Male friends having crushes on you

[IDoDaChaCha]

Have you had a male friend/s have a crush on you that interfered with or ruined the friendship? I have only had one best friend (of 7 years) who it turned out had a huge crush on me and was hoping for more than friendship. I felt as though every experience we'd shared was spoiled by this. I felt betrayed. The friendship didn't survive.

I have tried to be friends with men but I get the impression they want more than friendship. I'm not flirty or tactile and I'm very clear about who I'm interested in romantically. Can't think what I'm doing wrong. Or are some straight men unable to form platonic friendships with women?

Imogen pretty much same here as in obsession rather than casual interest in sex. It does feel like a betrayal of trust.

cm38 I'd be really upset if a friend of 14 years started doing that. Makes my 7 year friendship seem short.

I have 3 close male friends as well as plenty of female ones. I understand the feeling of betrayal when a friendship with a guy turns out to be an undercover romantic ploy. But I also think you can just be friends. I've been friends with each for over a decade. 2 for more than 20 years. Periods of single ness and coupled up ness and we are alwa6s just friends. With one there is a tiny tiny bit of attraction underneath. But only cos I fancied him as a teenager (when we weren't friends). But it's a friendship based on liking how the other thinks. We share cerebral stuff mainly and it's a little distant otherwise- maybe cos there is a tiny bit of attraction.
One is also physically very close - he's a big cuddly bear. He's also a total player and would have made a move no doubt if that's how he felt. He just likes women also as friends. He has another close female friend snd he likes the "let's talk about feelings shit" he gets from us. The other friendships are more arms length but I think it's totally doable.
My husband has 2 close female friends. I like that he does and that he likes being around women even when it's not about sex/romance. Even though yes I checked out these friendships with a little suspicion at first

lasttimeround interesting. Do you reckon we should keep trying with male/female friendships then? Grow a thicker skin maybe. It seems obvious the reason these things occur is we don't live in a society where the sexes are equal. If we did there would be no 'expectation' from one gender because they are used to having access to whatever they want historically.

IME men and women cant be friends because the sex part usually but not always gets in the way of it. Ive had men I thought were friends make passes at me, I am friends (though not much contact) with a couple of guys for whom I have had feelings, and I have a couple of friends for whom I have never felt anything other than friendship and Im pretty sure they feel the same.

These friendships tend to end, when the male gets into a relationship & his new partner can't handle the jealousy.
Works the other way as well though, I know a lot of men who wouldn't like their dp's having a close male friend. My first bf (we were in high school) couldn't stand that I had close male friends, and he didn't get on with either of them.

My parents have a very mixed social group, couples who they are both friends with. My mum has a really close male friend she's known since primary school, my dad has a few close female friends, ones a ex, from way back. So I grew up going with my dad to meet female friends for lunch or coffee, going out for days out with my mum and her male friends. It's completely normal to me to have mixed sex friends and there be nothing romantic or sexual there.
To the best of my knowledge there's been no declarations of feelings or propositions of sex, between any of them.

Idochacha- I haven't really read the thread. Just reporting my experience. I totally get feeling let down when a friendship turns out interested- I've had that happen to me and esp if it's a new friend I felt excited about its horrible cos I felt misled. I do wonder if it's possible to redirect that back into friends but I'm not sure if you just have a stupid stalemate where your friend fancies you znd you pretend you don't know.
But I did want to share I have good male friends I'm close to and that that seems to work. Granted they aren't see you every week chat all the time friends- but none of my friendships are like that although we have more intense, less, intense periods. But they are close. We like each other and we are important to each other. There is an intimacy there.
I think there is possibly one ground rule which is be very very nice to actual and prospective partners- make it very clear you aren't a threat and don't compete for time/interest. Even if that means that the for a while you lose your friend to the throes of new romance. But that happens when your same sex friend disappears into a relationship too.

Maybe not a thicker skin maybe just the right kind of guy. All the guys I'm close with seem to enjoy the slightly different type of relationship you get in a friendship with z woman. My husband is the same his friendships with women are a highly different than friendships with guys. He likes and wants to havd both types of friendships.

Not highly different slightly different

lasttimeround I'm very clear about how I feel, I'm an instigator not a wallflower type. Which is why it baffles me that male friends imagine there may be something other than friendship there. I wonder if they're just entrenched in stereotypes and not treating women as individuals. Because surely they'd know not to pursue a woman who goes after her conquests herself... I also reject (with disgust) the idea that you might find someone attractive if they pathetically follow you around like a lost dog. I can't think of anything less attractive. But I've had men expect me to feel sorry for them because I'm not attracted back. It's infuriating...

My best friend of 17 years is a guy! We do love each other in such a deep way, that I think it transcends any sort of crush. Apart from my DH and daughter, he's the only other person I would expect at my funeral (I know that's a morbid thought but he once explained our friendship that way and it made sense to me).

I have had lots of male friends as my work and hobby were in male dominated environments. To a bloody man almost half have at some point said or done something that shows there is an interest that is more than friendship.

The worst was when I seperated from DH for about 3 months at the beginning of this year. My friend of ten years offered sex it actually broke my bloody heart and yes he is married and he had become a friend to DH as well. I was also the only woman invited to his stag night as I was his best mate.

