Dating : Dear Frustrated Gay Boy… Love, Morning Glory

Dear Morning Glory,

I have had a crush on an acquaintance/friend of mine since the day we met 5 years ago. At first, I was sure my feelings were reciprocated, but we worked together at the time, and crossing the boundary would have been complicated at best, and devastating at worst.

Since then, we no longer work together, but we live in the same small town, and I’m privy to all of his romantic endeavors through our mutual friends’ gossiping. But now, he definitely no longer acts interested, and I read into every possible interaction hoping to find something to hold onto. For example, we are both on Goodreads, and he’ll send me a message once or twice a year referencing the books I’m reading. Soooo obviously he’s secretly in love with me, right?! In attempting to flirt with him while we were messaging once, I said “Is this your way of asking me to dinner? If yes, I accept.” And to this day… three years later… he never responded, and we just moved on with our lives pretending like it never happened.

I want to ask him about it and ask him if he ever was interested in the beginning like I felt sure of, and if he was, what happened since then. Why did he lose interest? But I don’t know how to go about initiating that conversation or if it’s even worth it. What do you think?

Frustrated Gay Boy

Dear Frustrated Gay Boy,

First I want to address the readers and let them know that you and I are friends in real life.

When I told Frustrated Gay Boy that I was thinking about starting a love advice column despite being 0% qualified in any way to do so (I’m not a therapist or a sociologist or even in a relationship let alone a happy and healthy one. (Yet!) My only qualification is that I have opinions that I’m not afraid to share with the world, especially if they’re anonymous), he graciously volunteered to be my first advisee.

Now.

Think about individuals that you may have had crushes on, but no longer do. What was your reasoning behind losing interest? It’s very possible your crush was totally into you 5 years ago, but now isn’t — for any reason. And does it really matter? The end result is the same — he’s not interested now. Let’s say that you ask him straight up “Were you interested in me 5 years ago?” and he says “Yup, sure was,” and then you ask “Well, why aren’t you anymore?” and he gives you a reason. What will you do with that reason? Will you create a rebuttal? Try to talk him out of it? Whatever his reason for not asking YOU out, or not responding to your question, “Are you asking me to dinner?” with a “Hell yes!” has been strong enough for him to not act for 5 years.

Perhaps that hurts and makes your ego want to curl up in a little ball and die. BUT I want to share a personal story that might make you feel better.

I too once had a crush. And we did end up going on a date that I thought went extraordinarily well. And then I didn’t hear from him. I asked him out a few more times and he either said “No” outright, or he agreed and then would cancel last minute. I gave up on it and felt terribly about myself. What went wrong? What did I say? Why isn’t he interested anymore?

Then he resurfaced almost a year later. He sent me a message on social media asking me out. I agreed, intrigued, and then he cancelled last minute the night of our date. This happened a few more times until drunkenly I confronted him (via text) and said “Dude! What is your deal?!” To make a long story, short… at the end of our text fight, we agreed to have sex. (So obviously our text fight went really well.) But guess what. He didn’t fucking show. He stood me up for a booty call. What. The. Fuck.

I told him I was humiliated and that I wasn’t going to speak to him again… but of course, my ego couldn’t handle it, and I texted him when I was high a few weeks later demanding answers. At the end of our text fight, it was 2 in the morning and he was standing on my front porch waiting for me to invite him in.

I did.

And, Frustrated Gay Boy, it was the worst hookup of my entire life. No exaggeration. It was the absolute worst. It was SO bad that the next day I texted my ex-boyfriend, “Are you too high, drunk, resentful, or proud to come fuck me right now?” just to get the phantom feel of my crush’s dick out of my vagina. (My ex responded, “I am none of those things. See you in 20.” God bless him.)

My former crush and I have literally not spoken AT ALL since that night. And I learned the valuable lesson that if a crush is not showing interest… believe that they know something that you don’t. In my case, my crush knew that he was deficient in the sexing department, and I truly believe that was why he kept backing out of dates and a full-on booty call before we hooked up. He knew. He knew it was going to be horrible and that we wouldn’t speak again. I should have just listened to is disinterest in the first place.

So, Frustrated Gay Boy, my advice in a nutshell is… just be your crush’s friend. There are other crushes to be had. Trust that whatever his reason for not being interested is a legitimate one, one that maybe you don’t understand. And if someday that reason no longer becomes legitimate and you two find yourself in a romantic situation, then ask him about it then. But for now, tell your ego that it is okay to not have all the answers. It’s okay for people to not reciprocate your feelings or to change their minds about their feelings. It’s probably not personal, and even if it is, would you really want to change something about yourself in order to accommodate your crush? I hope your answer is “No.”

And now when you find yourself on the side where your feelings changed about someone or someone is frustrated that you don’t reciprocate their feelings, maybe you’ll be more inclined to be very upfront and honest about your reasons. All you can do is lead by example and be the change you wish to see in the world. Good luck and be kind.

Love,

Morning Glory