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Dear Male Bestie, Please! Do Not Catch Feelings



Photo: thoughtcatalog.com

I grew up in the company of two impish boys and a father sometimes I wished I could vanquish to a far away Island. At school, I enjoyed the company of guys better than my fellow girlfriends. It was something about the freedom I felt when I was with them. The freedom to be myself because, well, guys, they don’t really give a hoot about things.

I would choose hanging out with a guy over a girl any day because it was less dramatic and there was no silent competitions. Then I had my first boy best friend. He was really cute, fun, a lot like me. We were doing great, until oneday he told me he ‘liked liked’ me. 

I thought “But I only wanted a bestie in you. Someone I could share my pringles with without things getting intense. 

I could never think of us the same way again.

“Can women really be best friends with guys without the latter catching feelings and thus, making everything weird and complicated?”


Photo: thoughtcatalog.com
After my bestie relationship failed, rather miserably, it dawned on me that perhaps men and women are not designed to co-exist in a non-sexual way. That no matter what, there was bound to be some emotional slips with either one party, mostly the guy, catching feelings.

I became guarded with the opposite sex and was, maybe unconsciously even hard on guys whose company I enjoyed, somewhat as a mechanism to prevent them from falling for me. My intention was (is) to protect the beautiful friendship we have going.

I am not easily understood with this ‘protective’ attitude, and quite frankly, I myself am not exactly sure which one of us I’m protecting.

I don’t know how one can explain to a male friend they care about that “Hey, I am being this way because I don’t want you to catch feelings for me” or that “mostly my walls are high up because I don’t want to ruin a beautiful thing we have going,” without them sounding cocky and selfish.
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Comments

  1. Wow3 October 2016 at 08:15

    i can relate paaaaaa... i've even ended up being called boyfriend snatcher and all but when the tables also turned round it made me also understand how it feels like so yhup i also got my walls high so i dont catch or you dont catch like we both dont catch feelings for each other

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown3 October 2016 at 08:50

    hahahahha, i think i can also relate to this, the point however is that, whoever wants to keep you as a bestie, likes u undoubtedly but cant date u for one or two reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Benjamin Addo-Mensah12 June 2017 at 13:03

    The key is to just come out and say it when it gets overwhelming and then you get it over with. Never to think about it again.

    ReplyDelete

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