Going from friends, to more

[Beautiful Fireball]

Okay, I have done a lot of posts in this forum and other forums about me and a guy friend. I am 99% sure that he has feelings for me that go beyond friends and I have those same feelings as well. I want to discuss things with him, about possibly taking or friendship relationship to a dating relationship. Anybody been in a similar situation who can offer some advice or insight? This is the first time that I have experienced something like this, and I need some advice on how to best approach the subject

Thanks

 

[Arclight610]

Ask him if he would like to go to dinner, grab a coffee, go on a walk through the park, play tennis, whatever floats your boat. Talk to him about it, and be completely open about it. You can't get much better than 99% chance.

1) "(His name), We've known each other for awhile."
2)"(His name), I know we've only known each other for a short time."

"and/but I your an awesome person. I having feelings for you, feelings that go beyond the level of friendship. I don't know if you feel the same, but I just wanted to be completely honest with you... (add you own stuff here)"

Ha, its just a suggestion. Create your own little opening line or alter this one if you wish. Just tell him everything you feel for him. If you are 99% sure that he has feelings for you, then the battle is already won.

-TJ-

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

Ask him if he would like to go to dinner, grab a coffee, go on a walk through the park, play tennis, whatever floats your boat. Talk to him about it, and be completely open about it. You can't get much better than 99% chance.

1) "(His name), We've known each other for awhile."
2)"(His name), I know we've only known each other for a short time."

"and/but I your an awesome person. I having feelings for you, feelings that go beyond the level of friendship. I don't know if you feel the same, but I just wanted to be completely honest with you... (add you own stuff here)"

Ha, its just a suggestion. Create your own little opening line or alter this one if you wish. Just tell him everything you feel for him. If you are 99% sure that he has feelings for you, then the battle is already won.

-TJ-

Thanks for the advice!

 

[miss_klara]

Oooooo this stuff is so exciting! This is exactly how me and my boyfriend got together- we'd been friends for a year, and I'd liked him that whole time. Then he started treating me differently, and I started picking up interesting signals. My friends basically said "You have to talk to him, because this is not normal friends-y stuff." Like you, I was pretty darn sure there was something there. It took a while to psyche myself into it, but finally, my heart pounding, I left a choir rehearsal early, barged into the office where he was working on some tech support stuff, and said "We need to have coffee, now."

We went to an ice cream place and sat down and I was freaking out! I actually said to him "Is there any way you could make this easier for me, and assume we both know why we're here?" And he knew. We talked it out, and at first it didn't even go that well, and he said yes, there was something, but he wasn't in a place to be dating. Then we kept talking and he changed his mind.

Talking is the best option. By the sounds of things, it's going to be a very smooth conversation for you guys!! I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me.

If the talk doesn't go as planned, after speaking to a few guys about it, the general opinion is that there's an awkward period, but more often than not they're genuinely interested in looking past the girl's feelings and continuing the friendship. But by the sounds of things, this shouldn't be an issue!!

Good luck. I'm excited for you

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

Oooooo this stuff is so exciting! This is exactly how me and my boyfriend got together- we'd been friends for a year, and I'd liked him that whole time. Then he started treating me differently, and I started picking up interesting signals. My friends basically said "You have to talk to him, because this is not normal friends-y stuff." Like you, I was pretty darn sure there was something there. It took a while to psyche myself into it, but finally, my heart pounding, I left a choir rehearsal early, barged into the office where he was working on some tech support stuff, and said "We need to have coffee, now."

We went to an ice cream place and sat down and I was freaking out! I actually said to him "Is there any way you could make this easier for me, and assume we both know why we're here?" And he knew. We talked it out, and at first it didn't even go that well, and he said yes, there was something, but he wasn't in a place to be dating. Then we kept talking and he changed his mind.

Talking is the best option. By the sounds of things, it's going to be a very smooth conversation for you guys!! I hope it works out as well for you as it did for me.

If the talk doesn't go as planned, after speaking to a few guys about it, the general opinion is that there's an awkward period, but more often than not they're genuinely interested in looking past the girl's feelings and continuing the friendship. But by the sounds of things, this shouldn't be an issue!!

Good luck. I'm excited for you

Thanks! He has been dropping hints for awhile and been very flirty, so I am pretty sure that he has more then friendship feelings for me. And other people tell me that his behovior is not normal friend behavior so I am pretty sure that I will be okay. Its just that either outcome is kinda scary, so we'll see what happnens By the way, congrats on it working out for you!

 

[AceHero]

Oooooo this stuff is so exciting!

And yet I'll bet it's nerve-wracking at the same time. I think it'd be great to be friends first, but I would never know when to talk about whether it should go further. It'd be really disheartening if the feelings were unrequited.

