Ask a Guy: I Slept With My Best Guy Friend and Now He’s Being Weird post image

Ask a Guy: I Slept With My Best Guy Friend and Now He’s Being Weird


My best guy friend and I were hanging out drinking and ended up having sex. We’ve had sex in the past and have fooled around.

The whole week he had been joking about us getting married if we were both single in 10 years. He says he wants to be friends but it always leads to sex and that night and I ended up sleeping over.

He didn’t contact me the next day and then today he sent me a text telling me he needs space and will contact me when he is ready. So my question is:  What did I do wrong and how do I react?

Something in his head cued a “freak out”.  Something made him “emotional” instead of rational about the situation.

It’s likely you didn’t do anything “wrong”, but regardless, he’s in some kind of emotional space that you are neither responsible for nor do you have control over it.

I would say you should do exactly what he asked for: Give him space – live your life as if he vanished from thin air.  Don’t think about him and if you do, don’t react to your thoughts about him.  Just let it be.

Girls tend to freak out when a guy goes into his “cave” or “shell”.  This compounds the problem.  It usually plays out like this:

1)  Guy, for whatever reason, gets emotionally imbalanced about something.
2)  Guy feels he needs to handle his issue and having you around would make it much harder for him to figure it out.
3)  Guy tells girl he needs space.
4)  Girl gives him space, but then starts thinking about what she did wrong or trying to figure out what happened.
5)  Girl’s thinking quickly becomes tremendous insecurity, fear of abandonment, jealousy, etc.
6)  Girl works herself into such an emotional wreck that she can’t help herself and starts contacting the guy, hoping to receive reassurance, validation, etc.
7)  Guy feels pressured and interrupted, which makes him more emotionally unstable and makes it harder to handle his “issue”.
8)  Guy pulls back further, girl sees that as further confirmation that everything she was fearing is true.
9)  Cycle continues, repeat steps 7, 8 and 9 indefinitely.

So the way that you stay out of that tortuous cycle completely is simple:  DO NOT react to him wanting space.  Just give it to him and let him find his way back to you when it’s time.  He’ll throw you some kind of contact or signal when he’s ready, even if it’s small.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but when you can resist reacting emotionally to things, you have tremendous power to keep things in a good place.

Good luck.

Hope that helps,

eric charles

Written by Eric Charles

I'm Eric Charles, the co-founder and co-editor of A New Mode. I love writing articles to help people free themselves from suffering and have clarity in their love life. I have a degree in Psychology and I've dedicated the last 20 years of my life to learning everything I can about human psychology and sharing what gets people out of struggling with life and into having the life they really want. If you want to contact me, feel free to reach out on Facebook or Twitter.

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Cat78

I don’t know if this thread is looked at anymore but I am hoping so.
My guy best friend and I (known for 12 years), have always had feelings for eachother. He admitted he loved me and always have a few months ago. We have fooled around a couple of times but always managed to keep that friendship solid as well. He moved away, to live with his GF. Yes his Gf. He has always had a rocky relationship with her and yes I have met her and can validate that. Anyways he recently asked me if I wanted to hook up. We always send flirty texts and more randomly so I said sure. I miss him and want to see him. Over the years he has told me many details of a shattered life as a kid, I have helped him through things and he has also supported me. (The gf has always lived away from him because of her job). Now that he has asked me to hook up, and he creates the plan on how to meet he has vanished . It’s been over a week since he texted me. Yes he works odd hours and yes he has a GF but I don’t even get normal texts anymore . Was this all a setup? Does he not care for me like he said he did all of these years? Is he pulling away because he does truly have feelings? I am so confused . I let him text me and it’s been tough not hearing his tone on my phone. Thanks in advance .

Reply July 21, 2019, 8:02 am

countrygirl

This advice helped me a lot. I am a female and I was experiencing #5. I did exactly what you suggested and not allow my emotions to get the best of me. I did not reach out and on day 6 I got a call. Although my friend did not say he wanted or needed space, it was very clear with when his normal call routine was off. When he called, I resisted the urge to go off, and I tried my best to keep the conversation light, and not talk about what had happened between us. He actually tried to talk about “it” but I suggested we discuss it at another time.

Reply December 28, 2015, 1:11 pm

John

I’m in a similar situation but im the guy, ive been very close friends with this girl for over 10 years who ive always seen as beautiful. She was either with a guy or i with a girl with no overlap in over 10 years, in the past 6 months she has been single and im just coming out of a relationship and we went away together. She constantly talks about other guys she wants to see, but yet we seem to constantly find ourselves in precarious situations. I never saw her as more than a friend but she kept baiting me, e.g. asking me why i have never asked her out, saying i would be lucky to be with her etc. I ended up looking at her completely differently and asked myself why not? we have always got along so well and are extremely close. So whilst away i made a move on her and got KBed i managed immediate the situation but i was left totally confused. When we got back she indirectly mentioned it was because my timing, and after a massive nights drinking she asked me back to her bed, before even kissing her i ended up passing out (yes i know bad) but when i woke up and started to freak out. She means so much to me and i know if i break that barrier, i can go back to friendship, so ive been partly ignoring the whole situation i just want to go back to being friends, but i find myself thinking about her all the time. Im sure i could end up with her but then im unsure if we could survive in a relationship, as both her and i are rather neurotic party animals. I guess what im pointing out, i feel like running away not because i dont want to be with her but because i dont want to risk our relationship.

Signed

The totally confused

Reply July 17, 2012, 11:53 am

Mackey Taylor

This is real simple. You did or said something that led him to beleive that you might want more than “a little sex here and there”. It weirded him out, and now it is time to “get out before it is too late”. Especially if you sleeping over was the first time that had happened after sex. He senses that the tacit agreement of “casual sex” whenever the time is right (mostly when we are drunk, horny, or in a major slump) might be in jeopardy, and what might be looming around is a more “committed” relationship. In these cases, if this is not what we want, “needing more space” is really our way of getting a head start “in getting the hell out of there”. Sorry, I know how we think.

Reply October 21, 2010, 9:09 pm

sweetheart

Maybe I’m thinking too much like a girl, because I am one, but could it be that he doesnt’ want to be the one to like her first (more than a friend). Maybe he’s worried that you just want to be friends and he’s getting emotionally attached so he’s giving himself space to work that out. I think they both need to ask themselves if they see more coming out of this relationship and be honest to themselves and eachother.

Reply October 18, 2010, 11:28 am

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