A
male
age
36-40,
anonymous
writes:I am not sure what I am doing wrong but I always seem to get into unrequited love. And it drains me both emotionally and physically. I am in love with a woman currently but she sees me as a good friend and I have asked her a couple of times but she keeps telling me though she likes me a lot (which is true and she is not being patronizing), she is not in a position to make any commitment. The one before this ended up being a good friend as well except that I walked out on the friendship when she told me the only way I can make friends with people is by helping them. Yes, I go out of my way to help people. I spend a lot of time over my woman friend's needs and wants. I am not clingy or I don't get too emotional. I am a very nice guy with his heart and mind in the right place mostly. I am a decent looking guy with an athletic toned frame. But requited love just keeps eluding me. And each of these relationships, I end up spending a lot of time (over a year or so) and stay committed to them in a one sided relationship to see if it will work. They share all their life with me during this period, they even tell me when they are having their periods! I end up being a close girl friend to these women rather than being their man. And when they find someone, they just dump me as they know I have feelings for them. I just can't figure what I am doing wrong.
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reader, anonymous, writes (26 April 2010): The other two responses to this were spot on in my opinion. I'm the same type of guy that you are, the nice guy that used to always finish last. Hpoco mentioned the fact that you need to treat romantic interests different to how you treat friends this is very true.
Make your intentions clear from the beginning and find out where you stand as soon as possible, if it's not on move on, when a girl says she likes you but doesn't want commitment that means she doesn't like you enough to want to be with you. You can rationalize things by thinking she's just not ready, just out of a break up or something along those lines and then stay with her in the hope someday she'll come around but it rarely, if ever, works out like that and as you said it's gut wrenching torture hanging around seeing them hook up with other guys, while they tell you how much more you mean to them but don't want to spoil what you have by taking it to the next level.
You need to be more forward with someone you're interested in, being the nice guy is great but in my exerience women want to be swept away and that means you have to keep a certain emotional distance from them. Guillame made a good point that you're giving too much emotionally to them, you let them become close without introducing any romance at all until it's too late.
My current girlfriend marked the end of my 'mr nice guy' syndrome. We knew each other pretty well but I maintained a certain degree of distance from her, we were casual friends but not to the degree that we would divulge deep personal stuff to each other. Now I always fancied her but she always seemed to be dating someone. A few months after her ex left, we started to talk more often but each step of the way I made sure that she knew my interest was romantic by flirting, taking her out for one on one dates and being physically affectionate with her.
I still consider myself a nice guy I just made sure the romantic stuff coincided with becoming her friend too. If there was no romantic interest on her part I wouldn't have carried on getting to know to her well.
Learn how to keep emotional distance and learn how to go in for "the kill". The friendzone is horrible, torturous and ruins self belief and confidence. Move on.
A
female
reader, hpoco  +, writes (26 April 2010):
 Maybe you need to make some distinctions between how you treat friends, and how you treat women you are interested in. For example: with a friend, you don't mind hearing about other guys in their lives that they are interested in, with a woman you are interested in, you should tell her "I don't want hear about that, I like you too much to listen to that".
That is just one example, but the main idea is to create different behavior patterns. I know I have been in "friendships" with guys like you, I think. And the thing that makes it confusing, in my opinion, is that you are equally nice to everyone, (or at least I believed thats how it was). So, I never knew I was really special, I just assumed that my "friends" were extremely nice guys. Nice to everyone, and exactly as nice to me.
Some discrimination is necessary in your relationships with women. You should be much nicer to some and less nice to others, when you are in the dating world. Otherwise your cues get mixed up, and women think you will like anyone who likes you. No one wants that, relationships are supposed to be somewhat unique. You have to show women that you reject some and pursue others.
Hope none of this sounded harsh. Good luck to you!
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