Hi friends, and welcome back to another edition of Dear Dating Bitch! If you’re new to the blog, Dear Dating Bitch is my online advice column where I give dating and relationship advice to readers agony aunt style.
If you’re in need of some advice, go ahead and submit your questions here. And don’t worry – it’s always anonymous.
Today, I’ve got a few questions to answer. So let’s get into it, shall we!
Dear Dating B: Relationship Advice
Q:
There’s a guy I’m really interested in, but he says we’re just friends.
It’s a long story, but in short, he was having issues with a girl he was involved with for about a year. A mutual friend told him that I liked him, so I asked if we could get to know each other better and see where things go. Later on, he told me he thinks it would be best not to move forward. The other girl he officially ended things and he said he needs time to work on himself.
Would it be a bad idea to try and push for a relationship? What should I do?
Friend of a friend rejection
Dear Friend of a Friend:
Yes, it would be a bad idea.
I’m sure the situation is more complicated than you explained here, at least in your own mind, but there’s a pretty clear bottom line here. You made your feelings for this guy clear. He told you, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn’t want to pursue anything. Sure, he gave you a bit of a cop-out as for the reason why.
Maybe he really does need time to heal from this other girl. But, if that were the case, why did he meet up/start talking to you in the first place? He knew from your mutual friend that you were interested. You also told him you wanted to get to know him to “see where things go” – a pretty clear indication that you wanted more than a friendship.
There are also some pretty big red flags here that I worry about.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that the other girl “officially ended things,” but it sounds like he wasn’t completely available in the first place. On top of that, he agreed to get to know you better only to later tell you he needs time to heal. Didn’t he know he needed to heal before agreeing to that? Of course, it could be that he didn’t realize the extent of his own heartbreak until later (it’s happened to me before!) Still. Either he’s not being fully transparent with you, or he isn’t emotionally available for you.
Whichever one it is, it’s not great.
So, take him at his word that it’s not a good idea to pursue anything. And, if you need to distance yourself from him (or your mutual friend), then by all means, take the space you need. You can, of course, explain to him why you need to take a step back from this friendship. But that’s not necessary, so if you don’t want to, don’t worry about hurting his feelings.
☆ ☆ ☆
Q: I’m in a relationship with a guy I am completely in love with. At the same time, I still love my ex-boyfriend. Now, my ex wants me to visit him and part of me really wants to. How do I handle this?
Torn Between Two Lovers
Dear Torn:
Why do you want to visit him? Really think about that. Is it because you want to see if the two of you still have a connection? Do you want to weigh your options, so to speak, between your current boyfriend and your ex? Say you do agree to visit your ex. What do you think will happen?
Have you heard the expression “don’t play with fire”? That applies here. You know that you still have feelings for your ex. You also know that your ex wants you to visit him, meaning those feelings might be reciprocal. And you know that “part of you” really wants to take him up on that visit.
Listen to the other part.
☆ ☆ ☆
Conclusion
Even though both of these letters were relatively different, my relationship advice often comes down to one thing: listening to your instinct. We usually know the right thing to do, but sometimes it takes someone else pointing it out for us to listen.
What do you think of my advice this week? Let me know in the comments below!
As always, thanks for reading. If you’ve got questions of your own, make sure to send them to me here!
xx
Katie
Pin this Post for Later!
4 Comments
You have given some good advice here for these questions. It is really great you answer these questions and give people a space to get advice. Thank you for sharing.
Lauren
Thanks for reading! Always appreciate the feedback.
Great advice! We agree that the first guy has so many red flags. For the second one, there’s probably good reason that she broke up with ex in the first place.
That’s a good point! Even if he is a great guy, it doesn’t sound like he’s treating the letter-writer with a ton of respect right now.