Top 11 Signs He is Fighting His Feelings for You & Hiding It

Ah, men and their feelings. They can be quite complicated creatures, can’t they? One minute they are all over you, texting, calling, making excuses to see you, and the next they can go as cold as ice, making you wonder what went wrong. Nine times out of ten, the issue is not with you, however. Men are known to run away from a woman the first minute they start to catch feelings. It is just what they do. How can you tell if your crush is losing interest or just fleeing away from his emotions?

A man who is fighting his feelings for you could just be shy, or simply not be ready yet. His flakiness could also be a huge red flag that he has the sort of deep commitment issues that will keep him from ever being a real partner.

For those who are interested in a guy who seems inconsistent and shows conflicting feelings, the question of whether or not he is just fighting his feelings for you can be a heavy one. We’ve done some research to help you determine the answer to this perplexing question, and we’ve laid out the answers to help you determine just what in the world he is thinking. Here are the top signs he is fighting his feelings for you.

Top Signs He is Fighting His Feelings For You

He Treats You Like a Yo-yo: Hot And Cold

He Treats You Like a Yo-yo

As we mentioned above, when a man is fighting his feelings for you, he will often treat you cold one minute and hot the next. It’s a kind of push/ pull relationship.

We like to call this the Yo-yo effect. Your crush might pull you close to him for days; he could flood you with texts, call you constantly, and shower you with attention. Then, out of the blue, he may suddenly almost cut you off. The phone calls slow down dramatically, your texts go silent except for a random, “Hello,” once in a while, and you start to wonder if he is considering ghosting you.

Right when you are about to write off any chance of this becoming a serious relationship, he’s back, all lovey and sweet, acting as if nothing ever happened. He tosses you away and then pulls you back, just like a Yo-yo. In many cases, the guy will seem like he is putting you in the friend zone, and in a sense, he is.

But “friend-zone” can have an entirely different meaning when a guy does it. This could mean that although he is fighting his feelings for you, he wants to keep you close by for when he sorts them out.

He Doesn’t Claim You As His But is Jealous

Have you ever had a guy in your life who has not made the move to actually be in a relationship with you but seems jealous of the guys who you go out with or show any interest in? If a guy won’t really go ahead and claim you as “his girl” but he seems very upset at the thought of anyone else making you their girl, then this is a good sign that he is fighting his feelings for you.

As we have said, a man who is starting to feel deeply for you, but isn’t sure he is ready for those feelings, may often want to keep you to himself while he sorts it out. While this may seem flattering in some ways, it could also be unfair. It can be hard for a woman to ignore guys who are showering her with attention while a man who is hiding his feelings for her keeps pulling her back and forth.

His Friends Tease About You

His Friends Tease About You

Another sign he is fighting his feelings about you is if his friends are constantly teasing the two of you or teasing him about you. In fact, if you are often the butt of his friends’ jokes about him, there is a good chance that he has opened up about his feelings for you to them. Once a guy shares with his friends that he is interested in a girl, his friends will often be relentless in their torment of him concerning that girl.

If that is the case with the guy you are interested in, but he hasn’t said one word to you about liking you, then chances are good that he is fighting his feelings about you. Guys will sometimes bounce ideas off each other about what they are considering in life before they actually go through with those plans. By letting his friends see his interest in you, he is literally testing the waters to see if he is being realistic, or if his chances with you are slim and he might get shot down.

He Brings His Friends Along to Spend Time With You

Speaking of his friends, does it seem like every time you two get together, he has to bring his friends? If he keeps making time to be around you but insists on having his friends there as a backup, it is a good sign that he is fighting his feelings for you. He may not even pay his friends that much attention because he is focusing so much on you, but he always seems to have them with you guys as some sort of backup.

The fact that his attention is so focused on you shows that he is clearly into you. Keeping his friends around all the time, however, also shows that he is fighting his feelings for you. He wants to spend time with you and is interested in getting to know you, but he can always deny that it was a date since you two are never alone. He can also avoid getting too close and allowing himself to feel too much. When a guy who is into you gets too much alone time with you, his feelings tend to grow even stronger.

He Dates Others, Then Downplays It

He Dates Others, Then Downplays It

Another sure sign that he is fighting his feelings for you is when he dates other girls, but then tries really hard to explain why they mean nothing to him. The very act of dating others can be a way that he tries not to allow his feelings for you to grow, but because a part of him doesn’t want to let you go, he will downplay it. It is very possible that he feels tons of chemistry with you, and absolutely none with them, but that very chemistry scares him.

Guys tend to get scared when their feelings for a girl become very strong. They may try to push those feelings away by pouring their attention into meaningless flings so that they cannot focus on you. After all, if you are trying not to fall in love, what better way to avoid it than by spending all of your time with someone who you just aren’t that into? If he seems to be dating a lot of others but is quick to tell you that they mean nothing, there is a good chance that you mean more than he is comfortable with at this time.

He Tries to Make You Jealous

Speaking of dating others and telling you about it, if he is always trying to make you jealous, this could also be a sign that he is fighting his feelings for you. While some guys may date other women just to try and drown their feelings for you, other guys may do so just to make you jealous. Once again, he may have very strong feelings for you, but he is not yet ready to commit. He thinks that by making you jealous, he can keep you interested without actually building a relationship with you.

