One of the most complicated relationships you’ll ever have is the one where you’re dealing with someone who isn’t on the same page as you are.

It doesn’t matter if you like him or if he likes you more than a friend, the moment one of you gets outside of the platonic connection, the dynamics immediately get confusing and sometimes even frustrating.

And the longer this friendship goes on, the harder it can get to be open, honest, and familiar with one another because of how long you both have been invested in this together.

But since differentiating between being a friend or more isn’t always clear for you to understand how to handle the connection, here are the main signs he likes you more than a friend, and then how to go about things:

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13 Subtle Signs He Likes You More Than A Friend

(& What You Need To Do About It)

**1. He’s Always There For You**

Not that there’s anything wrong with a guy being there for you, but if he’s always there and available for you, then probably he likes you more than a friend.

If he prioritizes your needs and wants over everything and anything else, himself included, then he definitely likes you more than a friend.

And that’s a fact.

Because guys generally never really take a specific someone that seriously unless they’re waiting for something in return.

Men don’t keep on investing with everything they’ve got unless there’s a reason to justify their insane “generosity” and “kindness,” even if they say otherwise.

If you’re not into him and have a feeling that he’s taking things too seriously at times and that you’re not really at his level of attention and investment, then most likely what you feel is true.

If you actually like him and see him reciprocating in many ways, then he’s at least attracted to you, and whether or not he wants to be with you is a different story, but there’s something about you that keeps him investing and coming back for more.

2. He Gets Jealous When You’re Dealing with Other Guys

This is the least subtle sign.

Men are territorial by nature, so unless he is polygamous, an extreme player, or an Oscar-award winning actor, his mood is going to change when he sees you with another cozying up with another dude or listens to you admiring another guy for innocent reasons.

Because the longer he spends time with you, the more he wants to be with you, and the less he will obviously want you to spend time with someone else.

Pay attention to how he reacts when you mention other guys and his eyes will tell you all.

If he’s acting distant or cold all of a sudden, then he is jealous and is trying to bottle things up emotionally.

If starts being emotional or, even worse, finding faults in the other guy, then he likes you more than a friend and has a problem handling it.

If you’re looking for actionable tips for building attraction and getting a commitment from the man you want, I highly encourage you to check out the extremely informative “His Secret Obsession” guide.

3. He Keeps Disappearing Every Once In a While

When a guy is stuck dealing with his feelings being someone’s friend when it’s not what he really wants, then it becomes a matter of time before he withdraws to deal with his struggles alone.

He has to pull away for a bit because he’s having problems with first not admitting he feels towards you and then having to see you over and over again, making moving on harder for him as time goes by.

The process usually goes as follows:

1- He disappears.

2- You’ll ask him why he has suddenly disappeared.

3- He’ll tell you he’s fine.

4- You’ll keep poking at him with your questions, trying to make him open up and make him feel better.

5- He kind of feels better because you care, and he realizes disappearing wasn’t necessary and that he can handle it.

6- Suddenly, step 1 takes place.

If you ever notice yourself in this sort of “hot-and-cold friendship” with a guy dealing with a lot of emotional rollercoasters — too intense that you’re wondering why is he acting that way even though you’re not even together, then now you know.

He likes you more than a friend and is trying to deal with it.

4. He Compliments How You Look, A Lot

Compliments are nice and it’s cool to have them every once in a while, especially from your friends and those who see you on a regular basis.

That’s as long as they’re just innocent compliments with no other intentions behind them.

Because what ends up happening with a guy who likes you more than a friend is that he will be complimenting you all the time thinking that will make you like him more.

He’s complimenting you not because that’s just he sees your nice outfit, but he’s complimenting you hoping you’d go, “Oh thank you, you’re so sweet. I should date you!”

But of course, that’s not how it always works.

So when you feel that one friend overdoing things that it feels strange and flirty, like he wants something from you, then this uneasiness should tell you something about what’s actually going on with him.

Unless you like him too, you should make your friendship boundaries clear so things don’t get messier later on.

5. You Can Feel It in Your Gut

Women are the best when it comes to reading emotions and body language.

They can spot BS a mile away and can tell when a guy is being genuine or not. They have this super accurate instinct that lets them know if a man’s actions are congruent with his intentions or not.

However, some women just ignore the guy’s ingenuity for the never-ending attention or good company he provides.

