Friend Keeping Asking Me Out & Acts Cold When I Say No

LegacyUser

Hi guys,

There's six of us in my circle of friends. I've always been very close with three of them. The thing is, one of the guys (who I wasn't always close with) is 22, I'm 20. We were friends for a while, and one time when the group of us were at the pub we started talking a fair bit just the two of us (we wouldn't usually talk much). He was so sweet with me and I started to fancy him. I didn't think I'd made it obvious in any way, and I didn't want a relationship (this was in March). That night, he told me he liked me. I said that was sweet but I didn't feel the same way. I also said that I wasn't ready to date anybody for a long, long time (I was getting over some self-esteem issues). The next day he text me asking if I wanted to go out to the pub with him and two of our friends (who are in a LTR together). I said thanks for asking, but I couldn't make it. Really I was concerned that he would see it as a date of some sort.

Since then, he's asked me out at least ten times through text. I've told him no outright but it doesn't deter him. It doesn't bother me much but I do have a problem with his behaviour afterwards. I'll change the topic and he'll reply once or twice to me, but that's it. I'll get no reply unless someone (usually me) starts another conversation (a few days later). I raised this with him once about how he never seems interested in talking to me for more than five minutes, to which he told me that "if I became [his] girlfriend, [he] would pay me more attention." He did talk to me more for a few days after, but he soon stopped. Looking back it's a bit black-mailish what he said, but at the time I just laughed.

I enjoy being friends with him and we quickly became quite close in March so I want to stay friends with him. However I'm concerned. Friends have warned me off lf how he loves the chase and he can be manipulative. We're certain to see each other next Friday as the group of us are getting to meet up again. I'm worried he'll ask me out in person. To be honest, I have some issues with men (working through them) and I can see myself giving in to him for fear of how he'd react if I didn't. If I don't give in, I'll still be afraid that he'll start acting distant and cold towards me. I don't want to go because of this, so I don't know what to do.


TL;DR
A guy in my circle of friends keeps asking me out through text. Once I say no, the conversation is basically over on his part. I'm going to see him soon. I'm afraid that he'll act badly towards me if he asks me out and I say no again. I'm also afraid I'll say yes due to pressure. I'm not sure if I should say something first or what I should do.

Big Bag of Chips

I think its obvious. He fancies you. He wants to go out with you. You don't fancy him (or, actually you do/did!) yet want to keep him close as your friend. He doesn't want to be your friend, he wants to be your boyfriend. Some people would say you are being unfair by stringing him along and continuing to initiate contact with him when he tries to move on... Knowing you are not interested.

I know you say you are working through self-esteem issues, but you admit you fancy him.. or at least you did in March. You might think you didn't make it obvious, but you probably did! So why not go out with him? It sounds a little like you like him, just not enough... Which is completely your right, by the way! I'd guess if the right fella came along and you were smitten you'd jump at the chance to go out with him.

If he asks you out, and you say "no", then leave it at that. Don't go contacting him again. He doesn't want you as his friend. Maybe he finds it difficult to pretend he's happy to just be your friend if he fancies you. If he wants to stop contacting you, let him. Trying to keep in contact with him after you repeatedly reject him is only for your benefit.. not his.

You can stay friends in a wider circle, but you need to stop with the 1 on 1 texts and stuff.

Edit: I don't know why you think him saying if you were his girlfriend he'd pay more attention to you was "black-mailish", or why you laughed at the time. He is being honest. You're not his girlfriend. You don't want to be his girlfriend. So why would he continue making idle chit-chat with you. And obviously if you were going out he WOULD contact you more. I think you are a bit flattered by the attention, and you want to keep that. That's not nice, that's just stringing him along.

General rule - if someone asks you out and you say "No", you don't get to make the decision on whether you stay friends or the level of contact you have. They do. And if they don't want to be pally with you then you accept that and don't push it.

K_P

I agree with BBoC to some extent in that you should probably lay off the contacting him one-on-one for a while. You don't want to be his girlfriend, but for his sake, don't insist on trying to remain close friends either as it's going to confuse things and he'll just keep asking you.

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Edit: I don't know why you think him saying if you were his girlfriend he'd pay more attention to you was "black-mailish", or why you laughed at the time. He is being honest. You're not his girlfriend. You don't want to be his girlfriend. So why would he continue making idle chit-chat with you. And obviously if you were going out he WOULD contact you more. I think you are a bit flattered by the attention, and you want to keep that. That's not nice, that's just stringing him along.

This is where I respectfully disagree though. Why should he continue making chit-chat? How about because they're supposed to be friends? It does strike me as manipulative and childish - he didn't get what he wanted so he's sulking and "punishing" you for it.

