If you knew someone was madly in love with you but you didn't feel the same way, how would you handle the situation?

Start by thinking about how you’d like to be treated if it were you in that situation, then consider their context and act accordingly.

I think you did well. It would only seem to encourage the person had you been in constant contact. The reason he is holding back now is probably because he feels ashamed or foolish about what happened. I think if you want to revive the friendship just talk and hang out or whatever you do with friends, and make sure there are boundaries you do not cross just in case the feeling hasn’t left. Time spent with each other will always make it easier when reacquainting yourself with old friends.

I think I’m just a little afraid that I’ll give him the wrong impression. I miss him, but only as a friend. I don’t know if he’ll accept that. For now, he accepted me on facebook and we did speak briefly but I really hope we can go back to being good friends.

Madly in love has the sound of a crush, so it is very possible that he is over it. Specially if he has had another woman during that time.

It happened to me several times when I was younger, I initially wasn’t sure how to handle it – made things worse by trying not to hurt. I learned from that first episode that a short amount of more intense pain was better than a long drawn out constantly painful response. Until I met my wife I was not committed to any one women – I dated a lot of them. Quite openly, several of them knew each other. I think that the competitiveness of the situation was a catalyst. Now, many years later, I am still friendly with some of them. (I think that was more obsession on their part than real affection.)

I just kindly said, “Thank you. You’re a good friend, but I just don’t feel the same way about you. I’m sorry.”
Generally, after that was said, they ended the friendship because it was too painful for them.

I tell them the truth is better not to hurt anyone if you let them think that you are into them while you really are not. Just be honest ad try to tell them in a good way, you can’t do anything if you are not interested at all.

Phase him out…he will get the message

You handled it correctly, but the reality is that you don’t get to choose if he can handle being just friends with you. If someone has feelings for you and you don’t return them, only they can decide if things can ever go back to just friends.

Be honest and say I don’t feel the same. Not sure what else there is to do.

Think you should make it quite clear at the onset that you only want to be friends, thereby excluding any confusion as to where the relationship is going.

My ex was like that. He really loved me. I didn’t feel the same, but I stayed with him, because it was safe. I know it was wrong. If I hadn’t of stayed with him, I would never of moved towns and met my s/o.

I think you handled it pretty well. If he was “madly in love with you” but you never had a relationship, then it sounds more like infatuation. I think the best way to deal with it is what you did. Distance is the remedy. I say this as someone who thought I was in love with my ex. He put distance between us to the point where there’s no contact now. He did me a favour. If I was to step into this shoes, I might feel uncomfortable about the situation & want to leave that part of my life behind. It’s possible that you’ll become friendly again, but if so, it’ll happen naturally.

I suspect I’d have done the same thing… avoid the issue whenever possible.

You did the right thing. Perhaps if you still want a friendship, let him know exactly how you felt about him back then and how you miss the friend part of knowing him and see how he feels. Be prepared though he just may still have too strong of feelings for you to make just a friendship doable.

You can’t really do anything. He will behave the way he wants for whatever reason. You did things the best way you could. Sometimes the balls are in the others court.

Happened to me too. Let ‘em down easy.

You have to be honest with them. Sometimes you can’t even be friends from that point. But honest is the only way to be. I would never play with someone’s feelings when they have taken the risk to expose them.

It is very difficult to be just friends with someone your are madly in love with, so if someone I knew was madly in love with me, even if I appreciate their friendship I’d try and save them from getting hurt. Plus I know from experience it is very difficult to just fall out of love with someone and accept only friendship if you’ve had strong feelings for that person.

I think you did the right thing, I would have done the same thing myself. It’s very difficult to be friends with a person who is in love with you, yet at the same time not lead them on.

Disconnecting yourself from someone who has feelings for you is only a way to save someone from getting hurt and make it clear you are not interested so as not to lead them on, I think.

I’d want to make sure they didn’t hit on me again.
Therefore, I’d probably take a defensive stance that bordered on hostility to drive the point home that I didn’t want to be with them. It’s hard to pierce the bubble of denial so sometimes you really need to go the extra mile to tell them “it ain’t happening”. Otherwise, you run the risk of them sending you flowers at work or showing up unexpectedly at awkward moments or drunk dialing you late at night and none of those are good situations. When you tell someone you’re not interested in them romantically, you really need to be direct; brutally so if that’s what you need to do. The thing to do is take control of the situation yourself. Make sure you’re the one who has the power because with the forlorn, they especially will take a yard if you give them an inch. You take that inch back and when they try to take a centimeter of it, you lay the hammer down. That’ll take care of things straight away.