I’m feeling really confused about certain people, but I’m unsure if it’s the people, or me. - Help.com

ALWAYS trust your gut! There have been very few times that I haven’t trusted mine, annd it ended in disaster every time! It’s a built in security alarm for a reason. If there wasn’t somthing to it, it wouldn’t be going off, in my opinion.

Take more time to get to know him, you don’t need to just go and start hanging out with him if it doesn’t feel right for you. Nobody else’s expectations about you matter, just go at your own pace and take new relationships to new levels only when you feel like it.

If you don’t want anything more than a friendship, make it clear.
Don’t flirt back, treat him like a brother, tell him you see him as a brother.
But I know what you mean and I hate when that happens.

I believe when most people first start dating anyone they have that anxious I think I have to throw up in my mouth feeling… at least when they are young. I always did. I would try to have an out of body experience and direct myself from another place instead of saying what came from my gut because it was usually gibberish. It’s like playing a hard song and singing at the same time you are thinking about and doing two very difficult things at once. Okay a strange analogy but it is very real to me.

Butterfly’s in your stomach are not necessarily a bad thing.

Dr. Ralph wrote:
It’s like playing a hard song and singing at the same time you are thinking about and doing two very difficult things at once. Okay a strange analogy but it is very real to me.

This. Don’t force things anyway. And like Summer Rain said, if you want nothing ,ore than a friendship try to make it as clear as possible. I once had a friend who wanted more, I didn’t and I picked up on it but apparently I didn’t make it clear enough (although I always called him “buddy” and stuff and never flirted back, and I also tried to change the subject if the conversation started getting awkward, oh and I talked a lot about guys I really DID like in that way). Anyway, thing is he ended up giving me a forced kiss and confessing his feelings, and blah blah and when I turned him down it was suddenly MY fault for hurting him! Weird huh? He was probably a psycho anyway.

Anyway, just make the boundaries clear.

justgirl567 wrote:

Dr. Ralph wrote:
It’s like playing a hard song and singing at the same time you are thinking about and doing two very difficult things at once. Okay a strange analogy but it is very real to me.

This. Don’t force things anyway. And like Summer Rain said, if you want nothing ,ore than a friendship try to make it as clear as possible. I once had a friend who wanted more, I didn’t and I picked up on it but apparently I didn’t make it clear enough (although I always called him “buddy” and stuff and never flirted back, and I also tried to change the subject if the conversation started getting awkward, oh and I talked a lot about guys I really DID like in that way). Anyway, thing is he ended up giving me a forced kiss and confessing his feelings, and blah blah and when I turned him down it was suddenly MY fault for hurting him! Weird huh? He was probably a psycho anyway.

Anyway, just make the boundaries clear.

The same thing happened to me two days ago. Why can’t they just be happy with a friendship!

I know, right? The problem is you subtly (or not so subtly) let them know it’s all they’re getting and still they get their hopes up! Even when you try to pair them up with someone who may actually be interested.

Unrequited feelings… they hurt both parties.

Gosh, like do they choose to ignore the hints or are they that thick!
lol nah I’m joking, yeah guys just suck sometimes.

Yeah, but wouldn’t life be boring without them?

I’m sure they feel the same way about us though.

From the sounds of it you’re not doing anything wrong, despite the guy being you ex-best friends brother is where it can get a bit dicey.
Even speaking as a male i know that a lot if not most guys will see what they want to see, and that’s not meant even in an especially pig headed way. Some guys are just very keen and some desperate and some just complete morons.
I’ve seen ’signs’ from girls that in retrospect weren’t signs at all but i was so keen/desperate that something even remotely favourable was a Sign.

I guess it really comes down to if he is treating you with respect or not, but either way you should try and make it clear once and for all and save both of you a lot of emotional rubbish. If he is the being a nice guy let him don gently but make yourself clear and if he is being a moron then he deserves to be hurt.

lol of course they do

I use to live with a friend and his family (parents and brother) when I was in school. I’d had a boyfriend who lived in another city. We wrote letters about every 2 or 3 days. My friend knew that. One day, he asked me (when nobody else was home) if he could kiss me. Actually, he wrote it in a note, he couldn’t even ask. LOL Anyway, I was so shocked.

My face was like O.o and all I could say was “No, Why?!” I was so confused by that. I didn’t even know that he liked me. (I was going through a LOT of stuff at the time. Even that didn’t clue me in on the fact, LOL) Obviously, he never asked again. I was glad for that, but I didn’t mean to hurt him.

It was so strange, but bc of the other things, it didn’t really bother me much. I did my school work, had supper, went to bed and hadn’t thought about it again for years. (I think that it affected him A LOT. He started drinking a lot after that.)

Just say something like “I’m glad that we’re friends. It’s like having another brother around.” That’ll give him the message. I should have done that. It was how I felt. Maybe I would have if I had had a clue that he liked me. Apparently, it was obvious to everybody else.