Dear Prudence,
About a year and a half ago, I confessed that I had feelings to a close friend of mine, “Michael.” It went how I expected it to go—neither rejection nor acceptance—but it was closure for me, and I slowly but surely moved on while we both stated that we would continue to be close friends.
Still, I have good instincts, and I could tell something felt off between us. This manifested in many different ways: Quality time with my friends is important to me, and we never hung out one-on-one anymore. When Michael broke a promise to me, I was furious and acted immaturely, which I apologized profusely for. However, he failed to see his fault in the matter, and my perspective of why I was so mad (breaking trust).
The final straw (for me) was when he finally—finally—decided to have a conversation in October about “us,” he lamented a variety of things that I’ve done that made him uncomfortable, like asking him to sit with me to look at the stars. Looking at the stars was his idea, mind you.
Clearly, he’s uncomfortable around me because he still hasn’t gotten over the conversation we had a year and a half ago … which is fine, I just don’t really know what to do. I personally am done with this friendship—and I just recently got into a relationship as well—but against all logic, he still wants our friendship. I don’t do things by halves (which you can probably tell), so how do I solve this?
–Stuck in a Bad Rom-Com