r/Friendzone

Is there anyone out there with a successful friends to lovers story? If so how did you do it? Would it be better to just ask “hey next time we hangout what if we made it a date?” Or would it be better to confess my feelings?

I recently told a close friend that I have feelings for her and asked her out. She said she doesn’t feel the same way.

What makes this harder is that she has seen me have other crushes and little romantic situations before. But now I realize those were often more about the idea of someone or the possibility of something happening. With her it feels different. I actually like her as a person. I like her personality, the way she thinks, her stupid little reactions, her laugh, listening to her talk, just being around her. I’m not in love with some imaginary version of her. I know her pretty well, including things that annoy me, and I still like her.

Our conversation went surprisingly well. She was respectful, I was honest, and we didn’t suddenly stop talking. But the rejection still hit me way harder than I expected.

Part of me still has some hope, obviously, but I know I can’t sit around waiting for her to change her mind. At the same time, I really don’t want to lose her as a friend because she genuinely matters to me outside of my feelings for her.

So I guess my question is: can you realistically stay close friends with someone you have strong feelings for after getting rejected? Do the feelings eventually become manageable, or is some distance usually necessary?

I asked a gpt to help me to write this post in English, sorry if it feels like an AI.

Hi, I'm an Italian students (26M) and I went out of Europe to study for 3 months thanks to Erasmus.

I went there with two girls from same university (we didn't know each other before). We became friends, especially with one of them. We had fun, we travelled in the country together and at the end of the study period me and the other girl we travelled alone to a city. Me and her were friends, we helped each other, we listened and opened ourself. After a while, in July I started to catch feeling for her.

When we came back home in July, I decided to ask her out on middle august. She said it was fine but why don't we invite even the other girl? I said that I'm fine with the other girl but I wanted to go out with only her (I didn't declare my intentions but it was pretty obvious). She said it was ok and she was going to tell me when she was free the next week because she had some things to do. She never replied for a month and I never texted her. I was very angry with her, you don't give the silence treatement to a person you shared a lot with like a baby.

After a month she texted me saying that she wanted to explain herself, she didn't expect me to declare myself since we were friends and she opened a lot with me. She said that it became natural for her to walk away since she was almost sure I was hitting on her but, if I wasnt, then she was more sorry. She also said that she felt a little hurt because she told me that everytime she thinks to make a genuine friend then the guy declares himself. I remember her talking about that and I told her that if someone catch feeling he has to declare himself, you cannot hide it. I said to her that my intentions were genuine and I was respectful and I was always sincere with her (I opened with her a lot). I never faked anything with her just to get her. I said that I understand her but she can not give me the silence treatment for a month. She said that she think I'm a great person and wanted to have the group of our three all together and don't lose ourself after our nice experience.

I said that the future will decide (I didn't want to say yes or not).

Now I don't know what to do. She's a good person. I think I would like to see again the group together (it will be once in a while) and maybe me and her as a friend. But I don't know if it's gonna work after what happened. Or maybe I should cut off contact with her. For the moment I'm fine like that, I lost 5 kilograms because of the huge crush on her and her silence hurt me a lot.

Thanks for the advice

P.S.

In the past I had a female friend and after 5 years of friendship she decided to end it without ever giving any explanation. Maybe friendship between gender doesn't exist.

Soo, I have this female frnd, njngal bhayankara close okke aanu, but njn idunna frndship il idunna efforts onnum aval idaarila.like, edakk onnum msg ne reply tharilla and all. Njn chodichu enthaanu Ingane ennu appoo, aval paranju, aval anganeyaa, mood illenkill veettukaride phone polum edukillaa, . And, currently aval orumaathiri swabhavam okke edukkuvaa, like njn 4pm aayaloo, oru msg ittu and aval athu seen polum aakiyilla, and njn around 1am aayappo njngde oru frnd nte post instayil kandu(latest post) and Athil aval like cheythirillunnu. Even, njn avalde bday kke oru photo frame vare undaakki koduthu. Ennikku, sad enthu ennu vechaal, ennikku engane behaviour ulla oru frnd polum illa.

What to do, i really like her vibe and all and avalum parayaarund avalkke ente vibe um ishtam aanu ennokke.

Njn nalla reethiyil hurt aayi kondirikkuvaa evalde ee behaviour okke kaaranam.