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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

someone i thought was my friend, or maybe more

5 replies

glitterball · 04/03/2008 20:09

clearly wasnt!

ok here goes

have previously posted about having ended v unpleasant verbally and (very) occasionally physically abusive relationship with partner of 7 years. we are still living in the same house as he wont move out, and he is generally being nice to me but am sure that wont last

anyway, have had strength to do this mainly due to v close friendship with work colleague which has developed over last few months. we sit next to each other, chat constantly, go to lunch together most days, he gives me lifts home a couple of times a week, and we text each other at weekends.

he is single, however he is significantly younger than me - i am in my mid thirties he is early 20s.

he tells me often how pretty i am, how nice i look, how much he would miss me if i left and how i am the only thing keeping him at our firm (he hates his job), how i am the closest friend he has and how glad he is to have me, how he can tell me anything etc. he has made jokes about us ending up together.....strangely writing it down doesnt make it seem that big a deal but suffice to say our entire office have thought for months that we are seeing each other.

at first i HONESTLY did think he was my friend. however as time passed and with things he said, how close we were & also hearing my other colleagues constantly comment on it, made me think that maybe he did like me (a thought i initially dismissed becuase i am too old, fat and unattractive - all the things my ex used to say about me)

so all was fine, i was merrily biding my time, until a conversation yesterday in which he casually let slip he had seen an old girlfriend at the weekend (fine so far...) and that when he saw her before xmas, they had both told each other they still loved each other - and they still feel the same.

...so for all that time he has a) still been in love with her despite telling me, apparently his best friend he had no feelings for her at all, she was horrible to him, he couldnt be bothered even to reply when she used to text him, and b) clearly been biding his time for the last 3 months getting in some practice flirting with me whilst waiting for her.

i know that i shouldnt expect anything more given his age and obvious immaturity. i just feel like ive acted like such a fool, and hes let me behave like one. if he honestly was my friend then he would have told me all this before xmas, and at these feelings which have developed over the last 3 months would have been nipped in the bud...thinking back i remember him saying something before xmas like how seeing her just made him glad they had broken up - which clearly was far from true!

i have asked my boss to move me to another part of the office, which will happen tomorrow...he knows i am moving, i think he knows it is to do with him (i have avoided him all day and as this is totally unlike either of us he will know something is up) and yet what really hurts is he has made no attempt to speak to or email me all day, he could have text me this evening but hasnt either, which just makes me think that he never had any feelings for me in the first place and is either ASTOUNDINGLY naive, or really not a very nice person - i just feel so disappointed, and taken in (which is unlike me as i am usually very resistant to charm, and not a gullible person). i now cant think of anything he has said to me without dismissing it as lies, ive deleted all his texts and his number from my phone. and i still feel like crap, and had to go to the toilets at work today & have a cry about it all..........

i dont think theres anything i can do except give it time but i would just like to think i am not mad to be upset by it all............

OP posts:
NotQuiteCockney · 04/03/2008 20:12

It's understandable that you're upset.

But did he know you were interested in him? It sounds unlikely that he'd pretend to like you, it just sounds like he was keeping his options open, understandably ...

Carmenere · 04/03/2008 20:18

It sounds to me that he thought he should flirt with you to make you feel better about the shit time you were having. That is not a nasty thing to do, it is exactly the sort of thing that an imature young man would do.

Don't be cold with him, he was never right for you, you knew that. Yes he misled you but more than likely because he thought you needed an ego boost.

He has been a friend to you, now be a friend to him, be nice to him, suck the natural disappointment up, and continue being friends with him.

glitterball · 04/03/2008 21:04

im s sure as i can be without having ever asked him directly that he knows i like him

i can see how maybe in a misguided way he was trying to make me better by flirting with me - however i am pretty much the only girl at work he talks to - if he flirted with most or even some of the others maybe i wouldnt have taken all this so seriously

OP posts:
Carmenere · 04/03/2008 21:11

But the reason he flirted with you was because he does really like you and cared about how much you were hurting, you are special to him but not like that. Which is fine, he has not intended to hurt you, he has just been insensitive because he is young. I could be wrong but I suspect I am right. It is embarrassing but if you just face him and ignore your hurt feelings and continue being mates if possible, you will be ok.

warthog · 04/03/2008 22:57

i agree with carmenere. he is young and immature, and hasn't realised how seriously you felt, esp. given your circs. i don't think he was lying, he was just taking each day as it comes and not thinking of the consequences.

i don't think you have to lose the friendship over this if you don't want to. give yourself some time, and then smile and send a friendly email / text.

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