Bottom line OP, he fancies you but you don't fancy him. You can stay friendly with the guy in a group situation but don't think you can be close friends. But you don't HAVE to go out with him - you don't owe him a date because you had a nice conversation once and any decent guy wouldn't see your friendship as a crappy consolation prize.

Big Bag of Chips

I think he'd be happy to make chit-chat with her when out in company. He just doesn't want her contacting him. For chats or whatever. I think its one of those situations that is tricky. Some people can shrug off rejection and remain good friends... Others are always holding on to the hope that something more will come of it. (And indeed had he posted here, he would most likely have been told that she is a headwrecker, and for his own sake limit the contact he has with her - different perspectives on the same situation)

He's obviously getting his hopes built up by you contacting him again, and again. He asks you out. You reject him, again. But then text him looking for a reply or a conversation. He is being polite by replying once or twice.

I think it's also a bit egotistical to question him on why he is "never interested in talking to you for more than 5 minutes". He has made his feelings clear. You have made yours clear. He can still be polite/friendly towards you without being "your friend" who texts you every few days 'just because'...

I don't mean to be rude... But text your other friends!

kunst nugget

K_P wrote: »

This is where I respectfully disagree though. Why should he continue making chit-chat? How about because they're supposed to be friends? It does strike me as manipulative and childish - he didn't get what he wanted so he's sulking and "punishing" you for it.

Bottom line OP, he fancies you but you don't fancy him. You can stay friendly with the guy in a group situation but don't think you can be close friends. But you don't HAVE to go out with him - you don't owe him a date because you had a nice conversation once and any decent guy wouldn't see your friendship as a crappy consolation prize.

I don't necessarily think it's being manipulative and childish, I think he's just getting very mixed signals. He's been pretty honest and direct with her all this time. He asks her out, she says no so he cuts his losses until she initiates contact again. I think she should leave him be.

Sponge25

If I asked a friend out I really fancied and she said no, I'd be really embarresed and possibly even hurt. So give him time to cool down, make sure you let him know that there's nothing to be embarressed about.

Maybe txt or fb him saying "Name, I really like you, you mean alot to me as a friend and I don't want to lose you and there's no need at all to be embarresed aout what happend." and then give him a little while for the embarresment to die away and he'll contact you. If he doesn't you contact him and remind him he means alot to you as a friend. That's what i'd like a girl to do if it happend to me. )

K_P

kunst nugget wrote: »

I don't necessarily think it's being manipulative and childish, I think he's just getting very mixed signals. He's been pretty honest and direct with her all this time. He asks her out, she says no so he cuts his losses until she initiates contact again. I think she should leave him be.

To be fair, the OP is being honest and direct too in saying no. He could be a lot more straightforward and say that he finds it hard trying to maintain a close friendship when they want different things. Instead, he goes for "I'd talk to you if you were my girlfriend" or words to that effect. To me, that's childish. I agree though that she should leave him be. See him in group situations if you have to OP, but don't try and maintain a close friendship - it's not possible.

Big Bag of Chips

I wonder, OP, have you been very clear with him. You say you fancy him. You say you got on really well... Have you turned him down and let him know that you are not at all interested, or are you giving him a wishy washy "I'm not ready to date yet" excuse.

Is he holding out hope, because you haven't been clear? Is there a chance that you are also keeping him close, so that when you ARE ready, you know he's still waiting?

Either way, the level of contact you both have isn't working for either of you. You can't force him to want to contact you. So your best bet is to back off and let him do what he wants. It doesn't sound like you're "best mates" anyway, so there doesn't really seem to be much need for you to be in regular contact with him. And if you do contact him, and he replies once or twice, should that not be ok?

Just on this point...

K_P wrote: »

He could be a lot more straightforward and say that he finds it hard trying to maintain a close friendship when they want different things. Instead, he goes for "I'd talk to you if you were my girlfriend" or words to that effect.

he said "if I became [his] girlfriend, [he] would pay me more attention."

I get the impression he thinks you are just looking for attention from him! The fact that you straight out asked him why he doesn't spend more than 5 mins talking to you could make him think that. I understand you said you have self-esteem issues but I think your issues might be making you seek more attention from this fella just so you can feel that he does like you.

kunst nugget

K_P wrote: »

To be fair, the OP is being honest and direct too in saying no. He could be a lot more straightforward and say that he finds it hard trying to maintain a close friendship when they want different things. Instead, he goes for "I'd talk to you if you were my girlfriend" or words to that effect. To me, that's childish. I agree though that she should leave him be. See him in group situations if you have to OP, but don't try and maintain a close friendship - it's not possible.

