When Your Long Distance Friend Doesn't Want a Relationship

My best friend (cis m) and I (cis f) met online in March and flirted heavily throughout the day via text message. He literally lives on the other side of the globe and there's an 11-hour time difference between us but we still talk to each other twice a day. We had an opportunity to meet over the summer and had 10 glorious days of touching, kissing, and incredible love making (we had both been touch and sex starved so we couldn't keep our hands and lips apart).

He returned home and we've been best friends ever since then, knowing we will probably never meet in real life again. At one point I thought I was in love with him because of the intimacy we share. I confessed and he admitted the feelings are not reciprocated. I didn't even cry over it. After some soul searching I realised I'm not in love with HIM, but more the idea of him. We managed to muddle through it and we're still besties.

He has started dating, and while I'm supportive of him because I cannot physically provide him the sexual relationship I want him to have, I find that I'm jealous. Not of the women he's dating per se, but of something he has: He's getting on with his sex life. After 2 decades of monogamous, he's investigating non-monogamy, more like sex with several women at the same time. 

I am not dating due to mental health issues and past trauma is making it difficult for me to ask for what I want. Before we met, I was active in a swinging community and that came to an end due to divorce and geographical change. I tried to introduce the idea to him but having never been exposed to that lifestyle, he was curious but reserved.

After reading your book I can safely identify as solo-poly but I live in a small village in the middle of nowhere so my dating prospects are limited.   I had someone suggest we sound like we're in a poly relationship and I don't think he agrees. I dropped the bomb on him and was met with "that's interesting." I'm assuming you can't tell someone that they're poly, so I don't know what to do here. I feel like I'm about to ruin a great friendship and I don't know what to do.

You're not in a polyamorous relationship because of this line here:

I confessed and he admitted the feelings are not reciprocated.

You're not in any kind of relationship because he is not interested in you. It is not a matter of him being monogamous or polyamorous. He didn't say he wasn't interested in a relationship with you because of monogamy. He flat out told you that he did not have those kinds of feelings for you. It's possible you didn't cry over it because you're not allowing yourself to actually face that reality.

I think you latched onto the idea of polyamory because it's the perfect solution to this problem you have. You had this online relationship that was mostly online, then you met and it was fantastic because it usually is in this case, then it went back online and he didn't feel like the feelings were the same in terms of having any deep love for you. I think in your head, you didn't accept that. And I see myself in what you've written.

My first ever relationship was long distance and it was one of the most impactful relationships in my life. I had come from a pretty difficult background and this was one of the first times I had ever experienced love in a way that wasn't tied to someone I had to care for or who relied on me. He was actually an ex of a friend and I had only intended on chatting with him, but we bonded pretty quickly and had really great chemistry and I fell pretty swiftly and pretty hard. It only lasted for a summer, but it was intense and it was incredibly important and healing for me. 

I had just graduated high school and he was a year away from graduating himself. He promised he would wait for me and we made it official and I was over the moon. When I went to college, he had some sort of intense family experience and he said he couldn't wait for me. I was devastated, but I still kept waking up at 3am to see if he would ever be online. We never arranged a regular time to meet because I would just force myself to be up at 3am so I could be there in case he was online.  Apologies to any of my dorm neighbors that I woke up with my 3am alarm.

Because our relationship was not in person, when he got a new girlfriend, I was not bothered. I acknowledged verbally that she existed, but I still loved him and I still told him so. For all intents and purposes, nothing changed about our relationship for me. But everything changed for him. When he finally asked me to stop telling him that I loved him because he was falling for this new girl and it was making him feel bad, my world kinda cracked in two and I had no other choice but to reckon with the fact that this was mostly happening in my head.

At the time I asked him, in one last desperate attempt to save this, if he would break up with her and date me when it was time for him to graduate (which was hugely unfair, but I didn't know any better) and he said no, it was pretty devastating. I got incredibly angry and I couldn't speak to him for a year. I said things to him when he would reach out to check in on me that I regret till this day. Over time, I was able to be okay.

Things got better and we're more or less friends now. I think part of me will always hold a little bit of a flame for him because of how much that relationship meant to me, but I have had to be real with myself both when we were "just friends" and now that... we were close then but we're not now. I wish even now we could have that connection and intimacy we once had. I don't even need for us to be together. But it's over now and he, for whatever reason, is not interested in that.

It hurts when this happens, but when things are online, it's a hell of a lot easier to ignore the reality that's in front of you. You may be polyamorous. Had the situation for me played out differently. I could have been fine with him dating us both, even if it would have begun as just me trying to avoid losing him in my life. But I know how easy it is to be "okay" with a digital breakup and continue on like everything is exactly the same.

And I gently want to suggest that this is what you might be doing now. Especially since you are so isolated and this connection has meant so much to you. He is not going to reciprocate your feelings. Even if you are both polyamorous, he has already given you his answer. And the right thing to do for him and for yourself is to accept it and move on.

Take some time away from him, maybe. Give yourself some distance so that you can stop the intensity of everything for a while. Join some polyamory communities or any other communities online or spend some time even locally just volunteering. Find some other people whom you can have any other connections with so you don't feel so tied to this. Come back to this later on when you've had a chance and see how you feel. I genuinely think that would help you feel better.

I hope this helps and good luck.