- Date posted
- 13h
Relationship OCD about a friend. Need advice
Ok...so I need help navigating a relationship I have. I met this guy in trade school bc he kept following me around to talk to me and so we became friends and we kept in contact after leaving the school. He occasionally visits for a few hours maybe a few times a year and most of our interactions are over text. That's essentially all the necessary background. 2 problems 1. This person once had feelings for me, which I did not return because I just didn't feel the same way. He jokingly called me cruel because of it and one of my loved ones even joked that I was racist for rejecting him. Now I can't stop thinking about those things, even though I'm 80% sure they weren't serious. I know I'm not cruel for not having caught feelings for him, and I was extremely careful to let him down as gently as possible and as soon as possible so as not to give false hope. I also know that his race was not the reason I didn't catch feelings. Regardless, these comments still stick in my head. 2. This person is draining to me unintentionally. Our senses of humor kind of clash and our conversations are stiff and awkward because we have little in common and can rarely find things to talk together about that aren't sad or about our relationships with people who treated us poorly. It doesn't feel natural even after years of talking. He doesn't seem to understand me half the time but will pretend to and I've noticed I avoid starting conversations with him when we're not in person, so neither of us are perfect to one another. Major views of ours are also conflicting as well, as in, I am not exactly accepted around this person as a non-binary person, and this person defends those who want my rights taken from me. This is political, and I don't like to break relationships over politics, but it ads this undercurrent of tension. This person is also often taking risks and getting into accidents, so even more stress there in worrying about his safety. Every time we talk, I feel a pit of anxiety in my stomach and I worry I'll hear of another accident. I have trouble understanding him and he has trouble understanding me as well. We both struggle to communicate with frequent misunderstandings and I'm unsure why. It stresses me out when I struggle to read his meanings and tone and because of that, I particularly misunderstand him a lot, especially over text. His levels of sarcasm and irony are often too advanced for me to interpret and so I don't know when he's joking vs when he's serious vs when he's upset. Because I have so much trouble telling his emotions and he's not the type of person you really open up to about stuff like that, it's hard to navigate so I get very stressed and anxious never knowing if my responses are socially appropriate to the mood of the conversation. This is really frustrating, because from what it seems, he's a great person and there is no reason why we shouldn't be friends. He's different from me and interesting and tells great stories that make for thoughtful conversations to follow, yet I often wish he would never contact me because of the stress, and that he would not like to visit me or leave sooner, and that makes me feel really evil and a terrible friend. Right now I feel like I'm talking behind his back too. It feels bad. And now my OCD wants to tell me that not only am I a bad friend and person for this, but also racist, because a friend put that idea in my head after I rejected his romantic advance. Idk how to feel about this and what to do moving forward. Why does being friends with him stress me out so much? I only ever felt this way with one other person, but that was in highschool, and because the person was extremely high energy and extroverted while I'm very much not. This guy is not as extremely extroverted. Just a risk-taker who likes to poke fun a lot and confuse people for giggles. Idk. I want to stay friends because he's done nothing wrong, and he's a good guy, but it's draining and overwhelming.