Dante, Part Two

I remember exactly where I was the following week when my conversation with Dante came to a head. I was sitting in the parking lot of a White Castle (gross) with my family, and we were texting flirtatiously back and forth. So, so careful were we.

And this is when it happened. He said something to me about how weird I was. I told him that wasn't very creative. So he said:

"Well, I could say how great you are, or how freaking intimidating it is at how close you are to being perfect, but it's simpler just to say you're weird and stuff."

OK, so that's a paraphrase, but yes, I do remember what he said. 3, 4 years later. Wow.

I said:

"I think we need to talk."

So we talked. And talked. And talked. And determined that we really liked each other.

And then he told me all of the reasons I didn't want to be with him. It was like he immediately regretted admitting his feelings.

So we determined, mutually (mostly), that we wouldn't be together. At least for a while. But that maybe, after a few months, we would.

Again, he immediately regretted this. He said something along the lines of "if your prince charming comes along, don't ignore him because of me." And I said something like "I can wait."

Damn, looking at this from this angle, I can see that right from the beginning he was less into the arrangement than I was. I did do one thing smart and make him promise that if he stopped being into me, he was going to tell me. I guess I had some foresight.

Soon, I went off to school again. We were texting back and forth a lot, exchanging news about our lives, jokes, and the occasional tender word.

And then, a couple months into the semester, I told him that I missed him. He told me that he missed me, too, but that he didn't think we should use language like that. He told me that he hadn't been single in a long time, and that he wasn't going to give it up.

I assumed, for some dumb reason, that he meant that he wasn't going to give it up yet. That he still wanted to be with me, just not yet.

And then began a long process of me questioning him about what was going on with him, and him being fairly friendly but mostly distant.

And I kept waiting on him. Because I just knew that his self-imposed singleness would soon get old, and he would look up to see me waiting and run into my arms, and we would run off into the sunset together. I was such a naive tool. Probably still am.

Finally, after a really long time of waiting, and a crapload of veiled questioning, I asked him straight up if he had forgotten his promise. He told me that he was indeed still attracted to me, but he just wanted to be friends. "For now," I thought. Stupid, stupid.

It only took a couple weeks this time. I basically forced it out of him. We had a conversation. It went like this:

Me: You need to give me a straight answer about all of this.

Him: I want to keep my options open, but I can see that you won't let me. I made a mistake when I said those things to you a few months ago. I don't think we'll ever be together.

And I was really sad. It took me a while to forgive him, because he was basically leading me on for several months. But then, I did, or at least I said I did. I think I even believed that I did.

And we were friends for a while. But it was weird. And then, there was that one moment when I just knew that we were not friends anymore.

I had, long ago, borrowed a gorilla costume from him. I had it for a long time, promising that I would give it back the next time he saw me. He emailed me one day and said (in a kind, humorous, and whimsical manner) that he didn't want the costume back (actually what he said was that the costume preferred me to him, but I caught the drift). I haven't seen him since.

But what really irks me is that he has withdrawn not only from me, but from so many of our mutual friends. Our friendship is poisoned, and that's ok. But I wish he was able to stand my presence long enough to be friends with these other people who miss him as much (maybe) as I do.

And yes, I do miss him still. The pining is less keen since he got engaged, but sometimes I wonder what could have been.

Hah. I said in a previous post that I hope to never meet another person as charming as Gregory. Dante falls into that category. I need to stop being friends with smarmy dudes.

But that's the thing. We were actually just really good friends for a long time. Maybe what I need to stop doing is even considering getting involved with my male friends. Unfortunately, that strategy doesn't always work, which I found out with Chip.