Girls would also play along in this “friendship” dynamic sometimes because they’re nice and don’t want to reject the guy for being nice and friendly with them.

But whatever the case is, women almost always know when a guy is just not really their friend.

So if you start noticing some subtle and strange behaviors from your guy friend that don’t add up or match with the words his saying, then this strange vibe you’re instincts are picking up is what you should listen to.

Actions speak louder than words, and your gut feeling knows exactly that.

How you deal with knowing that is up to you and we’ll cover that later for more tips, but what could end up happening when you’re dealing with him if he likes you more than a friend is that you might overthink things through and focus too much on what he’s saying rather than what he’s actually showing you.

Girls often ignore that gut when they’re already invested in this half-friendship so much that they would rather want to believe what their guy friend is saying to keep the “friendship” going strong.

They would rather find excuses to trick themselves into what they’re listening to instead of what they’re feeling in order not to lose their guy friend, especially when they already have months and years of friendship and memories together.

6. He Randomly Gets Passive-Aggressive

Healthy friendships are always stable, comfortable, and in a good way, predictable.

The point of having a friendship is having these other people we can feel at home with.

Every once in a while you’re going to have some differences and maybe even arguments, and that’s fine.

Your preferences, standards, and boundaries are always going to be different than every single person out there, so you’re going to have to find those who share these common factors so you can get along and be comfortable with each other.

But if he likes you more than a friend and is pretending otherwise, you’re not going to have any of that in the long run.

Instead of having a stable, comfortable, and predictable connection with that guy friend, you’ll have an erratic, on-and-off, and strained relationship that gets more intense as time goes by.

It’s not going to seem that way in the beginning though — you’ll get along just fine and everything will be great with him, and that’s why you’re going to naturally invest, to begin with.

You’re going to like the same things, share some inside jokes, develop a strong emotional bond that you eventually don’t see your life without this friend anymore, because you really don’t want to ever lose that.

And in the beginning, your guy friend will sort of play along with the friendship dynamic hoping it will blossom into something more. He’s going to be okay with doing that and be your friend because, again, it’s just the beginning of the bond, so he’ll not get emotionally invested.

Just yet.

Once he starts getting really attached to you, he too will not be able to see his life working without you, and because he’ll get to that point where this platonic love isn’t truly what he wants, he’ll start getting frustrated that you’re not being who he secretly wants you to be, even though he never communicated that in the beginning.

Other than disappearing from your life when things seemed to be going well, you’ll often get this passive-aggressive behavior that seems random and unpredictable.

If you don’t share the same feelings as him, you’re going to get confused and not sure why he’s being mean or emotional all of a sudden.

What’s even worse is that when you do ask him if there’s a reason why he’s behaving this way, he’ll most likely won’t say, “well I just secretly want to date you and you’re not treating me like a lover,” but he’ll probably just play it off like there’s nothing wrong and just give you a BS excuse for this behavior.

Whenever you’re dealing with a guy who is being very erratic and unpredictable with his emotions after spending a lot of time with you, then you have to see this as a possible sign he likes you more than a friend.

If your feelings towards him are completely platonic, then you have to know this behavior is only going to get worse, and your trust in him will start to fade no matter how much you love him as a friend, because he’s not being honest with himself first and then you second.

But if you too like him more than a friend, then you’re going to have to consider having a more open communication about what you really want instead of beating around the bush — even if it’s scary to do so.

7. He Posts Cryptic References About You Online

When a guy isn’t too forward with his intentions and how he really feels about you, he’ll keep dropping hints here and there to let you know he likes you more than a friend.

You’ll see that in his cryptic Facebook statuses or vague IG captions. He’ll be addressing his feelings towards in a way that you can’t really say something about it because if you do “catch him”, he’ll just say it’s not about you.

But you don’t have to really do anything about it, because the more time passes by without you addressing his feelings, the more obvious and forward his hints become out of his frustration.

Is this behavior a bit childish and immature?

Of course.

This is usually how Nice Guys act when they’re not straightforward with women about their behaviors — when they’d rather have the girl taking the initiative instead.

Again, beating around the bush becomes the sport for Nice Guys purely out of fear of rejection and fear of loss.

8. He’s Always Getting You Gifts for No Reason

It’s one thing when a friend is getting you a small random gift for no reason as a token of friendship, but it’s a whole different story when that friend is a guy who keeps getting you gifts every once in a while.