It may even come across as childish, the way he carries on about other girls in an effort to draw a response from you. He wants so badly for you to notice him and give him the attention that he craves from you, but he is not yet equipped to deal with the realness of those feelings, so he fights them. The conflict in his mind makes him want to hold on to you, and yet push you away at the same time, much like Yo-yo guy. In this situation, it might be beneficial to ignore his attempts at making you jealous and force him to find another way to seek your attention.

He Fakes Disinterest But Knows All About You

He Fakes Disinterest, But Knows All About You

If a guy continually goes out of his way to make it clear that he isn’t that interested in you, but seems to know everything about you, that’s another sign that he is fighting his feelings for you. While he may act like he isn’t paying you the least bit of attention, he listens closely when you talk and learns what makes you tick. You may catch him liking things on your Facebook which shows that he has been keeping up with you. It could very well be that he is studying you because he is deeply interested and just doesn’t know what to do with those feelings yet.

This type of guy can sometimes almost seem like a stalker. He knows your birthday, your favorite color, even where you live. He also knows your favorite food, your favorite color, and what kinds of things you hate. He may take the time to learn your religious and political views and what your goals are in life, yet with all of that blatant interest, he keeps feigning disinterest. Either he is a dangerous stalker, or he is fighting his feelings for you.

He Isn’t Fond of Your Current Boyfriend

While he may not actually say anything specifically mean about your current guy, a man who is fighting his feelings for you may not have many nice things to say about the guy you are with. It could be that he just makes jokes and teasing about your guy in a way that doesn’t come across as harsh. It could also be that he comes right out and tells you that you deserve better than the man you are currently dating.

When a guy watches a girl that he is interested in dating with someone else it can bring very frustrating feelings to the surface. He may try to fight those feelings by teasing you about your current love interest. By downplaying your current relationship, he may secretly hope that you won’t take it as seriously. This could contribute to a breakup between you and Mr. Right Now, giving him a chance with you in the future.

He Constantly Insists You’re Like a Sister

He Constantly Insists You’re Like a Sister

Does a guy take every opportunity to hang out with you and gives you constant attention but swears you’re like a sister to him? Perhaps he showers you with praise when you have even the simplest of accomplishments. He probably makes excuses to text or comes by all the time. He’s supportive and caring and is always there for you to talk to when something goes wrong… but he tells everyone you’re like his little sister.

If your best friend is a guy who shows love for you in almost every way but keeps insisting that you are like a sister to him, there is a huge chance that he is fighting his feelings for you. His feelings are so strong that he cannot even fight showing them, but he makes excuses for them so that he won’t have to admit that he is in love with you. This guy is your person. He just doesn’t know it yet.

He’s Super-Protective

Speaking of guys who are critical of everyone you date and look out for you like a little sister, when a man is fighting his feelings for you, he will often become very protective. He is always showing concern for your well-being, from giving you his coat to wear if you’re cold to offering you a ride home so you don’t have to walk in the dark. This guy may not have admitted to you or even to himself that he is interested in you, but he shows it more every day with the little protective things that he does.

The guy who is protective but yet still fighting his feelings for you may be quick to step in when someone makes fun of you. He won’t join in with people who are making cruel jokes at your expense and he will show his displeasure when someone is rude to you. He will feel the need to protect and look after you, even though he cannot accept the reasons why he is acting that way. But you can rest assured, it isn’t because he sees you as his sister!

He Shares His Life With You

He Shares His Life With You

This is a big one. Even when a man is head over heels in love with a woman, sharing his life can be a difficult thing to do. If a man who doesn’t seem to be interested in a relationship with you is sharing details about his life, this is a sure sign that he is fighting his feelings for you. It is not at all common for a man who wants to sit down and chat about the intimate details of what’s going on with him with a woman that he has no interest in.

Any guy can have small talk with you, but it takes a man who is interested in more than just a friendship to truly open up to you. He may share personal stuff that he’s told no one, or he may seem to always call you first when something important happens. If you are the one he wants to talk to when he is down or the first one he wants to celebrate with when he has a victory, you are likely very important in his life. Though he may be trying to hide it, his feelings for you are probably very deep.


In Closing…

If you’ve been wondering what you really mean to a guy in your life, those are the top signs he is fighting his feelings for you.

While some of them can also be red flags that you’re dealing with a stalker or with someone who has deep commitment issues, others are perfectly innocent and flattering. If you two are close, and you are interested in him as well, you might decide to find a way to bring up the topic of taking your relationship to the next level.

Of course, if he is afraid of what he is feeling, it might be best to find subtle ways to broach the subject so that you don’t spook him. Or you could just decide to leave things as they are for a while and let him choose when he is comfortable making the first move. After all, a lot of guys like that sort of thing.


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angela carpenter writer for romance scams
Written by Angela Carpenter

Angela Kaye Carpenter has a knack in writing about relationships. She brings years of expertise in this space. She has served as the Sr Marketing Copywriter at JDS Marketing, and Marketing and Content Writer at Vertu Marketing, Offix, Suburban Snapshot, and The Gillenwater Group. You can find her on Twitter. Read more of Angela's articles.

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