New friendship takes asexual turn

DEAR AMY » I’m at a complete loss right now.

I am an asexual person in my late30s. I am in a fiveyear relationship and am currently in school pursuing a degree.

About six weeks ago, another adult classmate of mine started pursuing a friendship with me (he has a wife and children). We’ve become really close during that time.

We talk about our feelings, hopes, dreams, fears, etc., and there has been an amazing level of what I thought was honest and healthy communication.

Recently, he caught me off guard with a conversation about how “this relationship will never be anything but platonic” and “we can’t be anything more than friends.”

I know. I was never after anything else.

Amy, I feel like I just got dumped and that really stinks because I’ve been very careful to monitor my friendship with him and not ever push it because I didn’t want him getting the wrong idea.

It just hurts, because I don’t make friends easily, and I don’t know how to fix this.

I don’t even know if I can fix it.

I guess I just need a little help seeing the light. My head knows that I didn’t actually do anything wrong, but my heart isn’t getting that message.

— Adrift

DEAR ADRIFT » I hope my take on this will help to illuminate things for you.

You did nothing wrong. He did nothing wrong.

You have not been dumped. You have been confronted — very awkwardly — with the conflicted thoughts and feelings of a man who (it’s quite possible) cannot fathom having an emotionally intimate friendship without it becoming sexual.

My theory is that your friend has jumped into this close friendship, which doesn’t hew to the usual playbook of his other friendships (with men), where he exchanges greetings and sports scores for several years, before moving on to more personal topics, like the weather.

(I realize this is an extreme exaggeration of the stereotype but bear with me.)

Do you remember the juvenile “comeback” from childhood: “I know you are, but what am I?”

He is now asserting — way too emphatically — that he is not and never will be attracted to you, because his previous experiences with friendship have not prepared him for a unique friendship without a sexual component.

The fact that he might actually be attracted to you is another dilemma for another day.

Talk about it!

DEAR AMY » You are so wrong again. “Confused” wondered why his stupid girlfriend let a drunken man lead her to the dance floor.

She was obviously trying to make him jealous.

You should have told him to dump her.

DEAR RIGHT MINDED » You might be right-minded, but you’re also wrongheaded.