How can I stop liking someone I like?

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah I guess that is true.

Suppressing the feelings won't work. Will likely end up making you feel worse.
Not acting, again, the whole bottling things up tends to ultimately backfire, at times severely.
Finding someone else? Possibly. More likely if something comes out of it. If nothing comes out of it, you've merely moved from having feelings towards one person that are frustrating to having the same feelings for a different person

While the advice of cutting off all contact isn't bad, it also doesn't always work. The feelings might not dissipate, or they could come back just as strongly as before if the other person contacts you. Isn't always easy to prevent them from contacting you. If they really want to, for whatever reason, they will likely find a way.

Acting, well, of course there's risk involved. If they're friends, it could get awkward. Even if you were to ask, and they were to say no, and you were to say that's fine, things would be different. Maybe not in a negative way, but most likely different, to some degree or another.

If there's a method with a 100% success rate, if anyone knows it they need to post it. Sooner rather than later.

You could show up naked to their house. They would be all like "omg, a box!"

I'm gonna sugguest that you tell them outright how you feel.

seriously what's the harm in doing that? of course this is coming from me, who took a long time to admit to the girl that I would like to date her, and of course two weeks before the end of school..................anyhow.

I can see one of only two options. option one being that the one who knows you're a lesbian won't mind and will still want to be friends with you, while the other one who doesn't know you that well, will want some time to think about it. Option Two: You tell them and they won't ever speak to you again. Option two could happen if these people are totally homophobic, but if one is understanding and accepting.....then I'd say that Option One has a good if not great viablity.

Haha! I don't think I'll be trying that though...

Given how I'm in pretty much the exact same situation at the moment with a gay girl who I count as one of my best friends, I have to say... getting it out of your system will be easier if you really, truly get it out of your system, whether by actively telling them or going out of your way to find another potential object of desire. When I first realised how much I liked my friend (this was before she realised she was a lesbian), I tried to make the feelings go away by ignoring them, and not pursuing the idea of trying to establish a relationship with her - purely because I was so utterly sure that if I said something to that effect, I'd frighten her away. This was not healthy, and only served to make me depressed and miserable; bottling stuff up is probably the worst thing you can do. When we met up again this past weekend, it still hurt like hell knowing that I will never have the relationship I continue to so desperately want to have with her, but I value her friendship enough to focus on that aspect instead.

So: if you know these two girls will never reciprocate, then you have to consider whether you want to remain friends with them. If you think their friendship is valuable enough to warrant potential heartache, then you should do what you can to keep it going until the fire dies. Unrequited love is wretched, there's no two ways about it, but throwing away a close friendship just to make it go away is a drastic measure.

Last edited by MrSinister on 14 May 2007, 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Realise that the feelings are detrimental and let them run their course.

I also think that is a real risk, even without any trace of homophobia. The problem is that most people really hate a situation in which someone else feels more strongly about any kind of relationship (in the broad sense of the word) with them. They then feel under pressure to reciprocate and resent the pressure if they can't reciprocate. This can happen even if you really don't want to put them under pressure. In my experience, it also applies to any kind of relationship. Love or sex don't have to come into it. The way most people deal with this situation is to evade the issue, usually by avoiding the person who feels so strongly about them.

That problem should be less likely if you say outright that a straight "No thanks, I'm not interested" would help you get the notion out of your mind and make it easier to maintain the friendship you have. If you make clear that an honest answer is better for you than not being sure, you have a better chance of getting that answer. But to make this work, your saying that a "No" is better than the current situation really has to be true. Would it be true in your case?

Even if you prefer a "no" over uncertainty, not everyone can cope with a straight question and give a straight answer. Treasure the people who can do this at all, and go easy on them. Just because you once persuaded someone to take the risk of being honest, doesn't mean you should make a habit of asking them emotionally charged questions where they think the honest answer will disappoint or hurt you. That is not easy on most people, and can put a serious strain even on a close friendship.

Gromit

Just hate yourself every time you're thinking about them in the slightest hint of more then friendship.
It worked for me with 2 girls/friends

That can backfire spectacularly, though. Do it too much, and it becomes almost like an addiction, a perpetual state of mind that becomes the norm rather than an occasional occurence.

yeah.

and someone check what I said. I think my idea sounds a bit reasonable.

If you find out, let me know.
I've always had crushes I don't want to have / can't fulfill.
One somewhat popular method is to finally just tell the person, in a non-pressuring, light-hearted way. Confronting your internal crush with its external counterpart (i.e. the person themself) sometimes helps put your obsession in its proper perspective. Sometimes this is painful, other times not.

Maybe you could do an activity that requires a lot of concentration each time you think about them in a sexual way , or think about something completely non-sexual that requires concentration (a difficult maths problem, maybe).
Don't end the friendships, good friends are always valuable.
I don't know about telling them - it would get it off your chest but it could be uncomfortable even if they're not homphobic, it could be awkward when 2 people want different things out of a relationship.

I'd probably recommend the above: there's no real point in shadowing people if you have feelings for them if the relationship isn't going to go anywhere. But, in saying this as one person is aware of your sexuality, and the other isn't depending on the nature of your "like" (not sure of the degree when you use that word) it might be worth telling the one that is aware of your sexuality, the nature of your feelings first.

She can do one of three things: you get together, you don't get together but she reacts well, or she could react badly. If she reacts badly ... not sure if the two friends know each other .. but she may well tell the other. If she reacts ok, the friendship's not goosed and you know where you stand.

My thinking is that you could easily get a homophobic reaction from the other friend .. and that's something you may want to take slowly until you're on a level you can trust her with that knowledge.

Best wishes ... it's bad enough being AS-like and heterosexual - I dare say that the homosexual male is perhaps more open too. [Though at one time, my psychiatrist did say "you might want to consider becoming gay"] !

You could give me their phone numbers.

In retrospect that wasn't as funny as I thought it would be.