[LittleForgetMeNot]

I've known this guy since 3rd grade, so 7 years now. When depression hit me I stopped talking to him (around 12 years old) but earlier this year we got back in touch. This guy has always liked me since he met me, and has never made an effort to hide it. However I only see him as a friend, and I always have only ever thought of him as a friend.

However.. Around him I'm very much out-of-my-shell, I guess you could say. I laugh so much and the effects of hanging out with him for a few hours last well into the next day. I'll use his words to explain how we are, we have "great chemistry".

However, I can feel myself falling into a negative trap.. In the beginning, he would let me go through his phone and I would in front of him just to look at his pictures and we would talk about the people he still talked to and all that.. But then recently he started deleting everything before letting me mess around and in the beginning I just shrugged it off, but then today he kept texting this one person constantly and I asked who it was, he didn't tell me and then, in just a joking way he said he was gonna text all his friends with stuff about me. I tried to shrugg that off too but I felt a little hurt by it. He then pretended to text and I wanted to see if he was bluffing about what he said before but when I went to look, he pulled away, laughing, and I didn't get to see anything but a lot of words.. This time I was really upset and I said to him, why would he joke around like this, acting all secretive and such, after he knew I was cheated on and talked about, in this exact way?

He kinda didn't really get it and went on texting his friend and said that he wasn't cheating cause he wasn't even aware that we were going out. I told him we weren't but it wasn't exactly the point.. he was teasing me in a way I didn't see funny and I found it kind of insensitive..

Then he gave in and said he would show me so he showed me the screen and in that split second I looked up all I seen was "deleting all messages". I don't even know why but it kind of broke my heart. I mean I have no feelings for this guy at all, and I'm sure he didn't realize how it was affecting me, yet for the rest of the evening I was very quiet and bitter. Though I was questioning constantly my behavior and if I was justified.

I mean I can't treat him like my boyfriend, and I can't step over the boundaries of privacy as I don't particularly enjoy it when he talks to me about my ex, or about my lack of enthusiasm to go to school..

This friendship is kind of getting a little more difficult than I had intended

[Belle1979]

It's easy to want to be around someone that makes you laugh and smile.. when it gets too much or that stops happening I think it is time to back away a little.

(((littleforgetmenot)))

[LittleForgetMeNot]

Yeah, I agree. Though I don't wanna stop seeing him as he provides the perfect distraction, and just lives across the street. I've tried to set up some boundaries, mostly physical as he likes to give out lots of hugs and hand holding (hence, not hiding his feelings for me), though with that he doesn't really get it either. It's not like it bothers me so much, it's just.. can't explain it really.

I think it's just about not sending the wrong signals, keeping distance, and prevent setting myself up for October 2nd all over again.. but he doesn't notice the significance of my wall, so he'll build a door and walk in like he owns the place.. I have NO idea if that makes sense but it's the only way I can put it ^^;

[Belle1979]

you are a very bright and well written young woman. It makes perfect sense.

Hand holding and hugs will give him hope I guess. It's romanic rather than just friendly - but in saying that I hold hand with Tom (my close friend) when we walk in the mornings. I think the age different between Tom and I is what makes is special - more like holding a parents hand. Feeling close to the other person.

You know the right things to do.

I understand about him being a brilliant distraction (I had a very good friend who became my distraction after Mark and I broke up last year).. only it ended badly. He professed his feelings for me to be much more towrds love than friendship. I didn;t want to lose him as a friend but I did.

Keep the line drawn in the sand and stay behind it sweetheart.

[LittleForgetMeNot]

He has asked me out 6 times since May. 100 times since 3rd grade. At one time he thought our "great chemistry" was because I liked him, but I had to explain that I didn't, on three separate occasions. He's carefully tricked me into saying we were more than friends, tonight being one of those times, and sometimes I find myself wondering if I even consider this a healthy friendship or some kind of person abuse.

I do resist the hugging, and I do resist the holding hands and just about 99% of all physical contact. I constantly remind him I like my bubble, and I dislike people in it. He doesn't get it. It could be as if I were speaking another language.. either that or he is just so completely oblivious that even, yes, direct speech (I have outright told him how I felt) does not get through.

But it all comes down to my tolerance. I can tolerate this because I like the laughing we do and the memories we share, and as far as casual conversation goes, we're alright.

Half of the reason, I've come to suspect is that, while online, while talking to adults in real life and teachers, I can calmly collect my thoughts and express myself which makes me seem mature, and intelligent. But around kids my own age, especially him, I'm not sure if it's the pressure, or anxiety or what, but my mind speeds up and I stutter, I'm hyper, I loose all my self-consciousness and I'll just do anything I feel like at the moment, regardless if people think I'm weird. To put it simply I become a drunken idiot without the alcohol.. or that annoying, bubbly, random-attack teenage girl..

When I try to talk normally, when I try to get calm, he'll usually tease me which works me up again.. so he cannot take me seriously and he thinks of me as the person I act like, and not the person who I really am..

It's a hard situation.. and I used to complain about it a lot yet I wouldn't stop hanging out with the guy and honestly, it's not like he's THAT bad in the moment.. but afterwards I always get this horrible feeling that this friend isn't really who he seems to be.. and because a no to a hug gets ignored as well as the request to stay out of a personal bubble.. plus the fact that he'll try to scare me by "abandoning" me in the middle of a park in the dark, or pull me and force me into the direction he wants to go.. well it scares me a little.

I want to say that well he's my friend and I've known him for a long time and my thoughts and fears are irrational, but it's usually still there.. There is one side to it where I laugh and it's fun and we share memories, and all that, but there's this other half to it where he's kind of.. suspicious.. not to mention he has the strength where if he wanted to he could, and he has, completely over powered me and either prevent me from going anywhere, or force me to follow him.

I don't want to be so critical, and I don't want to have such thoughts about someone I've known for 7 years, and I don't want to subject myself to another problem just as I was getting out of another... nor do I want to over react about something that might be nothing at all, and just a teenage boy's inability to listen.. but.. it's strange?

[Rhiannonsmoon]

From your original post dear sweet one you feel much more than nothing for him, and it is because of these feelings that you are hurt. Step back and take some breathing space

You are well read and a very articulate young lady and I see by your writing that you are trying to work through this in as logical a manner as possible, but sometimes that little thing called logic does not fit in to friendships and love