Do you ever find yourself shrugging your shoulders and settling on the “boys will be boys” conclusion? Real Live College Guy Andy is here to show you that mature men do (in fact) exist. He has an uncanny ability to sort out the good guys from the bad apples and is here to bring you the best in college love advice.
My guy friend and I turned into more. Much more. And after months of happily being together at school, we then gradually started speaking less over the summer, until he was acting distant and weird and it bothered me a lot, so I finally confronted him. I was upset, and as a result the conversation was pretty emotionally charged, on both of our ends. It turns out he had been considering things with his ex again while we were apart over the summer (without mentioning anything to me and leaving me in the dark), but had his heart broken, and basically, our timing was totally off. We came to the conclusion that we’re going to try to make it work as friends, since our relationship originally began as a friendship. Can this work after we were clearly more than friends for a while? Am I supposed to forget about everything romantic that happened between us? I want to try to move on but I still have some feelings here. Just leave it? Stay just friends? — Love Turns Platonic Again at Louisville
Love turns platonic,
As the saying goes, “time heals all wounds” and right now, that is exactly what you need. Maybe after some time passes the two of you can become friends again.
Now in my personal experience, remaining friends after a break-up has never worked. Then again I was never friends first with any of my ex-girlfriends. We just kind of jumped into things and once the relationship went sour, there simply wasn’t much left. Nowadays I’m looking to be friends first, because I’m subscribing to the theory of wanting your significant other to also be your best friend.
As for your particular predicament, I imagine that when you say “months” you are talking anywhere from two to four months? Were you two officially exclusive? Were there boyfriend/girlfriend titles? Because if you were boyfriend and girlfriend then it is absolutely despicable for him to be thinking about getting back with his ex while being your boyfriend.
There are lots of variables to consider, without knowing the details I can only offer so much advice. Perhaps you were his rebound relationship or maybe this is a case of he’s just not that into you. Sounds to me like he is certainly one of the bad apples out there. Nobody deserves to be kept in the dark and confronting him was the certainly a smart move on your part.
My final thoughts would be that if you were friends first you can be friends again. It may take some time apart to get over any lingering romantic feelings but you two originally enjoyed each other’s company in a platonic fashion so I can’t see why the relationship can’t return to that. That said, I’m not sure that any of us on the planet can be happy being just friends with a recent ex when we’re still single and they already have someone.
So in the meantime, I think you need to take some time and disconnect from him. Personally I wouldn’t want anything to do with him if I were in your shoes. He doesn’t sound like a very good friend, much less a boyfriend.