Tbf, after she says no and the guy cools contact, what does she expect from him when she keeps getting back in contact with him? It sounds like a bit of a headwrecking situation.

Czarcasm

Dontknowwhattodo wrote: »

TL;DR
A guy in my circle of friends keeps asking me out through text. Once I say no, the conversation is basically over on his part. I'm going to see him soon. I'm afraid that he'll act badly towards me if he asks me out and I say no again. I'm also afraid I'll say yes due to pressure. I'm not sure if I should say something first or what I should do.

The situation reads to me OP like you really don't like falling out with people, that you want people to like you, even to the point where you'll say yes to being this guys girlfriend just to get him to talk to you!

I get where you're coming from, but you have to see surely how desperate for people to like you that actually is, and what a "relationship" based on such a shìtty premise will do to your self-esteem. It'll eventually kill whatever self-esteem you have left!

You really don't have to get on with eeeeverybody in your social group OP, and if one guy is playing you like that, then you have to listen to what your instincts are telling you, listen to what your friends are telling you, and mean what you say when you say you're not interested in a relationship. Then leave it with him, and if he doesn't treat you like he would any of the rest of his friends, I know it's shìtty, but there's really not much hope of him treating you any better if you were in a relationship.

I know this sounds cliche OP but really, he's not worth all the games playing and head-wrecking, and you need to start working harder on building up your self-confidence and learning to assert yourself, and at 20 years of age it's about time you learned that you're not there to please everybody, and not everybody is going to think the same of you as you do of them.

Concentrate your efforts more on being a friend to yourself, rather than trying to be everybody else's friend, and you won't find yourself involved in half as much drama.

Lou.m

"if I became [his] girlfriend, [he] would pay me more attention." He did talk to me more for a few days after, but he soon stopped. Looking back it's a bit black-mailish what he said, but at the time I just laughed.

This is why he does not have a girlfriend.

Friends have warned me off lf how he loves the chase and he can be manipulative.

Lovely.

OK listen **** this he is a poor guy stuck in the friend zone crap.

He is not treating you with basic common manners. If he does not wish to be friends because he wants something more that is fine he should state that outright and you should be understanding if you feel you don't want a relationship.

The thin is if you were IN a relationship this behavior would get worse not better he would do the manipulative col thing more to get his way. He would not stop manipulation just because you were dating infact it would get worse as the relationship went on.

It is funny because this cold behavior as a friend is probably what is turning you off him as a BF maybe if you had more faith in his character an that it would be a positive caring relationship he would have more luck.


I bet he has a string of failures because of this.

You are afraid of him being vindictive if you reject him...well the answer to this is to stop caring. Be civil ad polite and be the bigger mature adult.

If you are certain you can't be attracted to him then make it clear and don't have expectations of keeping him hanging around...but that does not mean he has an excuse for being a childish jerk either. You both need to be adults.


I don't know why you want this guy as a friend if he is being unkind. He does not want friendship...think about that.Is this good for either of you?

He sounds like a drama queen and a headwreck. And are you feeding it?

LegacyUser

OP here. I'm going to give a bit more context, although I think I'm going to give up on being his friend.

The day after we first started properly getting to know each other, he started texting me. He suggested I went to the pub with him and our friends. I said I couldn't make it. We kept talking for a few hours and we did so every day. It got very personal a few days in (he told me about how he married the love of his life at 19 and how much he loved [and still loves] his ex-wife, who he divorced last year, and then we talked about our struggles with mental health, etc) and I figured if he was telling me all this about his marriage, he was clearly not into me anymore. We were just friends.

We didn't talk for a few days as I had an assignment due. It came up in conversation though with a mutual friend of ours that she was going that weekend out with him and his girlfriend (this would have been important to mention earlier, but it was late and I had typed so much that I figured it was long enough already). I asked her what she meant by his girlfriend (in shock) and she said that he'd been with a girl since almost straight after he split with his wife. I told her that he said he had liked me, and she then proceeded to tell me to be careful of him as he can be quite manipulative and often only wants women for sex.

It was almost April by then and that's when he started asking me out. The first time he asked I said no, but it was 1:30am and I knew he was drunk so I thought nothing of it. Anyway, I kept my distance and only spoke to him again a week later, when I actually needed to ask him a question. It takes me a day, maybe two, to get over a crush so I figured this was plenty of time. Since then he's asked me out about 10 times. I've said no, and I mean I didn't beat around the bush but I actually said no. I always change the conversation so it won't be awkward. I felt like when we talked for hours that he actually understood me, and I understood him, and I thought we were becoming very close friends. I guess I'll just have to give it up. Writing this makes me question why I want to be his friend in the first place. Somebody said maybe I'm the type of person who needs to be liked by everyone. I'm not. Trust me.

