making friends at cornell

RabbitHole
Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:40:22 +0000

Okay, wow… First lets start with, I’ve become to close to people and regretted it afterwards. If they have a level of emotional maturity, and you don’t want to completely remove them from your life, a simple conversation about monopolization of time and expanding social circles will usually work. Most guys I know, that have grown up, don’t really trip if a friend of theirs says “Hey man, we’re hanging out a lot lately. I think we need to spend a little less time together.”

Now all that being said, when you hook up with said friend and then decide you are spending too much time together it’s a different animal entirely (speaking from my experience in relationships with women, not sure if this would translate perfectly to a non-hetero relationship). When you cross that particular barrier with a “friend” and that friend still wants to spend gobs of time together (or worse, encourages continued hook-ups) you’re now involved with someone in a relationship. Might not be the traditional boyfriend-boyfriend thing but it’s still an emotional attachment (for at least one involved member).

At this point, be very gentle but firm, it’s no use trying to avoid hurt feelings because, if I’m reading this right, the feelings are already involved for him. If you don’t completely cut contact make sure you don’t continue hooking up (unless you spell out an explicit understanding with this person or don’t really care about their emotions there’s a good chance it will confuse things even worse). The longer you let it go the worse it will be.