I (35F) met 41M while traveling in Peru. He’s from NZ and I’m from the USA…. We both were traveling separately for a while before and after we met and have been able to meet up a few times. We were dating a little at first since we met on tinder but then quickly decided to be just friends (mostly his decision since I wanted something more serious). Then he decided he wanted to try to date long distance and we were able to meet up in Mexico but that ended pretty quickly. We weren’t exclusive (but this time he was more serious/invested than me) and I was already also casually seeing someone else so he ended things once I told him that I also was talking to another person. I thought he knew I was dating so it was just a misunderstanding and we were able to move past it as friends. About a year and a half has gone by since then and we have stayed in pretty close contact as friends. We’ve both dated other people during that time and have kept things fully platonic until recently. We started flirting a little and he ended up sending me a fairly sexually explicit message that was received well by me.
That sort of opened the door to us possibly dating seriously but we’re in different countries and I’m not open to dating long distance. It should be simple then, we can’t date. But he and I both want to move to Central/South America…. He is considering moving to Mexico and I have lived in Colombia for a few years a while ago and would like to move there soon. He has also visited me in Colombia and is on the fence if he wants to maybe go to Colombia… idk I am also open to staying in Mexico with him for a while and if we work out we can keep traveling and see if there’s somewhere we both want to live?? At least I suggested that to him. But he’s diabetic and isn’t even sure if he can even pull off moving cause insulin is basically free for him in NZ.
The friendship is really important to both of us so we really don’t want to do anything to wreck it. He wants to stay friends for now and “keep things open” for when we might see each other next.
Anyway, my question is whether or not a friendship can really work between two people who now explicitly know that they are romantically interested in the other person?? I’m worried that it will feel awkward talking about normal things now.. that one of us might misinterpret signals or get hurt. I’m also not sure if keeping things open to possibilities with a good friend is really a very healthy mentality to have in my dating life in general. It feels icky to sort of have someone on standby, that the only reason we aren’t trying to date is cause we’re not in the same city. I’ve actually been in this kind of situation already and it don’t end well…
Part of me just wants to tell him that I am fully closing that door, that it’s just too emotionally taxing to go back and forth and constantly have it in the back of my head as an option. But the other part of my would genuinely like to be open to a relationship if we end up in the same place or want to make that happen.
I would love any suggestions or sympathy. Thank you for reading!!