Just go AWAY already!!

I’m single. And while I would be more than happy to share my time with a boy, the fact is there’s too much going on in my life right now to deal with any dating drama…and if my dating history is any indicator, there would be DRAMA.I’m not sure what happened in my childhood to turn me into a magnet for lame guys, but boy am I cursed! In any other capacity, I would consider myself a pretty stable and independent person. I’m comfortable with being by myself, am perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet. But when it comes to men, they can use me, treat me crappy, ignore me, lead me on, have double standards, refuse to commit, string me along, give me a complex…and I LET them! (don’t freak: I recognize this is not healthy) The last guy I dated, I’m still in denial about. It was a classic case of someone who demanded upright living and perfection in others (including me), but he was free to do whatever he wanted. There was more hypocrisy in that man than any person I’ve ever known before or since.

But I digress. The reason for this post is that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about one ex in particular (not the above mentioned hypocrite). I have this strong desire to reconnect with him, and I’m not quite sure why. Let me fill in the background:

I almost wouldn’t consider him an “ex”: we officially only went on a couple of dates. However, we met on-line and spent the better part of a month talking every day on the phone before we even met. When we did finally go on our first date, we realized we had met previously on a few occasions at the church I went to. I was in leadership there, up in front of the congregation on a weekly basis, and I was always able to pick him out of the crowd: he was thatcute. Needless to say, by the time we actually went on our first date, there was a lot of emotional involvement already (at least on my part). He seemed to be an amazing Christian man, with a love of God and a spiritual mindset very much in line with my own at the time. The night of our first official date, he took me to dinner at a great restaurant. Afterwards, he pulled over and bought me flowers. Actually, he pulled over to this organic market in our neighborhood, took me to the florist dept (which is expansive and full of gorgeous blooms) and told me to pick whatever I wanted. By the end of the evening, I knew his entire family history, his hopes and dreams, his struggles and shortcomings. He told me (and I quote) that as far as he could tell, I “…dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s.” I was smitten. We went out several times after that, but within a few weeks, he’d decided that I didn’t quite “complete him” after all. So much for dotting i’s and crossing t’s. I was annoyed. Here was a guy who appeared to be all of the things I was looking for, and had basically told me that I was the same for him. But now he just wanted to be good friends. You see, I had become “one of the most important people” in his life, and he “really valued and cherished” me. So much so, that he wanted me to be his best friend, someone with which he could share everything in his life…including all the juicy details about the new girls he was dating. Ummmm, NO! Uh Uh, sorry dude.

Ok, so I’m pretty cool. I’m a great friend. I love to give relationship and dating advice to my peeps, guys and girls alike. But when I’m attracted to you, and I want to be more than just friends, hearing all the details about your newest romantic conquest just isn’t ok with me. There was a time when I would have hung on, played the “best friend” role, convinced that when all his other relationships failed (as was inevitable), he would see that what he really needed had been in front of him the entire time. (Yeah right…when does that actually happen in real life?)

So I severed contact with him. He didn’t understand. I went through the typical routine of deleting his number from my phone and his email from my contacts list, and it was satisfying. I fought against the urge to give in and call him, and I triumphed.

Then, at 8pm on a Monday night last February (close to 10 months since the last time I had even thought about him), my cell phone rang. The number was vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t sure about it and I’m not in the habit of answering calls from numbers I don’t recognize. I let it go to voice-mail, but none was left. Again, a week later a call from the same number…no voice-mail left. The weekend after my birthday (which is at the end of February), I received yet another call from the mystery number. This time, the caller left a message. It was him! Wishing me a happy belated birthday, apologizing for having missed it and hoping I was doing well. He signed off “Talk to you later!” as if we’d only just spoken the other day, and would be talking again real soon. WTF?!?!?!

I didn’t call him back. I told everyone I knew about it, and got mixed advice…some friends said to call him. After all, I was officially “over it” and could feasibly handle being legitimate friends with the guy. Others said that if he really wanted to talk, he’d call again. He never did. A month or so later, after having a dream in which he cameoed (nothing dirty, shut up!), I sent him a text out of guilt. I felt bad that he’d sent me his good wishes and I hadn’t even responded to say “thanks”. If he got my text, I’ll never know. I haven’t heard from him since, and its been at least 7 months.

So why, after all this time, is he nagging at my mind again? Why do I have this urge to call him out of the blue, just as he did to me almost a year ago? Last night, I found myself willing my phone to ring with him on the other end, just so I could be let off the hook. Why, after all these months, do I suddenly want to be friends with the guy, and nothing more? (for those of you who may think I’m subconsciously fishing for a new BF, trust me…I’m not)

I won’t call him. But what if I did?