I had a difficult decision to make recently. I’d met someone earlier this year, we got on like a house on fire. Everything felt easy between us over messaging. When we met up socially, I ended up laughing for hours. I liked his face, I liked the way he made me laugh, I liked the way he made me feel funny and sexy and interesting.

We met up again after that a few times where sex happened. And the sex was great too. But it was in those intimate times after sex where we’re naked cuddling and talking that I felt the closest to him. We honestly were really good friends. There was no end to conversation which could be lighthearted and silly into really heavy, deep subjects. But there was always sensitivity, there was always understanding.

But it wasn’t all puppies and rainbows. Whenever there was stress in his life, whether that was family or work or whatever, it would be like he’d stop communicating. He’d stop reading my texts, he’d obviously not respond to them either. And actually, if he’d just said ‘things are shit, I’m not handling it well’ I wouldn’t have minded. But he didn’t. He’d spend time online, posting status updates, responding to forum threads. And it often made me feel like, why are my texts being ignored? Are they too …much? Am I too much? And I’m not. But it is how I felt.

The first time it happened, I just got silently annoyed and nursed my wounded feelings. The second time it happened I probably did the same. And the third. But eventually I did tell him that that they way he communicated (or more accurately, the way he didn’t) made me feel a certain way and it scraped against my insecurities. That paired with a time our wires got crossed and he booked a date with someone else on the same evening he and I were planning on seeing each other kind of nailed the coffin shut on anything we had going.

But I still held on. I thought, can we be friends? Still? Can we go back to a platonic thing, can we go back to a simpler time where there wasn’t expectations on our time and attention? I tried it for awhile, but I don’t feel platonically towards him so no is the answer. I can’t force myself to feel a way about him that I don’t. So as ‘friends’ he was still hurting me, still making me feel insecure or annoyed or whatever else.

So I made a decision. I sent him a message that said ‘I don’t think I can be your friend’ and ended things like a mature adult. I’m crying as I’m typing this right now because it feels so unfair. But I knew I couldn’t carry on trying to be someone’s friend when I was feeling like I do. I don’t want things to turn sour between us, I don’t want there to be a slow death, I don’t want there to be dragged on hurt.

So I guess sometimes we can’t be friends. And that still hurts.