It has nothing to do with the way you feel and everything to do with the way he treats you.

Friends don’t keep you walking on eggshells.
Friends don’t pick and choose when they want you in their life.
Friends don’t keep you in their back pocket for safe keeping.

He likes knowing you’re there.
He likes knowing you’ll do anything for him and he doesn’t even have to reciprocate it.
He likes knowing someone cares when he doesn’t have to.

He isn’t your friend because friends aren’t these habits you struggle to break.
He isn’t your friend because if he was you wouldn’t feel guilty texting him or going to see him or dropping whatever it is to appease his needs while he’s not meeting any of your own.

Friends don’t use you. And that’s exactly what he’s doing using your emotions to further his agenda.

He plays the friend card because he refuses to commit to anything more and you won’t ever ask him for something more because you know he won’t give it to you.

So you settle for just friends thinking you’re lucky to even be that in his life. You build him up like he’s someone he’s not and you let him get away with it. If it were anyone else you wouldn’t tolerate it. If it were anyone else he wouldn’t treat someone the way he treats you.

Let me reiterate this has nothing to do with the feelings you have for him but what you let him get away with because of those feelings.

He’s not respecting you.
He’s not being kind.
And he sure as hell isn’t being a friend.

Because if he was your friend he wouldn’t be using you to boost his ego.
If he was your friend you wouldn’t feel a sense of guilt and shame for the things you do.
If he was your friend, you wouldn’t worry so much about losing him.

You value the relationship more than he does and you invest more into it than he’s ever going to be willing to. And that’s not fair.

But you continue choosing someone who isn’t choosing you. You continue investing in someone who wants you in his life when it’s convenient or you have something to offer him.

The moment he realizes there’s nothing more he can gain from this relationship he’s going to leave. And you’re going to fall apart thinking it’s something you did.

And because you don’t respect yourself enough to walk away, when he does you’re going to do everything you can need to keep him. But you can’t keep someone who doesn’t want to stay.

You cling to these moments you think he might change how he feels. You cling to a history. But nothing will ever progress in this relationship because he doesn’t even respect you and why would you ever want to be with someone who doesn’t respect you because you let him treat you badly.

He’s never going to look at your absence as a loss to him because you’ve made it seem like you’re the one who needs him.

Healthy relationships aren’t dependent relationships.

Turning to him for everything as if that need will make him stay but he’ll grow to resent you because of it.

Have you ever pulled away just to see what would happen?

What probably happened was he noticed. He came waltzing back into your life like it was nothing. Playing the friend card just to see what you would do.

See if you’ve finally got a backbone and self-respect but you cave every time with him then fall into this routine.

You’ve made it clear you need someone and he likes that someone needs him.

He likes having you there and that’s all it is and that’s ever going to be.

The moment you really stop trying, the moment you stop investing so much into him, he’s going to go away and you’ll realize the only reason this thing was maintained for as long it was, was because of you.

It doesn’t matter what you feel. Because I’m sure you’ve put that aside to try and maintain this friendship. What matters is how he treats you. And there’s a big difference between the way he treats you and the way every other one of your friends does.

Chances are your friends don’t like him. That has nothing to do with him and everything to do with how he treats you.

Put your feelings aside for a moment and just look at that. When you start to judge him by who he is you’ll let go of who you want him to be.

He calls himself your friend but then emotionally fucks with you to the point where you’re crying yourself to sleep over a text he hasn’t answered.