First of all, thank you all for your comments. My brother and his friends are all single, as well, so I think that contributes to their protective feelings towards me. I sometimes feel as though if he were involved with someone, he'd give me some room to have a relationship (but that goes back to his job, and he's actually not 'allowed' to be involved).
No one whom I've been interested in has been someone they've necessarily disapproved of; rather, they just feel that I don't need to settle for someone who may hurt me, betray me...etc, when I can already trust all of them and have the guarantee that they'll never betray me. It's a bit strange, the situation I'm in.
However, I'll take the advice in all the comments here and continue to try and talk to him. I'm thinking that I may need to first have my potential love interest casually become friends with my brother and his group of friends prior to getting into a relationship with him. That way, he'd already be "accepted" by them... and hopefully starting a serious relationship wouldn't be a problem thereafter. Then again, considering I'm on the other side of the world right now as my brother, that may prove difficult, but it's a thought.
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