At first this is going to seem sweet — any girl appreciates a gift from loved ones.

It’s considerate, kind, and you should reciprocate that to share the mutual love between you two.

As long as you’re on the same page.

If the love is platonic on your end, then you’re going to have this gut feeling that something is wrong — that things are getting more intense than how a friendship should be.

And as we’ve said before, when your instincts start telling you something, you should always listen.

Once you start thinking logically about things and decide to be upfront about where you stand, it’s likely that he’ll tell you he’s just being a good friend.

But that’s what Nice Guys do; they buy you gifts hoping they’d buy your love.

Obviously, if you don’t share the same feelings, being nice, giving, and kind towards you aren’t the right ways to make you fall for him.

Attraction and love aren’t transactions — they don’t work like vending machines where you can slot in attention and kindness and then get love and commitment in return.

Unless you already like him and have genuine reasons to want to be with him, these gifts will feel fishy and out of place.

When the gifts start coming too frequently and you’re not interested in him that way, then it’s best you reject the gifts, even if it’s hurtful. Here’s why:

Every time you accept a gift knowing that he likes you more than a friend, it will hurt him much more later knowing that his attempts didn’t work after buying you so many gifts.

He’ll feel betrayed and used, even though that was never really your responsibility and you never asked him to buy you things in the first place, but this messed up situation is likely to happen, and you’ll feel terrible about it later on.

Gifts are meant to be given with no expectations or something in return.

That’s why it’s called a gift — it’s free. Of any future commitments.

9. It Feels Like You’re His Number One

If you feel like you’re clearly his number one and that he prioritizes you over everyone and anyone else, then depending on how you feel about him, you’re either going to be flattered at first because you like him or going to feel pressure if you can’t reciprocate his level of affection and care.

As much as good friends should prioritize each other, healthy friendship only works when people have, to a certain degree, separate lives, hobbies, and pursuits in life that add value.

Nobody in mature friendship is really asking for the other to be there for them all the time. You have things to do and work on, and whenever you’re free, you’d just call your friend to hang out. If any of you are busy, the other person is understanding and continues doing something else instead.

Sounds like a normal and simple friendship with not a lot of expectations, right?

Well, it’s never the case when you’re dealing with a guy who likes you more than a friend and when the connection is considered platonic from your perspective.

And if you actually like him, then great; his behavior indicates you two want the same thing.

Other than that and in a one-sided friendship situation, if a guy becomes heavily reliant on person on a girl emotionally, the girl starts feeling the emotional strain of this semi-friendship on her until this friendship no longer makes her happy anymore.

It will wear her down and eventually force her to resent her guy friend.

And the longer the guy doesn’t get what he wants, which is having the girl prioritize him the way he does for her, the quicker this dynamic escalates.

Once the pressure and resentment builds up to a certain point, the girl will grow cold towards him, and the guy will get frustrated for not getting what he secretly desired and worked for.

10. He Always Wants to Spend Alone Time with You

Friends never really focus on isolating you from your other friends at a club or party just to talk to you for a bit unless there’s a specific reason for that.

This is why when you’re dealing with a dude who likes you more than a friend, he’s always going to find opportunities to talk to you alone as a way to develop something a little more than the friendship you have.

And when he can’t find such opportunities, he’ll try to create them by asking you to hang out on a weekend, just the two of you.

If you ask him about the rest of the people you usually hang out with, he’ll probably give you a BS excuse like they’re probably just busy when he hasn’t even contacted them.

If you agree to hang out with him, he’ll be dressed up, smelling good, and looking like he’s about to go on a date or something. Wink wink.

What happens next depends on your feelings towards him. If you like him, then your friendship will have the potential to progress into something more.

But if you like him as a friend, then you’ll just find the situation a little weird and sketchy, as if he set you up or something.

11. You Feel Guilty About this Friendship

You feeling guilty in a friendship is a sign that you both look at each other differently.

You feel guilty because you can’t keep up with his level of attention and dedication for you.

You feel guilty because you almost feel like you’re stringing him along.

You feel guilty because you wish you could see him the same way he sees you.

Every once in a while you wish you could just feel the same intense emotions for him, maybe things would be better and more fair.

But the attraction is just isn’t there. You’re comfortable, sure. But it’s just not working in that way for you.

And you might wonder why. He has a lot of amazing qualities you’ve been looking for in other guys, but it still feels not enough, and it just doesn’t make sense sometimes.

