She wants to be just friends
Julie Spira is a best-selling author, cyber-dating expert, and radio show host. She is the author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online and hosts the weekly radio show, “Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert”. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com where singles and couples can share their online dating stories.
Reader question #1: She wants to be “just friends”
I was dating a girl for 3 months and she suddenly told me that she wanted to focus on her career right now and that she just wasn’t prepared to get serious.
I thought things were going well between us, but she said that she just wants to be friends for now.
Can you please tell me what’s going on here? Is it possible I did something to turn her off? I’m 28, she’s 26 and we both have great jobs and make good money, so we had a great time together. Sometimes she paid, sometimes I did, but I don’t think that’s a factor.
We had sex for the first time one week before she left me. Could that be it?
Please help.
Dirk
Dating expert, Julie Spira’s answer:
Hi Dirk,
The famous “let’s be friends” conversation. It happens to us all at some point in our romantic history. Three months into a relationship is the critical time where you either move forward to a steadier and exclusive arrangement or it fizzles out.
When you are in your 20s, having a career focus is a priority. However, if the conversation happened shortly after the first time you had sex, she might have been disappointed. Perhaps the chemistry wasn’t there for her under the sheets.
Telling someone you want to be friends only after being intimate is either a kind way of letting you down or a way to keep the door open in case her options don’t work out with another potential beau.
My suggestion is to move on. Find someone who, after the honeymoon period is over, is just as excited if not more in spending time with you in months 3 to 6, as she was in the first three months. If your girl comes crawling back, you just might not be available for her anymore.
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