@Wondersense Basically none of them are in my life any more, mostly their decision or their partner’s preference. A few of them are in a place I’d consider dormant rather than gone. If I was in my late teens again and knew what I know now, I’d probably invest less time in friendships with guys.
Couple of them took being politely declined pretty badly, so they ended the friendship immediately.
Another (the one I’d been friends with for 20 years) I did kiss, to see if there was something there for me and because mum had always thought we’d end up together (so did his). There wasn’t anything there for me unfortunately. We tried being friends for about six months afterwards, but he became quite manipulative, trying to engineer it back to romance, so I put some distance between us. I ended up moving for work not long after. I think if we had stayed in the same place we might have gone back to being friends eventually, just by bumping into one another after enough time had passed.
One was pretty clear he would like to take the next step by having a “friends with benefits” type situation. He did that very respectfully and talked to me about it. I didn’t want that. That was probably the saddest one. I’d pretty much say we were in love with one another and both knew that on some level. We had lived together for a while as flat mates, done quite a lot together in environmental activism. Most people who knew us thought we were a couple, didn’t believe we weren’t together as we were pretty inseparable. He was newly divorced and I’d had a bad break up (broken engagement), and I just don’t think either of us was ready to be open again after being hurt. Bad timing. We stayed friends for a bit but ultimately it was just a bit too painful for us both I think.
There are several were the friendship just petered out, because the ease of the friendship had gone. I noticed with a couple of those, they hung around for a bit but disappeared when I got into a serious relationship.
Another few we stayed friends for a bit, but they disappeared when they got in serious relationships.
One definitely because his girlfriend didn’t like him hanging out with women in general- she’d had two marriages break down due to infidelity. So he just couldn’t do that to her, he did she tried to be ok with things and and he could she she was in pain about it. I respect him for that a lot actually, her too actually. She did genuinely try- we socialised together and you could tell she liked me as an individual. It just brought up too much stuff for her.
One was a guy with a lot of female friends generally. He got married quite quickly and his wife was fine with his female friends. She met me once and basically I never heard from him again and he didn’t reply if I tried to contact him. Based on how he was the time we all met, I get it. She wanted to go home quite quickly, he told her to go home and he’d stay out with me. He also kept remarking on my appearance, which was something he’d never done before. He basically kept saying “damn girl you look good”.
Another just got too busy being a husband and a dad and a lot of his socialising went, then they all moved to Germany to be close to her family when she got pregnant for a second time.
And another one, his girlfriend and I got really quite friendly. I ended up falling out with him because of how he treated her when they split up! Really saw another side to him I didn’t like.