friendship gets complicated sometimes. my friend kirstie always tells me i can't be friends with a guy because for one reason or another, the boundaries between us always get muddled. i don't really understand how other girls do it; i never really thought about it much but i never seem to fully be myself with any guy. it's not that i'm not myself or that i put on a facade--it's just that i always have a guard up, friend or not because i don't want to put myself into a vulnerable situation. it becomes a problem when you really enjoy the company of any guy and want to become really close and not necessarily in a romantic way. i feel like william knows me really well and i consider him one of my best friends but when you let that guard down, both of you become vulnerable and i don't want to hurt him or confuse myself. because at some point, when you're completely yourself around a person of the opposite sex (if that's your sexual preference) then you're bound to have some kind of feelings develop. especially when you're so close that you're always together and people always ask you if you have feelings for them. and no matter how much you deny it and tell your friends there's nothing there at all, you still think about it in the back of your mind because they're just there and it's comfortable. but i know that comfortable isn't always the right choice. kirstie asked me to do some soul searching about the matter and so this is my attempt at it. i don't really stop often to question my feelings or his feelings and i think that's good way to get deeper into a sticky situation.

so i guess the question here is: can you be friends with someone who is in love with you?

most girls would be flattered and i guess sometimes i am but i think more than anything, sometimes i just want to cry when i see it in his eyes. when he looks at me and tells me kind things--things that people in love should tell each other everyday. i feel that i may just burst and i change the topic because i feel there's nothing else i can do about it other than shut him out of my life forever and hurt him more than i feel i'm already hurting him. william said something the other day that i found interesting. he said that he missed his old apartment and he told me it was because i came over the first day we met in class and we had wine on the porch. he described that day better than i could even if we went back to that day and were sitting on the porch in that moment. he said he missed that day with me and i told him, "we're hanging out right now..." i didn't understand how he could miss being with me when we were together and then it struck me. he didn't miss being with me--he missed the first day we met, a day when anything between us was possible. before all of our quarrels, our awkward moments, my sarcasm, and more importantly, before i told him there was no romantic connection. he would have rather been back in that past moment than with me in that present moment.

this leads me to the presenting problem: where is our friendship going? he always says these things that make me uncomfortable. i can change the subject but there's no point because he'll just do it again later. i can say something but he gets hurt, maybe feels rejected. so i let it slide and sit through it. he's been getting inappropriate--grabbing me and touching me mostly when he's drunk. at first, i got mad and i punched him and now i find myself letting it happen. my close friends get mad at me for it and they remind me to be cautious. i'm not so naive--sometimes i realize that we are both confused. he mostly gets like this when he drinks and that brings me to another point, which i feel bad for mentioning because i should keep this in complete confidence but he admitted to me that he has a drinking problem and he told me that it stems from his loneliness. so sometimes that plays into the whole issue because i want to be there for him and he takes it the wrong way. i wonder if i'm doing anything wrong--feeding into it. i don't know what more i can do other than tell him that i don't have those feelings.

kirstie told me yesterday, "you can't save everyone." and i know that but somehow, i always manage to take other people's burdens onto my shoulders. when william was going through what i will refer to as the "accused rape situation," he came to me and that's how we started talking after a year of silence and bitterness. he was suicidal and, of course, i was there for him in an instant. [i had kristie pull one over on me like this years ago when she told me her husband was abusing her just so she could pull me back into her life] yet, i was willing to trust william because i wouldn't punish him for someone else's issues and even if he was lying, it's better to be on the safe side. well you can imagine how quickly one forgets about such silly problems in their friendship when a friend is going through something as intense as this. and you might also imagine how quickly they become closer and closer and how the whole ordeal bonds them on a whole other level--something that was missing from their previous relationship. so i never stopped to think about why we were friends again or if it was the best choice, i just kept going. we started hanging out everyday all the time. and previous to this occurring, he had already confessed to my sister than he was in love with me but i tried to forget it because i had to be there for him and i couldn't let that fact deter me.

so after all the time and effort i put into the friendship, you can imagine how upsetting it would be to see him throwing out these "love confessions" and telling me how much he cared for me, yet, he was ignoring me half the time, flaking on me, going out with me and talking to girls at the bar, and not returning calls/texts. i was and still am furious and, i believe, rightfully so. just yesterday he told me he didn't want to go into the bar with me because he wouldn't find a girl in there that was prettier than me (which of course i ignored) and told him that he definitely WOULD find a girl in there prettier than me. and now, he is ignoring my texts so i called him out on it and plan to stay away from him for as long as i can stand it.

but why is it so hard for me to stand it sometimes? well obviously it would be one of two things 1) i was in love with him or 2) i was lonely, confused, and maybe i just felt comfortable with him and didn't want to do the whole dating thing and clearly by the detailed response of number 2, number 2 would certainly be the answer.

because i told kirstie when she asked me if i liked william and where i saw it going if we ended up together, i told her that i didn't see it going anywhere and that was what i needed to know. so i guess now the i feel i've figured out my own feelings about it, i still need to figure out how to best handle the situation with william knowing that i want to remain friends with him but also that i don't want to hurt him and i don't know which would hurt him worse. 1) not being friends or 2) being friends because being friends may only perpetuate the problem.