 

[Blank123]

haha thats what happened for me and my guy too. We were both too nervous to bring it up with one another because we were worried about ruining our friendship. and so we both ended up talking to one of our mutual friends about our feelings for one another and she was awesome - she pushed us into talking to one another about it

yeah... listen to your friends - I know it can be hard to tell if he's actually sending you signals or if you're reading too much into it but your friends have somewhat of an outsider's perspective they can give you. If they're telling you thats not normal friend-ish behaviour, chances are its not

 

[miss_klara]

And yet I'll bet it's nerve-wracking at the same time. I think it'd be great to be friends first, but I would never know when to talk about whether it should go further

Yep, my boyfriend swore he'd never date a friend. Sometimes, if you feel like there's something there, you've gotta bite the bullet. By the looks of things around here, God uses a lot of friendships to build on as starting points...!! Bringing it up is awkward, but obviously worth it. Sometimes you do just have to go for it. If the friendship is strong enough to begin with, and 'the talk' doesn't go as planned, the relationship should still heal. It'd be pretty awful to stop regarding someone as a friend just because they admitted to extra feelings that don't match up with yours. (I know there's awkwardness, but anything past that isn't necessary)

 

[keyz]

Just be honest with your feelings.. no beating around the bush. The best thing is to be honest with no fluff. Straight up.

 

[whateveristrue]

Well, I'm glad it worked out for all of you. But let me give my opinion about this.... If you want to stay Biblical.. it really is the guy's role to pursue. It's the girl's role to wait, and respond when the guy pursues.

And sometimes guys do struggle with confessing their hearts. As a girl, if you want the guy to pursue you.. drop hints, and make yourself AVAILABLE to be pursued. When he's ready... he'll have "the talk" with you.

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

Well, I'm glad it worked out for all of you. But let me give my opinion about this.... If you want to stay Biblical.. it really is the guy's role to pursue. It's the girl's role to wait, and respond when the guy pursues.

And sometimes guys do struggle with confessing their hearts. As a girl, if you want the guy to pursue you.. drop hints, and make yourself AVAILABLE to be pursued. When he's ready... he'll have "the talk" with you.

I appreciate your opinion, but do you have any Scripture to back it up? I do not believe that what I am doing is unBiblical, but I would like to see some Scripture that you base your opinion on, if you don't mind. Thanks

 

[miss_klara]

I don't know about the whole unBiblical thing. But I do have a very strong feeling that if I had not approached my boyfriend for 'the talk', we almost definitely would not be dating now. Maybe ages down the track something could've eventuated, but looking at what we've got now... I wouldn't want to sacrifice that, just so that I could've waited for him to get his act together. We've talked about this, and he feels the same. I mean, another girl could've come along while I was waiting, and swept him off his feet. If you have a feeling there's something there, I am a true believer that you've got to go for it now! I know people say, if it's meant to be, God will make it happen. But there's a pretty active thread going here at the moment, where everyone's saying that there is no 'one' that God created for you- there are a number of personalities that are possibilities for you, and you will cross paths with them and make that choice. So if you truly believe this is an opportunity for a beautiful relationship, and if you believe both he and you are in a good place to be dating- don't stall on it. Go for it. You already sound confident that this will work. So maybe it actually will!! But maybe he needs you to point it out. Dropping hints and making yourself look keen can mean nothing to some guys. Some need that push, that suggestion, and that blatant confession of "this is what I feel..."

I'm sorry if this sounds terribly unBiblical, but I haven't seen anything in the Bible to back it up either, so this is my opinion.

Sitting on these feelings, and stalling on 'the talk' is an awful, nervous, anxious feeling. At least in my experience- it's not fun.

Go for it. (I know I've already said that in this thread!!) But seriously. Go for it

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

I don't know about the whole unBiblical thing. But I do have a very strong feeling that if I had not approached my boyfriend for 'the talk', we almost definitely would not be dating now. Maybe ages down the track something could've eventuated, but looking at what we've got now... I wouldn't want to sacrifice that, just so that I could've waited for him to get his act together. We've talked about this, and he feels the same. I mean, another girl could've come along while I was waiting, and swept him off his feet. If you have a feeling there's something there, I am a true believer that you've got to go for it now! I know people say, if it's meant to be, God will make it happen. But there's a pretty active thread going here at the moment, where everyone's saying that there is no 'one' that God created for you- there are a number of personalities that are possibilities for you, and you will cross paths with them and make that choice. So if you truly believe this is an opportunity for a beautiful relationship, and if you believe both he and you are in a good place to be dating- don't stall on it. Go for it. You already sound confident that this will work. So maybe it actually will!! But maybe he needs you to point it out. Dropping hints and making yourself look keen can mean nothing to some guys. Some need that push, that suggestion, and that blatant confession of "this is what I feel..."

