Am I An Idiot?

I stopped seeing the guy I was seeing for the past year and a half. I miss him. I wish things could be otherwise. I tried to be just friends for a couple of months, which meant e-mails a few times a week, but it didn't work out. That was my deal, not his.

It is so true that you can't be friends if feelings lean you in another direction, and why is that? He certainly was more a friend to me than anything. There was a lot to build on, there. So what is my problem? Why doesn't it feel right to just be friends?

We hardly even had what you would call "dates". I would drive to his place on Thursdays, generally--the night my kids stay over their dad's--and we would eat takeout and curl up on the couch and watch stupid TV. He was asleep by 9--he's a morning person, and I am not. About half the time, he wouldn't even talk, he'd be half-asleep when I got there. We went out to the movies about three times, I think, and out to see a band once--that was totally my doing, believe me--and out to eat maybe five or six times, the first three within the first four dates back in the summer of 2009. Yeah, I counted. Is that pathetic? I asked him...

"Are you some sort of recluse?"

...and he laughed at that, good-naturedly, and didn't confirm or deny.

"Bring your kid out my way this weekend to hang with my kids," I asked, about four months in, and he said, "Sure, why not?" and then didn't answer his phone that entire weekend. "You could have just said no," I told him Monday, and he said, "Why? I see no reason why I shouldn't meet your kids," but then he never did.

He never suggested we get together to do anything. Never. Ever, not once. That's odd, right? So I looked up... "schizoid personality", and believed it fit, for a minute...but the well-rounded truth was, this guy had way more Facebook friends than me, was playful and teasing, and he had actually done many social activities in a past I had not been a part of, and even enjoyed them. So I asked him...

"Do you just want something light and casual, here? Because it's clear that we like each other, we get along really well, but if you absolutely don't want anything serious I want to know..."

"No, I don't want something light," he said, without hesitation. He was drying dishes at the time, and I was frustrated and annoyed with him, pacing around his kitchen. I had stayed over on an actual Saturday, and he told me 11am Sunday morning that it was time for me to go, because the guys were coming over to watch football in a bit. (My kids were with their dad again. Every-other-weekend and all that.) I was incredulous. When I got mad, he didn't even get mad back. He would not fight. He would smile and say, "Okay," in a sort of checked-out, not exactly indifferent but trying to be, kind of way.

Okay, I am an idiot. I broke it off about three times before the last time, even though it was clear from about the word "go" that nothing would come of this. But...

I felt comfortable at his place. I would walk through the door and "aaahhhhh," would exhale through my body. Sure, it was respite from the challenges and responsibilities of my life, but no other home I've been in felt so much like home-away-from-home as his place. It just did.

He was smart as hell--slightly smarter than I am, but not crazy-genius, so we could talk. We would discuss things, usually in the mornings when he was chipper, and usually some current events topic, and we would take contrary sides sometimes. (He watched Fox News in the mornings, which horrified me, but listened to NPR in the car. About watching Fox, he said, "You have to know what the other guy is thinking.")

He was sarcastically funny. He made me laugh, often. I could make him laugh. We made eye contact at times that spoke understanding without words. The first time we did that I thought, "Whoa, and we've known each other just a few months, wow," but he also had a habit of looking straight ahead (at the TV, you know) while talking to me, so it didn't happen a lot.

"I like that color blue on you," he'd say. "You've got spine," he said, another day. "I respect you. I kinda...admire you," he said another day, a day I was telling him that it really didn't seem as if we were going anywhere, seeing as he didn't call, answer his phone, make an effort to see me, or take any part in my life at all, or seem to want to--and he was trying to tell me how much he really did like me.

He really did like me. "I need a hug," I would say, and he would wrap me up. When I hadn't planned for the change in weather, he'd dig out sweaters for me, without me asking. When awful things were happening with my ex-husband last summer, he was attentive (answered the phone!) and supportive and gave good advice, and he listened to me with patience and kindness. When I was trying to dump him, he's send sweet "I hope you are well" e-mails that would suck me right back in again.

Yes...I was that easy.

This last time will be the time that sticks.

Notice the future tense? It hasn't quite taken hold yet. Am I an idiot? He's a wonderful man, who was too flattened by his last bunch of relationships to bring himself to do it again, and that is pretty much the story. So be his friend, right? I'm sure I could use another friend.

Not him, though. I fell in love.