How Did This Happen

Dear Miss Lonely Hearts,

How can I cut someone out of my life when at first we became friends out of romantic interest but now it's kind of just weird and I don't know how to talk to them about it?

Sincerely,
How Did This Happen

Dear How Did This Happen,

Here’s the advice I would give you if I weren’t an advice columnist: slowly text back less and less and stop saying hi until you’re strangers.

But, alas, I am an advice columnist, so here goes. If you only want to cut this person out of your life because there’s still a lingering tension between the two of you, then diffuse that tension! Sit down with your friend and be straight with them, acknowledging that you became friends out of romantic interest but letting them know you’d like to be friends and only friends. If the opposite is true, and it’s an all or nothing situation on your end, i.e. you’d only like to be involved with this person romantically, then you still need to sit down and have a conversation with them, telling them that it’s too difficult for you to only be friends with them. The elephant is going to remain in the room, so you might as well acknowledge it. I hope that, by doing so, you learn to live with it.

Love,
Miss Lonely Hearts