Dear Massimo,
seven years ago we met. She was my best friend’s girlfriend and I had recently gotten married to a woman I still love. I immediately had a strong attraction for this girl, and it’s strange because I’m not the type who falls in love easily. I never took the first step because I respected mine and her commitment, which then consolidated into a marriage. We frequented the same working environments and collaborated on different projects. Over the years, a friendship developed, but nothing more. We also met outside of work for dinners or aperitifs, even without involving our partners. There were moments when we felt closer and others when I drifted apart. Meanwhile, she got divorced about a year ago. I recently decided to take the first step by confessing my attraction and feelings for her. However, after my initial approach in which she didn’t give me space (at the end of dinner she ran away) she proposed an aperitif, after which she reciprocated a kiss and then, boom, she friendzoned me . I respect her decision and am not pursuing it to avoid appearing intrusive. What do you suggest? She is the only woman who shakes my certainties.
Marc
Dear Marc,
it would be interesting to know what these certainties are, given that you begin by talking about a wife you still love, but whose traces are lost during the letter. Are you still married or not? And how does the type of love you say you feel for her coexist with the burning passion for your best friend’s ex (who, I imagine, will have been informed of this)? I say this to make you suspect that perhaps your marriage is not going through one of its best phases, but perhaps you have already separated and you forgot to write to me. So let’s get to the point that matters most to you: how to behave with this woman you’ve always been chasing, but who doesn’t reciprocate your interest, except in a very lukewarm way and without paying too much attention to your suffering, which she has contributed to fueling by deluding you a little. ‘. I don’t think she did it in bad faith.
Your courtship gratified her, to the point that she was the one to propose again, after the initial escape. Maybe she was going through a moment of insecurity and needed to date someone who she knew liked her and made her feel important. But the kiss never betrays: if after exchanging one (or rather half) she immediately withdrew and parked you in the “friend zone” it means that she didn’t feel attracted to you. Happens. There’s nothing to suggest that you haven’t played your cards to the best of your ability, but for certain things you need chemistry and in this case it obviously isn’t there or there’s too little of it.
Now, it’s up to you to decide whether to persist in pursuing an unlikely desire or whether to continue with the very wise policy of abstaining from it. (I don’t even take into consideration the third hypothesis, that of accepting the “friend zone”: forcing yourself to be friends with those you love, sublimating passion into a feeling of tender complicity, requires doses of self-control and perhaps even hypocrisy which are not compatible with a peaceful digestion). But remember that love is not a nail that sticks by beating on it. Consistency produces results only when the obstacles to overcome are external to the loved one: family, distance, the presence of a cumbersome ex. Not if the obstacle is represented by her, as she doesn’t reciprocate your desire. I could tell you that there are refined strategies to help you move up the ladder, from friend to lover, but I don’t want to deceive you. In any case, disappearing remains the best way to test it. If she misses you, she will come back with much more determination than the last time. If, on the other hand, she doesn’t feel her and doesn’t look for you, things will have gone well for you anyway, because without her presence you will have had the opportunity to metabolize the disappointment little by little. The real obstacle now is you. When another person becomes our constant thought, we think that continuing to court them is the only way to heal. Instead, it is the safest way to delay healing, which will only happen when you get tired of your own suffering and this sterile love, because it is unrequited, becomes boring to you.
This is the heart mail column edited for «7» by Massimo Gramellini. The 7 of Hearts is the card that indicates the second chance, the opportunity that presents itself again, the opportunity to complete something left unfinished. For us it is the invitation to start again, to set out to the rescue, accepting and supporting change.
In which direction? We want to help you choose it: write to [email protected]
