Are you stuck in the Friend Zone?

Get out of the habit of unrequited love

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Dear Philippa,

I am 30 years old and have a habit of creating surrogate girlfriend experiences for my single male friends while wanting to be with them in a proper relationship and without ever letting them know. This has happened a couple of times now and in the last case, was brave enough to tell them after a long time and was shot down and have lost that friendship now. I can sense it is happening again now with my close friend and flatmate. He has recently started dating someone else and it has made me realise that a) our current relationship is too much and crossing lines that a new person probably would find a bit weird and b) it's making with upset and sick with anxiety when he goes out. We are very close and while have never kissed, hug all the time and pay each other a lot of attention. Other friends have commented that we will end up together and why haven’t we slept together yet but both of us have never spoken to each other about it, in my case for fear of rejection and losing the friendship. This is problem number one and I presume that I need to move out and move on because I really don’t think I can bear to bring it up. Adjacent to that, do I carry on the same with him or create a bit more of a friendship boundary in our friendship? Problem number two is that this is very common for me and I hate dating so often fall for my friends who I create a sort of surrogate girlfriend relationship with while they continue to have sex with others outside of this. It’s happened too many times now to be a coincidence and I wonder why I do this and seem unable to make a step into telling them or why they don’t see me in that way.

(I have a very good relationship with my father!)

Help, I can't seem to break the cycle.

Thanks

The Answer