Laura Jane Williams: Hears The Dreaded ‘Let’s Be Friends’ Line…

As quickly as things hotted up with The Sexy Geek – the guy I was set up with through a mutual friend – they went, just as suddenly, ice cold. One day, the man who’d been texting me non-stop for 10 days simply stopped. Mates tried to tell me I was reading too much into it, but my instinct told me I wasn’t wrong: he’d lost interest. Boom. Just like that.

I spent three more days mentally raking over our last date, desperately searching for rhyme and reason. I felt I’d let myself down, but wasn’t sure how. And, to be really honest, I felt incredibly embarrassed that there has been this string of blokes, all with such strong starts, who decided, for whatever reason, didn’t work out after all. The common denominator here is me. ‘What am I doing wrong?’ I sobbed to anyone who would listen. How am I the only person not getting this right?

Finally, once I’d given up, telling myself that now really is the time to take a dating break, he texted: ‘I think this is more just a friend thing.’ I hadn’t heard from him since a few nights earlier, when he’d half-heartedly suggested when he was next free to meet up, but danced around firming up any concrete plans.

I think he’d known then he just wanted to be friends. I couldn’t understand why he hadn’t just said so. I took 10 minutes to breathe then replied, ‘I thought so. You went very cold very fast. Did I... Did I do something wrong?’ I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask.

‘No! Not at all! It’s just how I’m feeling. I think you’re AWESOME and lots of fun. I really would like to be friends.’

‘OK,’ I sent back, ‘well that’s obviously fair enough. No hard feelings. But. Can I tell you something...?’

‘?’

@superlativelylj

‘Well. Dating’s fun, but sometimes it feels serious because it makes us vulnerable. And sometimes we’re clumsy with people because nobody knows what the hell they’re doing, but going suddenly off-radar, when we’ve been in contact every night since we met, made me feel really, really crappy. And I’m telling you because the next girl shouldn’t feel that way EVER. So. Don’t do that to her. Even if you’re feeling weird about if you wanna see her again. If you want to be friends, then that’s my friendly advice.’

I could see him texting a reply almost right away. It popped up: ‘It does make us clumsy, and you’re right. Sorry if I made you feel crappy. I really didn’t mean to.’

He reiterated again that he’d like to spend some more time together. ‘You have such wise words!’ he told me. I had to admit that, though it stung he didn’t want to put his ‘p’ in my ‘v’ – that he didn’t fancy me – we did get along famously. Hanging out with him, even on only a few dates, made me want to step into a kinder version of myself. We laughed together. Learned from each other. And that sounds like a lovely friendship to me.

‘OK,’ I typed back. ‘Let’s try this friends thing.’

Read Laura Jane's column each week in Grazia magazine

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