My flatmate is smothering me. Until now, I have had a really good relationship with her and we have never had any problems. Recently though, I have felt as though she is wanting too much from this relationship. I get daily requests for catch-ups while we are at class (even though I will see her that night at home) and the times when I stay doing work until later, her feelings get hurt. She has also been touching me unnecessarily and is constantly in my personal space. I'm by no means prickly about affection, and like being close to my friends as much as the next person, but this is crossing the line. There have also been some bizarre incidents where she gets right down to her underwear to watch tv with me while I am fully clothed. Finally, I got some pretty heavy news last week and my flatmate was really great. At the same time, she seemed to baby me. I wasn't allowed to cook dinner, she insisted on shouting me a coffee everyday, my washing was cleaned and folded before I could get to it and she offered to go to my classes and take notes for me. You need to understand that I do not want to sound unappreciative and that I was overwhelmed by her kindness. It’s just, I felt I couldn't tell her to back off and give me my space without her feelings getting seriously hurt. Also, she took it upon herself to notify all my other close friends and in doing so, upset them by insinuating that if they were better friends with me, I may have told them myself. This was not the case at all - I just wanted to keep things to myself for a while.
 
I don't really know what to do with this situation. I want to keep my friendship with my flatmate but at the moment, I can only get increasingly irritated with her. I feel like a horrible person because I know she has such a big heart but I cannot handle this level of affection and possessiveness from her. What should I do? I realize the other answer is 'talk to her' but I honestly feel she will be devastated and that the damage done from such a conversation would be irreparable.

This is a difficult one to answer because while I think your roomie sounds mega annoying, I don't think you can have a ‘talk’ with someone for not being your kind of people. You know? Like, what would you say?  “Your niceness irritates me.”  Um, not so much.

She's allowed to be a close-talking, touchy, pantless person if she wants to be. She's not harming anyone or being malicious, and well, it is her house too.

C, here's the dilly. You're obviously very close to your breaking point, so you really only have two options here.

#1 Suck it up and get down with her weirdness

OR

#2 Move out

Sucking it up is good in theory, but chances are it will only band-aid the problem until she starts single white female-ing you.  And C, I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking this, but um, sounds like there’s a possibility that chicky is in lurveee with you.  So that might be a bit of a concern if you’re not down with lesbionic activities.    

Where to go from here: if you really want to keep your friendship intact then I'd start looking for a new place.  I know that’s not what you want to hear, but I think it’s the only option.  She'll probably be hurt for a bit, but as long as you're careful with her feelings and put in extra effort after you've gone your separate ways, things should get back to normal.  

Look, you and I both know that if you continue to stay there unhappy and uncomfortable, it won't do anything good for the relationship.

Hope this helps and keep me posted!