Dating your guy friend or sleeping with him can complicate the relationship.  In many of these situations, you have these intense feelings for this guy.  You care about him as a friend, but you know he doesn’t want it to turn into more than that.  It is normal for you to start to develop deeper feelings for him, deeper feelings that lead to love.  It is possible to carry on a dating relationship with a friend without falling in love with him.  Guys do it all the time.  It just takes ensuring that you take the right steps to prevent this from happening.

Examine your feelings.

It is important to really face how you feel about him.  Do you already have feelings that go beyond friendship?  If so then you need to face up to those now.  You need to address those feelings and act accordingly.  Maybe you do just feel friendship right now.  Are you happy being single?  Do you crave a relationship?  You need to be sure that you are okay with not being with him and that you are fine being single.  If not then beware because if you have dreams of a relationship then you will fall in love.

Face the reality.

You have to be realistic about things.  Can you do this without feeling anything?  How does he feel?  Before you take this step, you need to talk to him.  You both need to be honest with each other about how you feel.  This will get everything out on the table and you will both know what the other expects from this relationship.  If you cannot talk things out then you are in no place to get into dating or sleeping with each other.

Determine what you want.

You really need to be honest about what you want.  You should define where you see things going.  Figure out how it will work.  When you are trying to avoid falling for him, you have to treat it like an agreement of sorts.  Set limits and make sure that you won’t be tempted into falling for him.

Don’t be afraid to slow down.

If you start to realize your feelings are no longer under your control then slow things down.  Take a step back if you need to.  It can be hard because chances are he will fight for your friendship and want to be with you.  His pleas of being afraid of losing you can just complicate your emotions.  He is saying he doesn’t want to lose your friendship and if you are falling for him this can seem like he is falling for you.  It gets really confusing and sometimes you just need to put some space between you so you can get control over your feelings and reassess the situation to see where you go from here.

Tips:

• Don’t let him manipulate you.  If he is serious about being your friend then he will understand that you need space sometimes or the other limits that you place on your relationship.

• If you ever question his feelings then ask him.  Open communication is important.  If he is doing something that bothers you, tell him about it.  You need to be honest with each other every step of the way to avoid miscommunication and hurt feelings.