Dear Elsa,
I am in love very deeply with my best friend. We have an intense connection; he reads my very thoughts in detail. He is unlike no one else I have ever known; his every movement fascinates me.
My feelings have not waned for him in the slightest since I’ve known him, despite him telling me I feel more like family than someone he wants to date. I figured out recently that the reason I can’t let go is that he keeps pulling me in. I think, well, this isn’t going to happen, and he draws me back in closer until, for all intents and purposes, we are in a relationship, only without the label and the sex. He is uncomfortable with that topic in general for other reasons. It’s like he gets all the benefits of a relationship without the hassles or the responsibilities. I want so much to call him on it, but I don’t know how; I know he will be defensive and maybe angry. I can’t even tell if he’s doing this on purpose or he’s just that naive.
My intuition tells me he has cards he’s not playing, but I can’t tell what they are. He’s only been in one other relationship, and it was rocky and difficult; he may have no idea what he’s doing. I tried moving on, and am actually dating someone else. So now, of course, we go through trouble in our lives together and he’s closest of all, and seems to be using my dating as an excuse not to confront the new extra closeness. He knows I love him. I just don’t know what he wants from me, his actions don’t seem to match his words. He behaves differently toward me alone as opposed to among friends. He is much more formal in a group but even then, people notice we interact differently with each other than we do anyone else. Waitresses often split our group dinner checks incorrectly.
I know it’s not fair to myself to try to maintain this closeness under the guise of friendship when my very soul keeps getting sucked in, but to cut him off is to cut off an arm. I feel my whole life is stuck, my career, my heart, my health… I’m just floating. How do I sort this out?
Sagittarius Playing with Fire
Dear Sagittarius,
I have never seen someone who could diddle themselves this profoundly. Seriously. You’re 30 years old, and you’ve got a man who has never managed a relationship in his life. He tells you point blank he’s not interested in you, he has never touched you and yet here you are convinced every breath he takes is special… the rise and fall of his lovely chest sends you into the stratosphere! ::shakes head:: I don’t get it. You should have been a romance writer, but outside of that, there is nothing here.
For example, he’s not pulling you in. You’re going in and blaming him for your action. You can’t do something and hold another person responsible for it. Well you can, but it’s not going to get you anywhere.
Your intuition tells you he has cards he’s not playing. My intuition tells me he does not want to play cards with you or he’d being doing it, don’t you think?
And as for his getting benefits of a relationship without paying some phantom price for them… whose fault is that? Who is giving him the benefits so who should we blame?
I’m sorry. But there is nothing here but a bloated 5th house, Neptune-in-Sagittarius fantasy love affair you are having with yourself. And that’s your business, but it’s very hard to feel sorry for you. Because you aren’t stuck in this, you know. You are sticking yourself in this and there’s a big difference.
Good luck.
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God, Elsa, you’re so practical :-D. There are ambiguities in life sometimes, sometimes there are our fantasies. I was stuck in an ambiguous situation at least once. The guy played it completely passive so I could never really blame him for anything – it was only me doing whatever I was doing and feeling whatever I was feeling and thinking whatever I was thinking, right? But I had to know. I couldn’t decide if it was just my fantasy or if he was manipulating me. I was willing to accept it was just my fantasy, but then I saw it happen to other women around him. The guy was a very hurt Scorpio with Venus-Saturn and Mars-Saturn aspects and a very bitter relationship behind him. And he was manipulative alright. I confronted him about being manipulative in general and the asshole admitted he manipulated me – he didn’t want me, but he wanted me to chase him, so he would feel loved. He was passively seductive, so if you ended up having deep feelings for him it was your business – he didn’t do anything to encourage you, right? He was just friendly, VERY friendly, and he behaved like you were the most interesting person in the world and he had this body language. He wanted other women to chase him too. He also wanted to revenge his various past hurts in love and freindship and he was aiming at everyone around him – women, men, whatever. He was deeply insecure and he wanted to control everything and everyone because he was feeling so vulnerable. He just talked to me freely because I knew a few things about him and it made him think I know everything about him, so he just spilled the beans :-D. I haven’t seen him in years and he still tells people I know him inside out 😀
It doesn’t seem like the same type of situation as the Sagittarius lady describes. All I’m saying is that there are ambiguities – sometimes, maybe often, they are just our fantasies and the other person has nothing to with it, but I for one don’t like ambiguities, so I would want things to be decided one way or the other. Being stuck in love like that can put your whole life on hold. And losing the guy can be extremely painful. So one should decide if one wants a long term friendship in which you’re in love with the other person, but it will never turn into a relationship and you also wouldn’t fall in love with others because you are in love with him – so you would have a long term freindship, but no love and no relationship for who knows how long. Or if you’re willing to risk losing the guy altogether, which would be extremely painful, but might be necessary. If I was willing to risk that then I would tell him: Either or. I would tell him I want a relationship with him and friendship is not an option – it can either be that or you don’t see me again. And then it will go one way or the other, but then of course you have to be willing to accept that there is a very good chance it will go the other way and you will lose him altogether because he already said he doesn’t want a rlationship with you. But I think, as painful as it might be (and I know how painful it can be when you really believe it’s the love of your life), that is still better than being stuck. It’ll hurt very much and then it’ll heal and you’ll have a life, and you will also have love in your life since at some point your heart won’t be his anymore and you’ll be able to give it to another man.
I had a friend who was in a similar situation. She met this guy and he said he just wanted to be friends, so she told him it’s all or nothing and he chose nothing. But after some time he called her and it turned out he was scared and also experienced impotence which was why he avoided relationships. They worked it out and had a relationship and had sex too. So miracles do happen sometimes, but they are RARE. She just got lucky. In most cases if he chooses nothing it will be nothing, so it’s a huge risk. But if you’re really deeply in love with him and you stand no chance with him maybe it’s better this way, because it’s even harder getting over it with him being around all the time.
Had a similar relationship many years ago, was in love with the fantasy, with an imagined connection and at the end (after 4 wasted years!)just felt humiliated and annoyed with myself for living in la-la land. He was a user and i let myself be used. I have Pisces rising, neptune in 8th(both heavily aspected)and a stellium in 7th so i’m never gonna be completely removed from being in love with love and i totally understand what you mean by him ‘pulling you in’ but reality bites hard and at some point you will need to WAKE UP and realise that he’s just not sharing your dream. Abstinence is the way forward both physically & mentally, allow time to heal and focus on self love. Then hopefully the right partner will eventually come who you can share your dreams with. Neptune is the master of illusion/delusion and is hard to fight when you’re a sucker for the dream, it’ll play you like a violin, the music is beautiful but it can also break your heart.