Does my friend have a crush on me or am I overthinking things?

[SoulCrusher]

I am so sorry this story is long. But if you want in on my life drama please enjoy!

I am 33F I have an opposite sex best friend 25M whom I’ve been friends with for five years we will call him Joe. I am married and have been madly in love with my husband 32M for 15 years and would never dream in a million years of leaving him. We are very happy together.

I am from Louisiana but I moved to the UK and became a citizen and live here with my husband and had a daughter with him about a year and a half ago.

Joe is also from Louisiana and he and I still play video games on playstation and chat on discord pretty regularly and have a gaming friend group and we hang out with but sometimes chat alone.

The thing is a few years ago Joe met a woman who was married and kept calling her hot and saying he wanted to date her. I commented on it and told him maybe it wasn’t a good idea since she was married because it might cause drama. He said “Yeah that’s the problem though. Everyone I am attracted to seems to be married. She said she’s unhappy with her marriage so I think I’m going to go for it.”

I figured it was none of my business so I said nothing else. But I thought it was weird that he said EVERYONE he likes is married because he never mentioned any other married women before.

We share selfies and pictures of our families, pets, gamer computers and art projects on discord and I shared a picture of myself after getting a new haircut and several of the boys commented that I was hot and Joe said “Wow I’m speechless.” We are the type of group that makes a lot of adult jokes and stuff and sometimes the guys drink too much and say stupid things. The guys comment on the girls pictures saying they are hot all the time. So I don’t really think I’m anything special. They’re just being guys.

During our gamer sessions he would often bring up the fact that he’s into the married girls and it’s a really big problem. There were times I felt like he was flirting with me but no one single incident that I could describe really. I had a really weird gut feeling about it so I went with my instincts and made a comment that he’s got a girlfriend now so he doesn’t need to worry about that.

Joe and his girlfriend dated for a few months and then she left him to try and repair her marriage. He was really devastated. I tried to support my friend but there was something that made me feel alarm bells going off. I knew he was really depressed about the break up but I felt like he was leaning on me in a way that was… how do I put it… unfair to my spouse I guess? I hope that makes sense. Joe would message me at like 3am and want me to call him and he would be sobbing on the phone and it would take me 2-3 hours to calm him down. I did this about 4 times until my husband commented on it and then I started distancing myself from it.

But Joe would say things like “I’m just falling apart. I don’t see any point in my own life.”

I would pretend like I didn’t see the discord messages because I was asleep but I felt really guilty about it.

Eventually I became pregnant and the pregnancy made me so sick that I kind of dropped off the face of the earth because I was having too many medical problems. I told my friends. They congratulated me and wished me well. We stopped talking for over a year because of it.

I got in touch with my friends group again and they welcomed me back. Another friend I will call Will updated me on everyone. When he got around to Joe he said “Joe’s not doing too well. Shortly after you left he changed and had a huge break down.” I felt really bad because I remember he was in a bad place but I felt like he should have gotten over the break up by now.

I talked to him and he said he was doing well but something was off about him. He mentioned he wasn’t sleeping well because of the nightmares. A few months went by and he would ask how I was doing and how the baby was. I would send pictures here and there but one situation sat weird with me. He said he had a nightmare but couldn’t remember it just as I sent a picture of my husband playing with the baby holding her up in a reusable shopping bag. He then said “Oh I remember! It was about this horrible giant four armed monster with two legs. It looked like a spider but had two heads and one was the face of a baby with a huge grin and it was eating all of my hopes and dreams!”

I… reread the “nightmare”. I looked at the picture. Four arms were visible. The baby’s legs were in the bag. Husbands legs were visible. Two heads were visible… One was a baby.

Why… what? Was it a coincidence? If not why would he be this indirect? I literally laid this all out for my husband. He said it was a weird coincidence but he thinks I’m over thinking things. I convinced myself he was right but it just… feels like more…?

I laughed it all off and didn’t say anything. I started slowly finding time between new parenthood and gaming at night and Joe seems himself slowly again. He starts making jabs that he’s still into married women and even his physical therapist. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤨 I tell him he’s a glutton for punishment. He laughs.

He then starts making jokes about how he’s kind of into single moms now… Why am I getting that nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach again?

Over time he starts talking about how great Louisiana is and how I should move back and talking about how terrible the weather in the UK is compared to there. It feels like it’s been escalating lately. The thing that’s made me really convinced it’s not in my head is recently he said he’s thinking about picking up a single mom.

I really have no interest in dating Joe. He is my best friend and I want it to stay that west. But I worry I’m like… somehow stringing him along without realizing it?

But if I confront him I’m worried our friendship won’t survive.

I know not everyone will get it but I really love hanging out with Joe as friends and we go way back. But if my instincts are true I’m a bit concerned about two things.

1. That would mean he doesn’t respect my marriage.
2. It would imply he’s had a crush on me for years and he’s potentially holding out waiting for my marriage to fall apart and he’s totally wasting his time, energy and emotions.

aibu to think that Joe likes me?
Yabu - you’re reading way too much into it. Joe doesn’t like you stop being so self centred.
yanbu - Joe has a crush on you how are you this clueless?