DH was my 'mate ' for three years then suddenly declared undying love much to my utter surprise. It annoyed me initially, he had apparently fallen for me as soon as he saw me. So he had always hoped for something more.

I have only ever had one male friend who I developed feelings for, he also did but I was married, he was single. We decided the best thing was to end the friendship as it was just not a good idea. That was the right thing to do but losing him did upset me and I miss his friendship still.

IDoDaChaCha I didn't see the TV programme although its name suggests a certain agenda. But while some little boys may be cockier than little girls what adults say about themselves, and why, may not be the way they actually think or behave. I have met both men and women who are self deprecating but have massive egos, and the converse. Men are perhaps encouraged to be cockier but are far likelier to commit suicide. A simple generalisation that they are egotistic while women aren't is deluded, in my view.

The main reason both men and women "try it on" with their friends and others is that they are sexual opportunists and they think the opportunity is there, not out of some sense of entitlement or inequality. If there is any such sense, men and women both seem to have it as both straight women and gay men have tried it on with me. I take it as a minor compliment and decline.

Any man who thinks he is 'entitled' to have sex with attractive women is clearly unhinged. Getting firmly rejected by women who are above your pay grade is an essential part of male sexual experience. Most men experience it hundreds of times and quickly work out that they have to move on and try finding someone else.

Idochacha- I really get your frustration and the friendships I have with men feel previous because they are quite rare. I also find myself queasy that the thought of z lapdog friend who is just hanging about hoping for romantic scraps. I do see that in some other male female friendships- I really hope it doesn't underpin minr

Feel precious not bloody previous!! OK that's clearly enough posting for one day with my endless typos

dogfish1 yes, it's 'agenda' was to promote sexual equality. It's a good watch, check it out. Interestingly taking the unwanted advances as a 'compliment' has been a solely male response.

I'm a bit depressed by the general consensus of responses on this thread: that this behaviour seems to be the norm, even by the male commenters. Although I do think we need to make distinctions between casual sexual attraction and crushes which are emotionally rooted, and what I was asking about.

IDoDaChaCha it's not been the norm in my experience but it's happened some times. I don't attach any gender based significance to it. Nothing unusual about fancying someone you're friends with, whether you're male or female. If you asked a group of guys about female or gay friends having crushes on them, many of the replies would be similar.

When I was younger I used to think that they could just be friends, but over time every male friend bar one has ended up making an advance towards me, which I found upsetting, the one male friend that hasn't has distanced himself since he got married.
So I think it is possible but rare

dogfish1 what I'm asking about is crushes on friends that are not kept private, and then the expectation/heartbroken response of the one with the crush. As I've read time and again friendships have been unable to continue. I don't see 'nothing wrong' with that. As I said I've had a crush myself but I never imposed it on him.

I think it is of course perfectly possible for feelings to change over time on both sides. It may not always be that someone has always wanted the friendship to become more and so were engineering a friendship in hope of it.

I have known occasions where people have been friends for years and then all of a sudden something just clicks or something serious happens in their lives and something just re-evaluates. Doesn't have to have been an ulterior motive.

I know a couple who got married last year having been friends for 20 years previously. They had never been a couple before, knew each other from uni. Both married other people. His wife cheated on him and left. Her husband died. They supported each other and fell in love. And they are deliriously happy. There had never been previous feelings on either side.

My dad used to say that unless you become friends before 15/16 feelings / attraction will always develop (at least on one side). I find this more or less accurate, but friendships CAN survive one one is attracted to the other. I have a few examples from my 20's, my dearest friend is another. Now in my 30's I find friendships are not as intense, so crushes / attraction is harder to develop.

OohAahBird your experiences echo that of most women who have commented. I've even met men who have tried to turn our interactions into a relationship from the start when I've clearly only been offering friendship. Some men are so oblivious of boundaries it actually shocks me. As other PPs have said, I've had men become angry with me for not reciprocating their unwanted advances. It can be scary. I had one guy almost menace me with his unwanted advances the one and only time I met him, to the point I found him very aggressive and I do not scare easily! years later he found me on a dating site and even after I reminded him who I was, that we had met before and that meeting had not give well he still proceeded to try to get me to meet him for drinks and was similarly aggressive when I declined. It's almost obsessive with some men. I don't understand it. You can't bully someone into being attracted to you. You can't make someone love you because they feel sorry for you. But they try these manipulations!

IDoDaChaCha so you've met some obsessive types. These people are probably more likely to be men partly because men are more commonly sexual initiators. There are female stalkers too, but posters here are unlikely to tell you much about them. For what it's worth I've had women make advances to my male friends and get rejected; the woman has then felt insulted and ended the friendship. That doesn't mean she feels "entitled" or doesn't get boundaries, just that no-one likes rejection and one person rejecting the other can change the friendship dynamic. I think you're starting with a hypothesis and gathering evidence to confirm it while ignoring the rest.

dog Good point. I've seen it happen that way round too.

It's like when you have threads on here with people saying they really like someone and often it is a friend they've known for a while and they think the other person likes them.... The advice is always to pluck up the courage and say something. Very rarely do they say "hell no, you'll ruin the friendship"