Various reasons over the years:

• Don't want to risk making the workplace unpleasant (twice)
• Wrong race that would upset my parents (twice)
• Lives too far away (twice)
• Age gap (once)
• Me being exposed to porn at a very young age (first time I was 3 or 4, and I grew up with unsupervised internet access) gave me a completely broken sexuality and I don't want to bring other people into this mess
• Feeling inadequate, ugly or uninteresting (I used to be very fat so you can imagine how I grew up)
• Feeling that my interest in the other person is not genuine and that I only see her as a sexual object

In the end, I'm 32 and single, my friends are getting married and starting their own families and I have this dreadful feeling that I missed out on something important in life, I drown this feeling in work, video games and all sorts of projects, but when I'm alone and I can't think of anything to do and I start thinking about the future, I want to kill myself.

We were both married and I was genuinely worried she might feel the same way.

Why ruin four people's live on an indulgence?

Crippling self doubt, what else?

She trusted me as a friend and really loved the asshole. I knew him a lot longer than she did and really couldn't stand the guy, and I don't think he liked me either, but she didn't know that. I was dating someone else too, but my gf didn't compare to her.

Funny thing is she'd tell me about their arguments and disputes and 90% of the time, she was in the wrong and I'd tell her that. I couldn't believe I was defending him but I was honest and she appreciated my sharing a dude's perspective. He followed her to college, and I don't think he'd have even went if not for her, and they got married after. Still married now 30+ years later. I can only believe he grew into a much better man than he seemed to be as a kid, and I'm glad I didn't interfere with their relationship. I eventually found my soul-mate and best friend so wouldn't change a thing, but I can't help but wonder how things might have played out in some alternate universe.

Cause I was the gender they weren't into (repeat x30).

She was a 10, I'm a solid 4 when I get all done up.

There's this girl I've known for almost 10 years and we always-maybe-kinda liked each other, but we have this "non verbal agreement" of not bothering one another because in reality we both know we would tear each other apart in the end.
There are some character traits that are funny as long as you are friends but would be destructive as partners.

It was never the right time, also haven’t thought of her in years.

1. We met in chem lab and it was a fucking amazing time every week her smile made every week so worth it.
2. That lasted the year and I finally felt the courage to ask her but summer was starting
3. She came back with a boyfriend.
4. Her classes started being very different and she did more sorority activities so it was hard to hang out ever.
5. She breaks up with that boyfriend but it’s already senior year and she was going to grad school in Texas and I was going elsewhere.
6. We give each other big hugs and say goodbye on the last day cementing it as a forever “what if I had more courage?”

She was the only what if for me tbh, I haven’t thought of her in years as said. Hope she’s doing well, but it’s important to always move on from this stuff lol. Don’t hang onto it, if it was going to work it would have

I never had to confess, she knew. And I knew she liked me back. But she could never bring herself to go for it, over fear of ruining the friendship. But her refusal to go for it made it so that over time the friendship was ruined anyways from me feeling jerked around/used.

I've tried 4 times, 1 was a complete rejection that nearly ruined a friendship, the second was a weird soft-rejection that led to a friends relationship that felt a lot like I was taking advantage of this person. That ended when they moved away.

The other two led to relationships, one lasted a month and ended with me getting dumped. Second is my current girlfriend.

All of these happened within a year, starting when I was 22. Before that first rejection I had never made a move on anyone because I had 0 self confidence and could only see women as sexual objects. The girl who first rejected me was the first one that I liked for genuine reasons, which allowed me to change the way I looked at women. I now have a lot of female friends and hardly ever think about women I see in a sexual way, when 2 years ago I couldn't see a woman without thinking that way. I owe a lot to the girl who rejected me, and we are now friends again, for which I am grateful.

Because there are so many easier, safer, less awkward ways to check if someone likes me back or not. And if it turns out they do, I don't need to confess anything, I just set up dates, or do nice things for them and see where that takes us.

I was a mess and even though we were both hot to trot I did not want to enter into a relationship before getting my shit together.

It's been a few decades now but I'm sure that one day I will... not sure my wife will understand though 😂

I wanted kids of my own and she didn't. It never would have worked.

