I [24/f] use to be the "bro" until I lost weight, and now all of my guy friends "fall in love" with me or just try to hook up with me... I'm not use to this and I don't know how to handle it.

Ooh man. This happened to me, in a way. I was always a scrawny, flat-chested ugly duckling who had a lot of guy friends (not only guy friends though). Eventually, I blossomed, filled out, took care of my appearance more, just kind of grew into myself and my looks. I ended up being very attractive by age 20 (the age I am now). Suddenly guys weren't cool with being friends anymore. They always caught feelings or thought it was more than it was, and all I was doing was treating these guys the same way I'd always treated both my girl and guy friends. Suddenly I was no longer a person but a "potential girlfriend" or a "potential hookup" rather than "potential friend". I was a girl they were interested in from the start and the thought of trying to be friends with me, and ONLY friends with me, never even crossed most of their minds. I'm still not okay with this. What I do is just give the benefit of the doubt. Assume they're not going to be interested or try anything, make it clear over the course of the friendship developing that I don't date or sleep around and am just not interested in any romantic or sexual relationships (because I'm not). I would only bring it up if it came up in conversation. But this made some guys realize I wasn't interested, and they never ended up making a move even if I knew they had been previously interested. If they do, I reject them kindly, and if they can't be friends, that's on them. It's sad to lose friends this way, but if they ghost out on you after being rejected it's either because they were never a true friend to begin with, or they're just too hurt over being rejected because they liked you too much. Continuing a friendship in either one of those cases wouldn't have been good for either of us anyways. Sorry that this happened. I understand 100% how annoying it is to having guy friends and then having none because suddenly you're just an object of desire rather than a person they want to have a friendship with.

/r/relationships Thread