Dear Bunmi,

I had a good friendly relationship with an old school friend and one evening, after we’d had a few to drink, we started larking about and I blurted out that I really fancied him. Things progressed from there and we spent the evening getting a bit more than friendly.

You can then imagine how embarrassed and gutted I felt when he told me he thought of me like a member of his family. Well, I’m not and now I don’t know what to do.

Hariat,

by e-mail.

Dear Hariat,

The bad news is that if you hadn’t admitted you fancied your friend, then you wouldn’t be hurt now. The fact that you took it further got your hopes up. It showed you what getting erotic with him was like. You loved it and now you miss it.

The good news is that you now know the truth. Your friend, much as he likes you, doesn’t want a relationship with you. So, go back to thinking of him as just a friend. It’s going to be a painful experience, but you can at least start facing up to it, getting over him and realising you need to move on.

Take heart and don’t be too hard on yourself. There is a man out there who is just right for you as a lover.