If I am not being unreasonable what is the best course of action? Do I just ignore it and hope he comes to the conclusion to give up on his own? Or do I say something to him and tell him to give up?

I once had a Joe situation, he did admit he that fancied me with no prompting. He also used say he was friend zoned and if I ever stopped talking to him, he'd be devastated. His creepy behaviour got creepier. In the end I blocked him after his 'drunken' admission. He made me sick after a while. He still tries to make contact online by making new accts. I ignore now.

To pp, I find these men are very subtle and you don't realise just what you're dealing with until there's something obvious, like the nightmare in OPs case.

Joe is biding his time and by trying to be nice and friendly he's getting satisfaction, if not hope.

Ditch him OP. No one should be allowed to send such thinly veiled messages about your DH and baby when all you've done is be nice.

Good grief there’s some mean people here. Is perfectly fine to have online friends, that’s just the way some of us work. Nothing wrong with that.

OP you need to firmly friend zone this guy, make it clear he’s like the brother you never had but absolutely nothing more. Do not respond to flirtatious messages.

Do you need a bridge, to get over yourself?

This. You don’t really sound mature enough to have a child tbh.

You fell for the change in tone on the fourth (excluding the duplicates) post didn’t you? 🙄 No sign of a poster with few friends and low self esteem before then, just a sudden change of tone when things are not going her way and she wants some sympathy!

This.
Op you ask if you are stringing him along, you are, you know you are deep down.

Sorry this thread has gone the way it has, OP. I felt there must be more to your situation just from reading how young you got together with your DH and how young Joe is. It's not about you being immature but if you've been with the same guy all your life, it's not unusual to have your mind wander to such things as other people having crushes on you, as even if you're happily married, there's an amount of trying out other relationships that you've (voluntarily) missed out on. As long as the 'drama' stays benign and in your head, it can come and go harmlessly.

It's more unusual for a 33f to have a 25m best friend, very unusual really as guys tends to be less mature anyway, and so it seems to be the case with Joe. Bottom line is he's just not appropriate as a best friend for you, at least until he grows up. Anyone of the 10 women on the group would be more suitable, but hopefully you'll start to make more connections here IRL and this will fade. Messaging always makes things feel more intense and absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps Joe has a crush or perhaps his breakdown was about the women he split with and you're more of a placeholder/symbol. He's not thinking of the real you regardless as you're happily married and way beyond him life-stage-wise, but perhaps that makes it safe for him and perhaps you like the mothering dynamic of giving him advice and chiding him etc. But as you're realising, crush or not, it's gotten unhealthy for both of you and the kindest thing to do is pull back. He needs to hang with his peers and find a girl more fitting for where he's at. You have your family already and need to focus on yourself and getting better. Gaming can be great but give it a miss with him for now, there's lot of other people in the online world to play with who won't bring this trouble your way.

Take care of yourself and I hope you're feeling better soon - and that Joe is too!

@AMuser You don’t sound mature enough to be allowed online unsupervised, tbh.

So just to be clear, you think that someone should come on to a website known for its spiteful reactions and disclose their childhood trauma and abuse in their opening post just so that they’re taken seriously?

Okayyyy.

OP, tbh I personally think that the internet and online friendships do more harm to people’s self esteem than good.

Because the truth is that while these are real interactions, they all happen on people’s terms, there is no real life interaction with these people in the real world.

I have nothing against the idea of online friendships, I have friends I’ve met and know online and have also met in rl but who I only communicate with online, but while you’re concentrating on these friendships which let’s be honest can never be more than just online interactions, you’re not out there in the world interacting with actual people. And there is something to be said for that.

You’re finding it difficult to distance from Joe because he’s all the commmunication you have with people. But genuinely, if you cut him out you will be opening up the possibilities of communication with other, genuine people.

You have a baby, get out there, go and find some baby groups, get talking to other mums, you don’t have to build meaningful lasting friendships from the outset, but just communicating with people in your own environment will take you away from the need to rely on the friendship of people who have never really been there for you.

Oh I see, you are one of the most bottom feeding of troll hunters.

Think about what you are saying. You are saying OP should have said, ‘ I have online friends and I think one fancies me and this is why I think that. Oh, and I have no real life friends, a history of male sexual violence and an emotionally abusive Father which has left me with deep, life lasting trauma. I mean, I know none of that is relevant as to my post as to whether my mate fanicies me, but I am just throwing that out there anyway, just in case!’

OP later mentions that stuff as it was relevant not to her post, but because it was relevant to how damaging the bullying replies were. That’s the sort of feedback decent people would take on board, use to to grow themselves with, and modify their future online interactions.

And you know what, if someone expresses pain online, I would rather assume that is real. If I am supportive to a troll online, so what? No real world consequences. But if I am spiteful and attacking to a real person in real distress, the damage I cause can be terrible.

This. I really wish MN would ban these absolute arseholes who seem to not be able to tell the difference between being direc and outright bullying.