Dear You

Dear Friend-Zone

Dear You,

Well, here we are. Back to another hard letter; and what a can of worms this is. You may or may not know, but feelings are almost more tangled and complicated with someone in the friend-zone than they ever could be with a crush, current or former. Friend-zones are hard because you feel guilty, and regretful, and You almost start to like the person even less. Life becomes awkward, and nobody ever just says what they think. I will right now, though. Try explaining this letter to the guy in the Friend-Zone.

Dear Friend-Zone,

Ugh. What do I have to say to you? 

To be honest, yes, I have started trying to avoid you. I don't want you to think I hate you, so I don't want to ignore you, but it seems like every time we have a conversation you like me even more. That doesn't sound like a bad thing at all, and I guess it's not really; but it is a bad thing because you like me in a different way.

I like you, but not like that. I like you as a person, a friend, but never more than that. You are nice, but I don't want to date you. I know that that must be really hard to hear. I can imagine hearing it from my own crush, and it breaks my heart. I'm sorry for breaking yours. The worst part is that it's not your fault.

"It's not you, it's me." That sounds terrible, but it's true. You are a lovely person, but you are not right for me. You aren't. And I know I'm not right for you, even if you disagree. We can stand each other enough to be friends, talking every once and a while, smiling as we pass each other in the hallways, but we would be an incompatible couple. I can't even give you very many reasons why, but we would be. I also know you disagree, which sucks. Sorry.

I truly am sorry. I never wanted to say any of this. I think this whole letter is hardest for me because I don't want to hurt you. That's just it. We're friends, and friends don't hurt friends. This letter also hurts because I feel guilty writing it. You're a good person, and my reasons for rejecting you aren't obvious to you or a lot of our friends. I feel guilty not having good reasons, because it seems like I should have really good reasons if I ever did anything to hurt a friend.

I'm bad at dealing with this complex web of feelings. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is. There's no good solution. Whatever I do, someone, or multiple someones, will be hurt somehow, and life becomes awkward. That's why I've been ignoring you. Again, I know it's an awful excuse, but it's all I have. I can't think of any better way out of this than to just stop everything.

I have to keep my distance, otherwise I will just feel awkward and guilty whenever I'm near you; and who knows what you're thinking when you're near me. I'm sorry Friend-Zone, but I'm doing all I can. I know there's more to say, but I'll save that for another time. We've both relived enough emotional trauma for today.

Guilty as charged, -Me