going out on a limb or just wearing my heart on my sleeve...

i'll leave it to you to decide which is the most appropriate metaphor for tonight's instalment...

i was out with some work colleagues (actually that's not entirely right! one of them is a good mate and one of them i'm getting to know better) and we got talking about my love life (yeah i know, short conversation)...but after telling them the story of sunday's disastrous date i confessed (yep, the vodka will do that to a girl) that i was actually still 'in like' with someone else...

yep, it's true - i met someone a while ago, we kinda sorta started seeing each other (at least that's what i thought it was) and when it felt kinda good and that it might be moving in a nice (read as more intimate, meaningful) direction, he ran away...

so all contact ceased while i tried to work out how i could have misread the signs (turns out now, i don't think i did!), then with my impending overseas trip i just had a sense of not wanting to leave without seeing him (not sure what was going on there, guess that's what happens when you like someone?) - so we talked, agreed we would 'start over' when i got back and 'take things much slower'...sounds good right?

but no, i came back, we were going to catch up and one single comment by me sends him into a spin (my interpretation) and our catchup is called off...but somehow i can't seem to let it (or him) go...

and now it's months down the track and with only an occasional email as a reminder of what was or what might have been, and still i find myself wishing there could have been more...

i've often thought about trying to understand what's really going on for him but what would be the point? he seems to be content with where his life is at, and showing no signs of wanting to move in any direction, so i guess that leaves me thinking that nothing i do or say will change the situation, despite how much i wish i could...

and if i'm honest i just feel sad... sad we didn't get a chance to see what might be, sad that he is closed to letting someone in, sad that i finally thought i might have met someone with whom i could have explored the possibility of a relatioship with..and finally, sad that another person hurt him so badly that he hides himself away from life behind a seemingly inpenetrable wall...

i'm not even sure i can say exactly what it is i like about him, but something that first day got my attention - maybe it was his unusual and sometimes overly formal manner, maybe it was his unique way of stringing a sentence together in such a way that whilst you understand the words individually, by the time he'd finished, you weren't really sure what he had said, maybe it was an innate shyness that made him appear vulnerable, who knows really?

anyway, truth is i like him, and i wish that things could be different...