I've never understood that not sleeping with your friends thing. That leaves you enemies and strangers.
I guess you've been lucky and never had such a friendship turn sour when one if you wants more than the other does. But then, you Canucks likely don't have all of our Yankee Puritan hangups about sex that stops most of us from being upfront about just wanting sex.
quite the contrary, there's inevitably a stretch of time that may or may not heal the emotional wounds. It's only in these middle years of mine that I've fully come to comprehend that noone owed me loyalty for life. A few years back I was really excited about having reconnected with someone who, despite the ups and downs, ticked off about 90% of my boxes. Of course, she wound up getting with one of my closest friends during one of our downs and I was crushed and outraged by this "betrayal". It took a lot of self reflection before I considered that the only person I was hurting was myself, and I had to start asking myself why I thought I'd been wronged in the first place. Quite simply it's as you said-I expected more than she did... I didn't tick off enough of her boxes and was being a possessive asshole. Two things that another friend said at different times helped (indirectly). The first was him saying how yeah, they really did compliment each other. The second (after I'd finally started being an adult about it again and the three of us were back to being friends) was to remark on what a bitter, whiny bitch I'd been and how glad everyone else around us was. Once I was able to look at it with some objectivity I realized just how much more "her type" my bro is and 180'd to the point where I've even helped them get through their own relationship hurdles.
Yeah, I'm a petty bitch who's had to work hard against that petty bitch nature. I can never be that chill, but I'm glad it works for ya.
a few more years of disappointments leading to acceptance... you'll get here Seriously.. going through my 30s and early 40s, I was all about the couplehood and a white picket fence. Took me till a few years ago to understand that for my lifestyle/path those may as well be chocolate on pizza. Simply incompatible.
FWIW, I think your buddy should've approached you about wanting to date her as a courtesy if he knew you were into her. I'd want my friend to do the same for me. But otherwise
woulda been nice, but... circumstances (aka: reasons). I'm just happy (now, at least) that they have worked out so well together. Amazing how "they deserve each other" can mean two totally opposite things, depending on the attitude you take.
