Hi Meredith,

You may remember me from a recent live chat. I am a 25-year-old female who has been “involved” with an older guy for about two years now. We met on a dating website, and although there wasn’t much initial “click” between us, there was a VERY strong sexual attraction that sparked between us. We texted daily for about a year and there was a lot of “sexting,” etc. We did hook up a couple times (although we have never had sex). Even so, I would say things were more on the innocent side.

Throughout most of the two years of flirting, we never really got close on any level besides the physical. We both dated on and off in between the sexting and continued to talk pretty much daily. We’ve had our ups and downs for sure. We’ve argued a lot, got closer, grew apart, etc., but something always brought us back to talking.

More recently we have been helping each other with different things in our lives. He was having some issues getting into grad programs, and I helped him redo his resume, write essays, and find the confidence he needed to succeed. I also helped him evaluate where he is in his life now, and guided him into a career by doing some networking. He’s said that he looks up to me as role model and that he wants to “build off each other” (although I am unsure what that means).

Because of all this, we found ourselves on what I call platonic dates. We have SO much fun for hours. However, ever since this relationship changed, the sexting stopped completely. It’s like everything came to a screeching halt. He told me he knows me more as a person now, so it feels “different.” I continued to ask him about it and he gave me this AWFUL analogy I will never forget. He said it’s like “if you rent a car you don’t really care about it, but when you buy a car it’s yours and you take care of it.” OK, so maybe he isn’t the smoothest talker ever, but he followed up shortly after saying it’s not good for friends to do “stuff” because emotions are involved he doesn’t want to ruin it.

Like him, I don’t want to lose friendship, but I can’t help but want to break free of the friendzone in SOME way. I guess I don’t understand how you can have so much fun with someone and not want to explore more.

– Rent Me Or Buy Me