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MizzO I get what you are saying, but I think there are some key differences between your situation and mine. Your friend had hopes of dating you, that's why he kept chasing you. I understood, early on, that nothing romantic could ever happened between us, I am gay and he is not. So I settled for a friendship. But even that he couldn't do.
For example, something that helped me realized how little he actually cared. He had never, ever, not even once, remembered my birthday. He did congratulate me a couple of times during our friendship, but I think there were only 2 times, tho I can only remember one. And the only time he said "Happy birthday" to me, was because he saw a post I made about my birthday, and responded to that. The times I choose not to post about my birthday, he never congratulated me. And that's all I wanted, for him to show that type of care and interest, which I don't think is too much to ask from him as a friend who have been around for almost a decade, a friendship we both had to fight for and protect..
The last time he forgot, I really wanted him to remember on his own, so to make sure he would, I casually reminded him about it a week before, saying something along the line of "I just realized a week from now will be my birthday" JUST SO HE WILL REMEMBER, and still.. he forgot. The next day he apologized (after I told him he forgot) and said he was just really bad with dates, that's all, that didn't mean he didn't care. So I took it "yea, maybe he is just bad with dates..."
A couple of months later, it was his gf birthday, she moved away to study (they were gonna break up because of this). He didn't only remembered her birthday, but took a trip to spend her birthday with her, and bought her a camara as a gift. During his trip there, we chatted about the whole thing, he sent me pictures, pictures of the train on his way there and back, pictures of the places they visited together, pictures of the camera he bought her, asking my opinion about it... meanwhile my heart slowly broke... realizing the problem was never him not being good with dates, it was just him not caring about me. I never needed half of what he did for her on her birthday, I just needed him to remember on his own, and say "Happy birthday", that's it, that's all I wanted, and never got from him, after everything we had been through.
You can't say I was asking for too much of him or reaching for the stars...
