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.
I’m crushing hard on one of my good guy friends. Problem is he has a girlfriend… she doesn’t go to our school so he rarely sees her. He’s super flirty when it comes to me, kissing my neck when he’s drunk, taking me home when I’m drunk, winks in the hall, flirty texts… I like him a lot but don’t know what to do, especially since he has a girlfriend. Basically my question is, what do you do when you are in love with a guy with a girlfriend? – Crushed at Cornell
Crushed,
I know how you feel. I was (to borrow a Northern California phrase) HELLA into my intramural soccer teammate last semester. She’s essentially had the same boyfriend since she was in middle school (no chance for yours truly whatsoever). It sucks, but sooner or later another interest should take your mind off the taken guy.
In your particular scenario, it seems like you have to tell him to stop using you as his (for lack of a better way to say this) “substitute” girlfriend.
You say that he rarely sees his girlfriend, which means he has a lot of time to miss her. Therefore, it is only natural for him to want be close to the girls whom he sees on a more frequent basis. For him, it is sort of a self-created girlfriend placebo effect.
Flirting with you by kissing your neck is unfair to you! Talk about the ultimate tease! Guys should only kiss girls whom they are either already involved with or want to be involved with. Otherwise, it’s unfair to the girl (not to mention his girlfriend). All guys ought to be aware of how neck kisses make a girl feel. They are incredibly intimate smooches. It’s not normal for platonic friends to suck neck with each other and not have it mean anything.
And therefore, you have to tell this guy how you feel.
You shouldn’t drop the L word on him as being that open would probably just scare him away. Clearly, you don’t want to lose the friendship. But you should sit down with him and politely explain how you feel. Tell him that he ought to realize that he is a good-looking guy and that his kissing you is unfair to your emotions (and to his girlfriend).
If he’s going to continue to act this way around you it will make it ten times harder to move onto other, available interests. And hey, by telling him how you feel, maybe, just maybe he will admit he has reciprocal feelings towards you. That sounds like it would be the dream scenario for you, but I would recommend putting him through a rigorous dating test. Why would he treat you any better as a girlfriend than he treats this other girl? Either way, you have to take initiative, doing nothing is just asking for more heartache.
Photo Credits:
Flirting couple at bar