I'm sorry if this sounds terribly unBiblical, but I haven't seen anything in the Bible to back it up either, so this is my opinion.

Sitting on these feelings, and stalling on 'the talk' is an awful, nervous, anxious feeling. At least in my experience- it's not fun.

Go for it. (I know I've already said that in this thread!!) But seriously. Go for it

Thanks for the encouragement, I need all I can get!! I am a very shy person and have never done anything like this before. Another reason as to why he has not made a move is possibly he is seeing my shyness. I do struggle a lot with letting people know how I feel about them, so I think he is under the impression that I don't like him in that way, which is completely wrong. So, I feel that if I don't say anything that there is a good chance that things will never happen, and I will always have that nagging at me. Anyway, I am done rambling and thanks again for the encouragement

 

[miss_klara]

Hahaha

I know encouragement helps in this situation. When I was going through this same thing, I had a few people in the singles forum almost saying "talk to him or we'll disown you". I think they all breathed sighs of relief when I stopped trying to work out whether or not the famous Chris liked me. Yep, some of the regulars knew him by name and saw everything in the build-up to us dating. Lol. You do need encouragement. It's a BIG DEAL. It's scary, but could possibly be the start of an amazing relationship.

I really can't wait to hear how it goes. Praying for you

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

So, my guy friend is coming over to my apartment tomorrow to hang out, and I think im gonna talk to him. Any suggestions on how to bring up the subject? Of course encouragement is always welcome, because I am TERRIFIED

 

[Markus6]

So, my guy friend is coming over to my apartment tomorrow to hang out, and I think im gonna talk to him. Any suggestions on how to bring up the subject? Of course encouragement is always welcome, because I am TERRIFIED

He's coming over to hang out one on one? Because if so it sounds like the job is half done already. To be honest if you've got to that stage I'd suggest flirting with him and staring into his eyes a lot. See if he's a) bright enough to get the message and b) has enough guts to ask you out himself, otherwise is he really worth it?

 

[Beautiful Fireball]

He's coming over to hang out one on one? Because if so it sounds like the job is half done already. To be honest if you've got to that stage I'd suggest flirting with him and staring into his eyes a lot. See if he's a) bright enough to get the message and b) has enough guts to ask you out himself, otherwise is he really worth it?

yeah, its just gonna be one on one, actually, thats how it usually is when we hang out. Anyway, thanks for the advice

 

[TravellingGrace]

haha thats what happened for me and my guy too. We were both too nervous to bring it up with one another because we were worried about ruining our friendship. and so we both ended up talking to one of our mutual friends about our feelings for one another and she was awesome - she pushed us into talking to one another about it

yeah... listen to your friends - I know it can be hard to tell if he's actually sending you signals or if you're reading too much into it but your friends have somewhat of an outsider's perspective they can give you. If they're telling you thats not normal friend-ish behaviour, chances are its not

lol I'm glad it worked out like it did

For me, it was obvious that my guy and I liked each other. We would flirt, etc... and what not... and eventually I was just like "Ryan, what are we?" and after a bit of a discussion we were dating. Of course that was only the last "what are we?" discussion we had. We had about 2 before that... although they never went anywhere besides admitting we liked each other.

Chances are if he's comfortable enough to hang out with you one on one a lot, he probably does like you, especially if you're 99% sure. Just go for it! Of course I'm the kind of girl who would just let the guy know that I like him, but not ask him out.

Something like "A few of my friends think that our relationship isn't just a friendship anymore, or that there is something more there. What do you think?" wont really hurt.

 

[Briseis]

Oh what fond memories. lol. Me and my bf were friends for almost 2 yrs before we started dating. We admit our feelings over the phone, since we talked a lot over the phone. The next day when we saw each other we felt kind of awkward, and just said hi and walked by, lol. But the next time I saw him we kinda just acted like we normally did, then slowly we got closer, started holding holds and such. And about a week later we decided to be officially together, again over the phone, lol. What can I say, we were in HS?

 

[AceHero]

Oh what fond memories. lol. Me and my bf were friends for almost 2 yrs before we started dating. We admit our feelings over the phone, since we talked a lot over the phone. The next day when we saw each other we felt kind of awkward, and just said hi and walked by, lol. But the next time I saw him we kinda just acted like we normally did, then slowly we got closer, started holding holds and such. And about a week later we decided to be officially together, again over the phone, lol. What can I say, we were in HS?

I like how you gradually eased into the relationship. It seems a lot safer than just going with the flow, and it pays off in the long run. I hope the former happens to me.