Thanks everyone!

Czarcasm

Dontknowwhattodo wrote: »

OP here. I'm going to give a bit more context, although I think I'm going to give up on being his friend.

The day after we first started properly getting to know each other, he started texting me. He suggested I went to the pub with him and our friends. I said I couldn't make it. We kept talking for a few hours and we did so every day. It got very personal a few days in (he told me about how he married the love of his life at 19 and how much he loved [and still loves] his ex-wife, who he divorced last year, and then we talked about our struggles with mental health, etc) and I figured if he was telling me all this about his marriage, he was clearly not into me anymore. We were just friends.

We didn't talk for a few days as I had an assignment due. It came up in conversation though with a mutual friend of ours that she was going that weekend out with him and his girlfriend (this would have been important to mention earlier, but it was late and I had typed so much that I figured it was long enough already). I asked her what she meant by his girlfriend (in shock) and she said that he'd been with a girl since almost straight after he split with his wife. I told her that he said he had liked me, and she then proceeded to tell me to be careful of him as he can be quite manipulative and often only wants women for sex.

Your friend hit the nail on the head. This guy was manipulating you by sharing a common bond with you about your mental health difficulties, as such he was letting you know that you've finally met someone who understands you. The way he gave you the whole "I'll talk to you if you be my girlfriend" should show you number one how shockingly immature this guy really is, and number two how he was so easily able to manipulate you into thinking you should say yes to him.

This isn't actually something you have to worry about btw but in order to be granted a divorce in Ireland, he would have to be separated from his wife for 5 years before he could even apply for a decree of divorce. He can't have been separated that long if he's only 22 now, was married at 19, and claims to be divorced three years later having only been married for 2 years!

It was almost April by then and that's when he started asking me out. The first time he asked I said no, but it was 1:30am and I knew he was drunk so I thought nothing of it. Anyway, I kept my distance and only spoke to him again a week later, when I actually needed to ask him a question. It takes me a day, maybe two, to get over a crush so I figured this was plenty of time. Since then he's asked me out about 10 times. I've said no, and I mean I didn't beat around the bush but I actually said no. I always change the conversation so it won't be awkward. I felt like when we talked for hours that he actually understood me, and I understood him, and I thought we were becoming very close friends. I guess I'll just have to give it up. Writing this makes me question why I want to be his friend in the first place. Somebody said maybe I'm the type of person who needs to be liked by everyone. I'm not. Trust me.

Thanks everyone!

It was me that said that the situation reads to me like you don't like falling out with people and that you want people to like you, because that's exactly what it looks like based on my experience of these situations -

Czarcasm wrote: »

The situation reads to me OP like you really don't like falling out with people, that you want people to like you, even to the point where you'll say yes to being this guys girlfriend just to get him to talk to you!

I get where you're coming from, but you have to see surely how desperate for people to like you that actually is, and what a "relationship" based on such a shìtty premise will do to your self-esteem. It'll eventually kill whatever self-esteem you have left!

And rather than trust you (because let's be honest, I don't know you well enough to trust you), I'd sooner trust my own instincts based on my experience, which is what I'm trying to get you to do - trust your own instincts, and now that you see this guy clearly isn't worth all the time and effort you're giving him, you're better off to simply cut him off and stop entertaining him. That's all you're doing at the moment. This guy doesn't like you, he likes playing with you, and you're playing his game because you don't want things to be awkward between you.

You don't need to ask anybody a question that badly that you can't get the information elsewhere without knowing you're going to have your head messed with every time you contact him. The easiest solution is to simply stop initiating contact and explain the situation to your mutual friends if they ask you why are you being off with this guy. You're partly to blame as much as he is for this mess, by continuing to change the subject so neither of you feels awkward. The current situation is far more awkward for you than it is for him.

Lou.m

He only wants you for sex OP. He does not consider your feelings.

If he really wanted a girlfriend he would care about how he was making her feel. He sounds a little crazy too!

He seems not worth thinking about. He seems to make trouble in groups and has a string of failures and he has nothing better to do with his time than play with you. He is pathetic.

He also sounds like he is spinning lies like Czarcasm said about relationships. He is just a loser.

He wants you to think he is super intense and really into you. Sometimes sadly men will say things like 'I love you' 'I want a relationship with you' to get sex or really even because they are so insecure they need the control.

The thing is it usually backfires and they come off as insane and disingenuous. He is a fake a liar and a manipulative womaniser. He is a thoroughly awful human. That is not sexy.

AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS.