Guys, What does he mean when he says he’s not in the right headspace for a relationship?

[Anonymous]

And he wants to be friends, will his mind change in the future if we maintain the friendship?

[MrOracle]

What he means is: it's probably best if you abandon hope of having a relationship with him. Yes, if you maintain a friendship with him, he MIGHT have a relationship with you in the future, but even that probably has only a 10-20% chance of happening, so the odds are pretty stacked against you.

At least he's being honest with you and not stringing you along with lies. The question is: will you listen to him and believe him, or will you rationalize staying to yourself because of what you HOPE will happen, despite him telling you not to have that hope?

[Asker]

He also says he’s not the right headspace to have a relationship with anyone, he doesn’t want to lose me as a friend and he has a smoking and alcohol promblem

[MrOracle]

Right - but he's also not giving you any reason to believe that anything will be different a week, a month, a year, a decade from now. He's not saying "look, I'm a mess right now, but I'm working on it, and I have a plan, and I expect it to be about 6 months before I'm healthy and ready enough to be a good partner." If he thought he was going to BE ready at some point, he'd have said so.

[pajamasam]

Either he is going through something that is going to take a lot of time and effort to solve before he's ready for a serious relationship

Or

Its a cop out because he doesn't want a relationship with you and doesn't want to break the bad news to you

Either way, its not something your gonna change easily and probably won't be able to change at all.

[Asker]

Well he did he’s not in the headspace for anyone he also didn’t get closure from his ex.

[pajamasam]

Yeah if he just got out of a relationship and still doesn't have closure then he needs space and its just going to take time. You can be there for him if you want but its not something you'll be able to just solve its something he will have to come to terms with on his own, your company and friendship may help him some, but it won't solve his dilemma

[Asker]

Been a couple years since tbh

[spartan55]

You'd have a better chance making the Olympic ski team.