Reader’s Question

I am a 30-year-old female and have a female friend the same age. A little over a year ago she confided to me that she was having feelings for me of a romantic nature. She said she was troubled about having these feelings and has never felt this way about any other woman. She adamantly insists that she is not gay. Nonetheless, this was how she felt about me.

Initially I was disturbed by what my friend confided but felt like I could still maintain our friendship as longs as she didn’t do anything inappropriate. I also thought her feelings might eventually go away. But it’s recently become clear that things aren’t getting better. She has increasingly confided things to me that are inappropriate and difficult to imagine for a heterosexual woman. I could make a list but it would be too long. For example, recently I found out that she had snuck into my personal email account to see if I and another friend were talking about her. I have tried to point out several times to her that her behavior is inappropriate and she needs to seek help. The crazy thing is that our close friends and family have both been suspicious of our friendship and she doesn’t understand why. Honestly, I can understand why others would think that there was some type of lesbian relationship going on. She always defends her feelings and says things like “I just get confused.”

Because of our age, I feel that this whole infatuation is not an experimental stage that younger woman sometimes go through. When I advised her to see a spiritual counselor or a psychiatrist, she said she doesn’t need to. I think she is “in denial” and the fact that she doesn’t see it makes me furious because only a child could not see the obvious. I think she needs some help. I don’t know what to do. I value our friendship, but I have reached the end of my patience and understanding. I believe her when she says she doesn’t feel this way about other women, but I take no pleasure in the fact that she has all these unusual feelings for me. What do I do — or better yet, what can she do?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

It is possible for someone to be infatuated with a person of the same sex without having a clear homosexual primary sexual orientation. The nature of human sexuality is a bit more complex than purely “straight” or “gay.” Besides that, sexual orientation is part of a person, not a “disease” per se, and psychologists and other mental health professionals only “treat” individuals for sexual identity issues when those issues are internally disturbing to them and create problems for their ability to function in life. That said, some of your friend’s actions suggest her interest in you does have some obsessive quality. And the fact that she may herself be conflicted about the feelings she is having suggests that she may indeed benefit from visiting with a counselor. However, it would be important to encourage her to do so not by insisting that she is “sick” or “abnormal” but by letting her know that counseling can provide her with opportunities to open up, share, and self-explore without the same conflicts that have understandably surfaced in your relationship.

Another thing to think about is that you have the right to set limits with respect to the behaviors on your friend’s part that you’ll tolerate and the degree to which you want to be involved with her. Her feelings, however, belong to her and she can’t help them. To judge your friend merely on the basis of the feelings she has as opposed to how she has behaved as a friend would not be the act of a true friend.