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Readers, you may offer your advice in the comments to our next questioneer, A Confused Girl:
I have a close male friend who has recently started displaying signals that he wants to take our friendship to the next level, but I’m not interested because I don’t want to ruin the friendship with him.
I’ve tried to make it clear to him and he has definitely toned down the flirting lately, so that’s good, but he keeps buying me things!
I’ve been unemployed for many months now and he’s been a great friend in helping me out of financial jams, but now the things he’s paying for me are just becoming too much!
Honestly, I can’t say that I’m not enjoying his gifts but I feel really guilty!
How do I tell my friend that he’s becoming far too generous without suggesting that I think he’s trying to bribe me into bed with him?
Here’s an idea: STOP ACCEPTING HIS GIFTS. Uncomfortable feelings of obligation, over!
As an aside: when somebody says they don’t want to get together with somebody lest they ‘ruin the friendship’, they should be honest and revise that statement to ‘because really I don’t fancy him/her’. Right?
August 9, 2012 at 2:45 pm |
As always, the answer is XKCD: http://xkcd.com/513/
Just say you’re uncomfortable with him buying you things and while you’re very grateful for his help, you’d rather he stopped. Keep it simple. If tries to press things on you, that’s not respectful of how you feel.