Friends and Lovers

Hello,

I have a problem that I have pondered quite alot over the last couple years, and I would appreciate any advice you could give ...I have known this girl for probably four years and over that time we have become best-friends...However, since I first met her I have had feelings for her, of which I believe she is oblivious. My problem is that I think about her alot, and I want her to know that I care for her, but I am afraid of ruining our freindship (that sounds so corny). We have a very close relationship, she knows more about me than I think I do, but this seems to be the only thing I am keeping from her. She asks me advice about the guys shes sees, which really doesn't bother me, but she never gets as close to them as she is to me. I guess the anxiety has finally come to a head and I need some closure to the whole thing...I need to know if being best-freinds with a girl denies one the opertunity to go futher...

Thanks for your help...

Nate Springer

Having been in this situation more times than I care to count, I think I can help. I don't fully understand this phenomenon myself, but I doubt anyone fully understands anything in romance. Maybe we can put some observations together and come up with some clues. That's something USEnet seems to be pretty good at.

First of all, how old are you two? Is she looking for a boyfriend or a more serious, possibly permanent, relationship? A romance based on a solid foundation of close friendship has the potential to go much further and will very likely be much more serious than an average romance based on random attraction. She may not be ready for something that serious.

Most of the time, when this happened to me, the woman involved wanted both a best friend and a boyfriend, but didn't want them to be the same person. Best friends are harder to come by. If you're already her best friend, she wants you to continue to be her best friend. When the best friend and the boyfriend are the same person, whose shoulder does she cry on when you break up? And she has to assume that you'll eventually break up, because she's not ready for a permanent relationship yet.

Another factor to look at: are you really afraid of ruining the friendship, or is that a cop-out, just a convenient euphemism for not knowing what to do about the situation? I've generally found that being afraid of ruining the friendship is a cop-out. When the friendship becomes part of a deeper relationship, it is changed permanently. You can never go back. So it's not a matter of taking a risk of losing the friendship, it's trading the friendship for something better.

That doesn't mean that you can't be friends after you break up, it just means that you can't go back to the same relationship you had before. You can only go forward to a new relationship, which may happen to be a similar level of friendship. But it will be different.

Being best friends sometimes does deny you the opportunity of a romantic relationship. You apparently do want that romantic relationship, but in order to make that change, you both have to want it. If she, for whatever reason, wants you to be her best friend and not her boyfriend, then it's probably not going to happen.

No one else can tell you what she wants or why. I can describe my observations, and make my guesses, but it may not apply to your situation. You should tell her how you feel and ask her how she feels. This kind of open, honest communication is critical to any relationship. If your friendship is as close as you describe, she will pick up on the fact that you're hiding your feelings from her. That can only get in the way of your friendship.

From my experience, the odds are that she will want to stay friends. But the only way to find out whether I'm right is to ask her. And getting this out in the open is better for your friendship anyway.