Love expert Lola Augustine Brown answers your pressing dating and relationship questions
Dear Lola,
I have been in love with a close friend of mine for many years, and all the time that she was married I never made any kind of move towards her, or told her how I feel. She left her husband a month ago, and I felt like finally it was my turn to be with her. So, I took her out for dinner and confessed my feelings, but she told me that she was disgusted with me, and that she felt like I had been lying to her about being her friend all these years, as I really just wanted to seep with her. I can’t believe how this went down! Now I’ve lost a good friend and feel like I’ve screwed up any chance of having a relationship with her. What can I do?
Worried friend
While you may think you did the honourable thing by waiting for her marriage to end, she likely feels you were just waiting for a chance to pounce. Her marriage just ended, so she probably isn’t in the best emotional space right now, and there you go giving her something else to stress over. She needed a friend, turned to you, and you’ve made her wonder whether you ever really were a true friend at all. If you truly are her friend, that is what she needs from you right now, not your romantic aspirations.
Giving her reaction, I don’t think you are going to be able to upgrade your friendship with this woman into a romance. As I see it, you have two choices, depending on what you want from this situation. If you want to stay her friend, you should apologize for your clumsy move on her, and tell her that you’re still her friend, always have been, and hope you always will be. Ask how you can make things right, and if she tells you that she needs a little space right now, you need to give it to her.
If you can’t handle being just friends with her, then I think you need to respect the fact that she isn’t interested in you as a boyfriend, husband, or whatever else you’ve been hoping for, and leave her alone. If she had been secretly lusting after you all the time that she was married, she would have responded to you differently when you confessed your feelings, either with an enthusiastic, “Yes, I’ve been hoping you’d say these things, or a more sedate, “I’m thrilled but it is too soon for me to start dating.”
Either way, if she is ever interested in you at some point in the future, you have to leave it to her to let you know. You’ve laid your cards on the table, and now she knows how you feel. Sadly, you can’t make her love you or want you, and of she isn’t interested in you, there is nothing that you can really do to change that. I’ve been in this situation, and I know how much it hurts, but at least you now know that this isn’t the girl for you, and you can move on.
Good luck
Love, Lola
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