometimes it's nice to hear the perspective of somebody older and get out of the house.

It seems like you don't even care about or like him, even as a friend. Why are you hanging out with him, again? To get out of the house? To get an older person's perspective on things? To get a free meal? The way you describe hanging out with him seems like you are doing him a favor, or completing a chore.

Does he know that this is how you feel? I doubt he would travel for hours to hang out with someone that he knew felt "neutral" about his company -- maybe you also doubt it, and that's why you haven't told him? Who is the one being deceptive about their feelings, here?

It seems like the premise of your question - "I'm not leading you on just because I'm a female, right?" - is a bit misleading. Why was it phrased that way? It seems like it would be more accurate to say:

I'm not leading you on just because I'm pretending everything is fine, continuing to hang out with you and letting you pay for my meals, knowing that you are traveling for hours to do so, even though I am neutral about your company, think that you're boring, feel kinda "ugh" when I think about living in the same city as you, question your real motives and feel like my presence is a favor to you, right?

Thought experiment: Replace this dude with a heterosexual woman or a gay man that you felt exactly the same way about.

• Would you have behaved the same way?
• Would you have even hung out with them at all?

Considering that you have a long-distance boyfriend, and there seems to be no clear motive from your side for continually spending time with this dude, it seems worth exploring the possibility that you have been getting something that you need/want out of this situation: safe, in-person, positive, controllable/predictable male attention.

I recently found out that he is looking to move to my city in the next year for job-related reasons-- let's say there's a 70% chance that he will move to my city. We have no mutual friends, and I believe I am one of very few people (if not the only person) he knows in my city. I don't know why this fact fills me with a gut feeling of "ugh, that means I might have to semi-actively try to avoid him if he moves here," but it does.

Uh oh. The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain.

In the beginning of the post, you indicated that it was your friend telling you that it was "obvious" that he was in to you that was the catalyst for this Oh No Crisis (despite any evidence for this, except that you "thought about it more".) It seems like the idea of him moving to your city is more likely to be the prime cause of your anxiety, and your friend's comment is just a convenient and familiar narrative (and one you can get reaffirmed here, easily) to wrap it around.

If you have been deceiving this person (and yourself) about your motives and true feelings about your "friendship", then if he moves there you will have much less control over the dynamic and the dissonance, regardless of whether or not he is "into you". However, if you can make this about him being secretly "into you", if you can paint him as the deceptive one, projecting your actions and feelings onto him (not talking to him about it at all is extremely helpful here, as it prevents all of this from being reality tested).. well, then you're off scot-free! No guilt, change, or self-reflection required.

^{* I do not mean to imply that you are consciously doing any of this.}
posted by napulist at 11:02 AM on September 7, 2014 [8 favorites]

I'm gonna be honest and blunt with you on this because I've been there and done this too many times. Even though YOU don't intend on leading him on, he knows you have a boyfriend and you're not flirting and your behavior is being honorable....it kinda is being taken by him as "being led on." This is actually something that's been identified in scientific studies: guys tend to assume that if they like a girl, it's mutual. The whole thing does kind of smack of "waiting around for her to break up with her boyfriend." Especially if he insists on paying--that's usually the #1 sign of "it's a date" with a guy. Also if he commutes for HOURS to see you, that's another sign. (The #3 sign being the feelings that you're getting at the idea of him moving to your town and realizing he wouldn't be doing that for a guy. Your subconscious knows where it's going.)

"I am not a flirty person at all, unless somehow being a normally affable female is equivalent to or construed as flirtiness in this society."

Unfortunately, it is, actually. I am as flirtatious as your average rock, but just being a woman who is being as friendly to a strange guy as she would be to a strange girl can easily be interpreted as "she's interested" to a guy who is looking for all positive signs and ignoring all negative ones like "I have a boyfriend." I also have a shrink who tells me a lot that being friendly IS considered "flirting" even if you aren't implying sexual context. (I disagree, but that's another rant.) So yes, I think you are "leading him on," even if you aren't intending to, because he's friend zoning and ignoring what he doesn't want to see. Which makes it hard to discourage a guy by hinting, because he'll ignore that. At the same time, saying to him bluntly that you've noticed he's interested and to cut it out doesn't quite work when he technically hasn't said anything.

Unfortunately, I don't really have a super good suggestion as to how to handle it. I have dropped these guys COLD in the past, which I don't feel good about, but it seems like the only way to get someone to stop having a crush on me is to not be around them while being wonderful or whatever. If I were you, I'd be "busy" a lot.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:26 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Travelling hours to see me and paying for my coffee would be more attention than I would be comfortable receiving from a friend.

You can try to renegotiate the terms of the relationship, and he may be the kind of person who can gracefully transition out of a crush. In my experience, that's hard for many people to do while staying in contact.

As desjardins said, his emotions are his problem. That said, I've been in similar situations, and it's been helpful to me to ask myself "if I were this person, and had the feelings I suspect they have, would I still be comfortable with the way this relationship is playing out?"
posted by MrBobinski at 12:01 PM on September 7, 2014

Everything was fine until your friend had an opinion? Go back to thinking and feeling whatever you were think and feeling before someone told you "it was obvious. "
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:45 PM on September 7, 2014

He's regularly traveling hours to see you, while you're at best neutral about him? That's a pretty sad state of affairs. If you don't even definitively want to hang out with him, then stop hanging out with him.

Maybe reflect on how your friendship got so unbalanced, but speculating on whether or not he wants to fuck you doesn't strike me as constructive.
posted by orangejenny at 5:22 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you decide to stop hanging out, please don't just cut him off without an explanation. He'll rack his brain wondering "was it something i said? Or did?" After much painful introspection but no obvious answer, he'll eventually seek an explanation so he can apologize or at least get some closure.

So, by all means, feel free to end it if you want--but 1) let him know you are ending it rather than letting him "figure it out"; and 2) give him a reason--even if it is "my schedule has become unworkable," or "my boyfriend doesn't approve of us hanging out all the time," or maybe even the truth: "I feel like you may be hoping for our friendship to grow into something more like a relationship--and that's not where i am at right now or will be in the future. Even if my boyfriend broke up tomorrow, I would still think of you as my buddy, not my potential love interest; the chemistry just isn't there for me. I'm bringing this up because I don't want you to think you have been led on, and I understand if you don't want to hang out now that you know my feelings on the subject."

Also, pay for the tab half the time, just like you would with a female friend.
posted by DB Cooper at 10:02 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Even if my boyfriend broke up tomorrow, I would still think of you as my buddy, not my potential love interest

This is a really important point to emphasize. When/if you sit down with him, I think you need to go out of your way to avoid making this about the fact that you already have a boyfriend. It might seem like a good way to spare his feelings but it's irrelevant to the main issue and it implicitly makes you seem like a possession--which could activate his "rival" instincts or encourage him to wait around for the relationship to fall apart (which, as others have said, he may already be doing.) The issue is that you're not interested in this person, not that you're "already spoken for."
posted by urufu at 10:31 PM on September 7, 2014

Response by poster: I paid for his ticket to something once (as a way to pay him back for the food/coffee), but I don't think he interpreted it the way I hoped he would.

I think my friend who commented on our interactions saw him going out of his way to be helpful to me. I didn't think all that much of it at the time because I also like being helpful to others. But in retrospect it was probably a level of helpfulness that was a bit generous given the sort of basis we were on.

Yes. This guy is very introverted and a little awkward. While I have no idea if he is experienced or not, it probably wouldn't surprise me if he were not.

I think I can only feel, at best, neutrally or mildly positively about hanging out with him because I spend so much (conscious now that my friend has pointed it out to me, but before that, subconscious) energy keeping a barrier up, making sure that nothing I do can be mistaken for flirting around him. Friend-zoning takes energy! I know it's not balanced and it is a bit unfair. He is a good human being and I don't want to be mean to him. That's why I asked you guys for your suggestions.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far!
posted by gemutlichkeit at 11:26 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think I can only feel, at best, neutrally or mildly positively about hanging out with him because I spend so much (conscious now that my friend has pointed it out to me, but before that, subconscious) energy keeping a barrier up, making sure that nothing I do can be mistaken for flirting around him.

Then you need to get the issue out in the open. It's significant that you don't say "I no longer enjoy hanging out with this guy and I don't want to be his friend anymore"; you say "it's hard to keep being his friend because of all the uncertainty I'm carrying around about this (and not because of anything he's doing.)" By the way if you're being polite about that, stop being polite. This is the internet, for cryin out loud...

Not every awkward guy has a crippling self-confidence problem; not every awkward guy falls hopelessly in love with every one of his female friends (although admittedly, the ones who do cause a lot of trouble); and not every crush in a friendship is necessarily so powerful that it destroys the friendship when it's not reciprocated. It could be that he would "prefer" a romantic relationship but doesn't feel strongly about it and will be totally fine if you just want to be friends. It also could be that, even though you'd both like things to go that way, it'll just become too uncomfortable to sustain the friendship after something like this has come up between you. And it could be that he has unalterably strong feelings for you.

It "could" be a lot of things. The point is, right now you're causing yourself unnecessary stress worrying about what it might be, and you're carrying that burden alone. You can't fully control how he's going to respond when you bring this up, but it doesn't sound like these worries are going to go away on their own, so you either need to discuss the issue with him or gently withdraw from the friendship. I vote for the former. See the posts above for advice on what to say.

All of that said, I apologize for borderline threadsitting and I promise I will not post here again unless someone explicitly asks me to!
posted by urufu at 1:05 AM on September 8, 2014

Whatever else you decide to say/do, I would definitely not start paying for him at this point. Alternating who pays is something that people do both with friends and with dates. Paying for just your own food/drink is better for setting the tone you want.
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:32 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would say, hang out with him if you like his company and if you made it clear you are in relationship. Also try to pay for your meals yourself, just to get the "friends only" message through. And don't worry about his feelings or intentions unless he brings it up - you cannot be responsible for somebody else's feelings, especially when this somebody is not clear about the situation.

I myself have a similar story - a male friend, 11 years older, we have known each other for 13 years now. He drives 2 hours to see me every month or two, but mostly combines it with other stuff he has to do in my hometown and we often do it together, like shopping for furniture for his new house:) Used to always pay for me when I was a student, still pays for me quite often giving a funny reason - because it's sunny or because my birthday is in half a year or something like that:) We normally eat lunch/dinner together and go for movie/museum/walk in a park/horse riding/ice skating and it always feels a bit like a date, except that during the 13 years nothing more has happened between us:) He has a beautiful girlfriend and they have been together for 10 years or so, while I have mostly been single. I should probably mention that although we talk about almost everything, we avoid discussing our relationships. As I only like him as a friend, I always insist on paying my costs, have never taken up the issue of feeling awkward about our "non-dates" with him, although I have discussed it with my friends. We decided I should not mention it unless he does it first. He never did in these 13 years:) I still don't know what he thinks, but hell with it, whatever it is I enjoy it:)
posted by tashkelis at 7:00 AM on September 13, 2014