12. You Have a Feeling It’s Gonna Just Change

When you’ve experienced a couple of friendships and romantic relationships, you’ll have a better intuition on what to expect from these bonds and how far they’re gonna go.

That doesn’t mean you’re going to know for a fact whether a connection or last or not, but you’ll know the signs for whether things are going to go well for a long time or not.

If you’re in a one-sided relationship, you just know things aren’t going to keep going the way they started.

You’ll notice the intense and quick buildup of this friendship.

You’ll see the cracks of miscommunication and not being a hundred percent honest with both of your intentions.

You’ll see the on-and-off pattern of the relationship and how it creates these little toxic behaviors that grow into full-on emotional tantrums.

You’ll notice that you’ll become less trusting of your friend because he’s always acting a bit shady and inconsistent around you.

You both don’t share the same goals for this said friendship, so this impending sense of doom becomes more real no matter how hopeful and kind you are towards one another.

Because actual friendships, on the other hand, are slow, steady, natural, and have no expectations.

Things just flow organically and you often end up surprised at how you both ended up being good friends because the foundation of the friendship were based on sharing the same interests and chemistry, brick by brick.

So if you want to know what kind of bond you’re having, all you have to do is look at how consistent, natural, and steady things are.

Because even if you do like him back, you’ll just also know that this friendship thing isn’t going to last either — that it will have to change to something else to accommodate you both.

13. Your Mutual Friends Talk About It

Usually when normal friendships are being developed, other people don’t mention them too much.

Normal and healthy friendships don’t stand out. Sure, they can be endearing and celebrated every once in a while, but your other friends won’t say much about your friendships with other people.

Once there’s a little romance in there, people outside your connection will start to notice how one person looks at the other and how one of you is a little extra sweet with the other.

It’s going to be super obvious.

At first your friends will start talking with each other about it and gossip like high school girls, and when your “friendship” keeps developing into something that is not a friendship, those other girl friends will ask you about it and find pleasure in discussing this mysterious connection with you.

The Only Two Things You Should Do About It

There are only two simple steps you need to do depending on whether you’re looking for signs because you like him also or you’re looking because you’re not interested and trying to figure out how to save your friendship.

Whichever your case is, both solutions involve honesty.

If you like him, then you better a little more direct with your intentions, because the longer you wait, the sooner one of you gets friendzoned by the other or gets snatched away by a third party.

And then you’re going to lose that friendship anyway.

If you don’t like him that way, then you also need to be super clear with where you stand, even if it means hurting him.

Because if you’re not being honest, you’re still hurting him by giving him false hope.

And you’re going to be made the villain for it.

And then you’re going to lose the friendship anyway.

The earlier you set things straight, the better chance you have at saving this friendship and prevent more intense or misplaced romantic emotions to develop.

Don’t Buy Into The “I’m Afraid to Ruin My Friendship” Myth

When you’re dealing with someone who likes you more than a friend, there’s this typical thought that could cross your mind: “what if I lose him and the friendship?”

Whether you like him or not, this thought will test you because you’ve already been under the label of friendship for a long time, so doing or saying anything out of the ordinary and honesty will scare you, and that’s understandable.

But what you have to realize is that once a romantic connection has developed in this so-called friendship from any of you two, then the friendship has already ended.

It’s rarely the case that a platonic connection can be salvaged once someone has already caught feelings for the other.

If you like him and you’re scared to let him know because you’re unsure of his feelings, then sticking around is only going to cause you more pain and decrease the likelihood that you’d end up together.

Because with each day that goes by, there’s always a chance he’d might end up meeting someone else while not knowing you had feelings for him

And if he likes you and you’re scared to confront him about you not being interested, then him sticking around is only going to cause him and, then later on, you more pain because he is always going to have that bit of hope you’d come around.

Besides, it’s just not going to be the same anyway when you’re not addressing the elephant in the room. You both are going to tiptoe around your real emotions all the time in fear of this friendship ending, which is not sustainable, healthy, and honest bond, if you think about it.

If you can’t be real with one another, then what kind of friendship is this going to be?

So avoid this “I’m afraid of losing the friendship” myth a lot of people run into when romantic feelings develop, otherwise you’re just wasting your time holding onto a ghost that has disappeared a long time ago.

13 Subtle Signs He Likes You More Than A Friend & How to Deal with Him