I decided not to confess to a coworker because I had learned that lesson the hard way at a previous job. I figured it would be better to not mix work and dating. Unfortunately as time went on I grew infatuated with this coworker and it took a combination of meditation, medication, and real intense personal work to realize that my infatuation was really just my mind's way of trying to distract me from my own anxiety and depression. So I focused on that and ended up getting a better job and meeting someone who was such a significantly better match for me.

It never quite felt right. We were really close friends sharing a lot with each other and hanging out multiple times a week, so after a while I developed feelings for him. But something always felt off to me, so I let it stay that way and didn't push it any further.

He completely destroyed our friendship in a span of a few weeks by suddenly centering his whole life around one dude and behaving like I never existed. It still hurt to be cut off like that, but I'm happy it didn't hurt more.

It felt amazing to be constantly flirting. We were more in love with the eternal crush than eachother. Always a word away from spelling out the truth, but the dream was more exciting than any possible reality. We would spend the early hours talking remotely about nothing and everything at the same time. When we did meet in person among common friends, we would lock knowing gazes. We both had our own relationships, but kept this small cozy flame secretly burning over the years, and never let it develop into a full blown blaze in fear of losing what was so magical about it.

Because I was married to someone else. She was also married.

I'm autistic. I didn't know I was at the time, but I did know that I had a hard time making and keeping friends, and that people didn't think of me "that way". Or, if they did, I wasn't aware of it. I had a very hard time understanding or following any kind of social conventions, or even understanding basic rules of society. I also had a lot of religious trauma from being raised in--and escaping--a cult, and I didn't really have a good way to work through my batshit crazy beliefs that were still stuck in my head. Meanwhile, she was an opiate and cocaine addict; most of the people she dated were people that could supply her with drugs long term. I have a suspicion that she's been a sex worker at at least some points in her life. At the time, we worked together closely.

I've changed a lot since then. Aside from the drugs, I'm pretty sure that I'm the kind of person now that she would have thrown herself at then. I've also grown up enough to realize that, first, what I was experiencing was a feeling called "limerance", and second, that any relationship I would have had with her at that time would have been deeply destructive to me.

The time before, I got laughed out of the room.

I was in the not-so-fun part of depression.

We're best friends and I don’t want to lose him

They're not gay.

She isn't attracted to anyone romantically, nothing about romance made sense for her at all. She made that point multiple times on our conversations. It'd be best for both of us if I won't confess, since I cannot imagine damaging our relationship as close friends.

After being friends with her for a year, one year less than the amount of time I had a massive crush on her, I asked her out. She rejected me, but we agreed to stay friends and she assured me that nothing happened and we can continue like before. However, I now feel like I'm being used (or how do you say it). She doesn't talk to me as much, only contacts me when she has a tech problem. That doesn't seem like a friendship. When I confronted her, she said she wasn't ghosting me, stopped for like a week, then continued.

I still think about her every day.

She’s straight and I’m bi. I didn’t see a point in confessing. Besides, we were really good friends and I didn’t want to make things awkward between us. It did hurt for a long time, though.

They work in retail and where I live it's considered inappropriate for a customer to hit on someone who works in retail. I only know them from where they use to work and I had a chance to ask them out then but I fucked up thinking I shouldn't ask right away and instead wait to go back. Then I never saw them again until they started working at a different store - both dispensaries.

They're never alone at work and I still don't think I should say anything cause technically its their job to be nice to me anyways.

Because of my mirror.

We were coworkers sharing an office. Also she was married (and didn't identify herself as polyamorous). I didn't want to start drama.

Often it’s because I’m just too afraid because the person is ridiculously good looking that I don’t think I have a chance, rejection always sucks. I’ve been with an attractive person or two in my time, so I know it’s not impossible, I’m ok-ish on a good day, but I know I’ll be so… distracted by their good looks that I probably won’t have anything intelligent to say.

There’s also the chance that either of us is in a relationship or workmates, which just isn’t a good mix and eventually leads to problems. Otherwise, I wish casual sex was just a common thing that people just did without any stigma attached to it (assuming STDs weren’t so rampant and safe sex was also just as common).