My best friend is a guy, he's always been a little weird but I've always thought he was the most fun person in the room anywhere we went. My other friends and our families both think we're together but I never really thought about him that way too much since we grew up together and it just feels weird to see him as a man I could be with instead of as my friend I've known all my life.

Recently I went out on a date that kinda sucked and I was telling my guy friend about it and he asked me if I'd go out with him, and started telling me how he likes me and it just felt so fucking weird I couldn't even say anything. Like I started looking at him and I guess it took staring to notice but I did kinda notice some of the ways he's good looking but it's still just really weird to consider being with him and I told him I need a little while to just process just everything.

My mom and my friends are NOT being helpful because they talk to me with the assumption being I'm going to starting seeing him as in like. Seeing him for real and not as a friend. I don't know that I will though, because it just feels like a huge deal that he's apparently felt this way for years and I thought we were both on the same page just being friends.

If I'm going to try being with him, I need it to stop feeling weird. If I'm not going to try seeing him like as in dating then I need to do make the rejection gentle. Can anyone help? I am entirely willing to take drugs if it helps.

>>33232652 (OP)
To clarify I'm just saying like if doing a bunch of weed to clear my mind is a good idea I can do that. I can't get or do anything crazy though because my cousin is my dealer and he won't get me anything cooler than weed.

>>33232652 (OP)
Happened to me even though any time my family or his talked like we were to marry one day I always said don't talk stupid, this in front of him sometimes.

Well that didn't work. OP nothing you can say or do will stick. He might say no problem but it is there in his head you are the one and all he must do is wait you out.
The only gentle way is to slowly but steadily back away from him. Stop sharing everything and stop listening to him about everything. Stop going places with him alone. I promise you no guy you start to date will hang around you long with this vibe in the room. All family and friends already have you married to him and you have him central to your life. He needs to be the sideshow not the feature.

The only relationships available to men and women are either romance, or casual friendship, nothing in between. You step too far in the middle and you'll end up on one side eventually.

It's biology. Friendship between men exists because we need to co-operate to push society forward and fight wars. Friendship between men and women is, evolutionarily speaking, a losing strategy. Because it's time wasted, you're not courting a women to produce offspring, and you're not pushing society forward either. In other words people who are capable of true friendship between the 2 genders, are outcompeted and disappear. The only humans left, are the ones who "caught feels" eventually.

This is my headcanon anyways

>>33232652 (OP)
sounds like he was too serious/needy. if you were a good friend youd help him work on that shit game w someone else

>>33232652 (OP)
It's kinda weird you guys didn't do sexual stuff with each other. My best female friend since childhood and I were the first penis/vagina we both saw and have had sex together at various times, usually when we broke up with our bf/gf we would hang out and have sex with each other.

Now to be fair we never "dated" officially, it was always just opportunistic sex. So she got married and we're still friends, no big deal. If you commit to each other and then break up, that might ruin things for the future.

>>33232652 (OP)
>I need to make the rejection gentle
That's not going to happen femanon, your pre-confession relationship is gone and it will never come back, and if you reject him he is going to give you a lot of space and likely start spending his time and energy on other (female) people, he won't hate you, but he's not going to be the bestie you can hang out alone with for hours anymore, that's over either way. Also it's not fair and it's not his fault or your fault but there's likely to be some substantial fallout in your social circle, any time you have any dating or man difficulties from now until forever everyone will be snippy with you for throwing a "perfect" relationship away.

So "weird" aside is there any actual reason you wouldn't want to date this guy? Is he lazy, ugly, smelly, any of that? Clearly you enjoy spending extended periods of time with him if you consider him a best friend, it sounds like he cares about you and your family and friends also seem to like him and think you'd be a good fit, that's not a 100% endorsement but it's a green flag that everyone who cares about you seems to be rooting for the relationship. Personally I'd say at least date him for a few weeks to see if it works out, if it doesn't then at the very least you can tell all the naysayers that you just weren't a good fit.

Guys only befriend girls for sex, especially weird guys. Sorry femanon, it's the truth.

>>33235121
>is there any actual reason you wouldn't want to date this guy?
Because he's not Chad, that's why. He's her weirdo fat friend who orbits around OP and gives her free shit because that's what friends do apparently.