It happens all the time. You’ve known someone for what seems like forever and you’ve developed a terrific friendship. Great, right? Perhaps not; you’ve started to develop a romantic interest in your friend, but you’re not really sure whether you should tell them. After all, you don’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship!
Whether you’re in person friends, or your friendship has taken root on a social network or internet dating site, you’ve come to realize that this person means a lot to you and you’re not really certain that you want to jeopardize the friendship by declaring your feelings.
So you wait, and you simmer until finally one day you just can’t take it anymore! And you let your friend know exactly how you feel about them.
If the feeling is mutual, then congratulations! You can stop reading now and get back to what you were doing.
If the feeling is not mutual, here are some tips to ensure that your honesty doesn’t interfere with your friendship.
Talk about it. Discuss whether or not you can handle being friends again and if, in fact, the person to whom you declared your feelings is interested in maintaining the friendship. The longer you have been friends, the higher the likelihood of that continuing.
Once you’ve discussed it, drop it. You’ve told them how you feel, and they’re not interested. Don’t make a pest of yourself. Move on.
If your friendship previously included some flirtatious behavior or conversations with sexual innuendo, now’s the time to take that down a notch or three.
With any luck, you’ll have kept your friendship intact!
