Sep 8, 2018 · 2 min read
You realize that the advice you’re giving bares all of the red flags you’re describing.
- You have a horse in this race: you’ve been traumatized by a relationship where there was an imbalance in your affection for each other. (That’s 3.)
- You believe that your relationship would have ended less traumatically if you had just been honest with your friend. Another consideration is — one commonly associated with the term “friend zone” — is that you were harming your friend by wanting so much of her time when you knew she wanted romance and you did not. You could have done just as much harm to her by continuing your friendship. The best choice might have been just to cut her completely loose. You didn’t chose that option. (That’s 2.)
- The term friend zone as if being someone’s friend is something to be overcome rankles my gut. I’m suspicious. I’m also suspicious of claims about there being no spark. There was some kind of spark otherwise you wouldn’t have wanted so much of her time. There was something you wanted to withhold from her — which is your right — but again it rankles. (This is 1.)
I didn’t want to post this here. I realize it sounds hostile. I don’t mean it to be; it’s just an occupational hazard. I was just wondering if you thought about that, if you see that in what you’ve written. People often don’t realize they have a dog in fight; they take good intentions and experience to be an inoculation.
My worry is that it is harder to recognize bad advice than you think. Some folks guts aren’t trustworthy. Some times you want a solution that sounds easy more than you want to do the hard thing. Sometimes people’s good intentions seem like evidence that they are right.
