Thanks, Delly and Rapunzel. I feel so flattered.
I’m Scribble, though, not Scribbles. There’s only one of me. 
The guy and I are going out tonight. It makes me happy just to think of seeing him. And it’s been a long day; I could use a little fun.
I don’t often LOL, but here I did. Good luck!
That is, “good luck” in general, not just with the marmoset thing. 
Thanks, ForgottenLore.
My hair doesn’t look too terrible these days, thanks to all the humidity we’ve been having. But the layers really ought to go shorter.
Scribble! I’m so glad to see that things are turning out well for you. 
I asked my husband out for coffee. I tried to flurt with him but he never got it. So I thoght I would give it one last shoot. You could have sem the light bulb go on over his head. He asked me out to dinner instead.
Been together or almost eight years and have two kids. Still are best friends. I would trade him for anybody or any amount of money.
We still drink coffee together.
good luck and even if he wants friendship that way cool and that may go somewhere nice. After all passion does come and go but friendship is what gets you through no money and he forgot this type of thing…
Uh, you may want to rephrase that :p.
I met my now wife when I rented a room in a house shared by four other people who I didn’t know before moving in. She rented one of the other rooms. The night I made my move (she claims, wrongly, that she made the first move :D) I invited her into my room to watch tv and drink tea. I didn’t tell her until a few months later that I don’t like tea and never drank any of mine.
Haj
Okay. Things with the guy aren’t so wonderful anymore.
Last week we went for coffee, once again. Everything was going beautifully–we were talking and laughing and having a great time. We stayed until the place closed and the staff kicked us out. He ended up driving me home, and we talked…and talked…and talked. Then we started kissing. And kissing…and kissing…and we went into my apartment, where there was no pesky parking brake between the seats, and…well, things got a little intense.
It was a little fast for me and, he said, a bit fast for him, too…he told me that he’d been considering whether he could give me a goodnight kiss that night. He told me that he was very happy, but also a bit scared, since he really liked me and really wanted this to work out. I felt that way, myself, which I told him. I let him know that I’d had a crush on him for a long time and that I thought he was beautiful. He seemed suprised, a little embarrassed, and flattered.
We saw each other soon after that. I told him then that I wanted to slow down a bit, that I was uncomfortable, that I knew from experience that if we hopped into bed now we’d burn out fast. He hugged me and looked me right in the eyes as he said that he understood, that we could go as fast or as slow as I wanted…all the stuff anyone in my position would want to hear.
So far, so good, right?
Ha, ha.
On that same date he kept doing stuff to try to get me to sleep with him, including lots of fondling in ways that you don’t do to someone who’s told you that she’s not comfortable. There wasn’t a heck of a lot of conversation–in fact, for a while, as I was cooking (We were in his apartment, and I was making dinner) he didn’t bother talking to me at all. He went outside and read a book instead.
I’ve seen him once more since then. He didn’t bother to speak much with me, he didn’t really show me any kind of genuine affection, didn’t seem to remember any of the personal details I told him when we were having all those long, wonderful talks, and doesn’t seem to give a flying fig how I feel or what I want. Or, if he does care, he doesn’t seem to notice.
But he certainly wants to hump. Badly. He didn’t respond when I tried to touch him in little ways to show that I cared about him (a hug hello, a stroke on the back of the neck when it was apparent that he was tired and had had a hard day), but he was happy to grind against me at the end of the evening, even though I told him that *I *wasn’t happy–and even though he’d shown almost no interest in me whatsoever until he’d gotten inside my apartment.
Frankly, it’s starting to feel kind of predatory. It’s as though, now that he knows for a fact that I’m seriously attracted to him, he doesn’t like or respect me as a person anymore. When we kissed, he did other things that, while my body was quite eager for them, my heart and mind were definitely not. He had this weird, arrogant expression of triumph on his face that made me feel a little queasy. Especially since, after I asked him to stop, he did stop–for a little while. But after a few minutes he went right back to it.
I told him that I had a long day of work starting early the next morning (which I did, actually) and I managed not to bring him into my bedroom. He finally left my house of his own accord, to both my relief and frustration.
We had made plans to see each other next Sunday, but I’ve begged off. I told him that I’m going to have to do more work (which is true.) He’s frustrated that he’s going to have to put off seeing me until next week, and he seems a bit angry that I didn’t have him stay last time. I’m wondering if I should see him again at all. I get the creepy feeling that, if I see him again, I’m going to have to sleep with him, which gives me a lot more fear than pleasure.
Go slow admonitions after swapping lot of spit tend not to be give all that much credence. Men have both negative and postive attributes, but they often tend to be sexually aggressive if they think a score is possible. If this makes you uncomfortable to the point you are fearing sex with him you need to be frank with him, break it off and move on.
You do not ever have to sleep with a man.
Repeat this until it’s firmly embedded in your mind.
And – trust your instincts. Clearly you are uncomfortable, and that’s reason enough to call a stop to things now.
<<<hug>>>
Forget about him until he realizes the error of his ways and comes crawling back. If he doesn’t, hooray, you’ve avoided a jerk!
Ugh!
I’m sorry, Scribble. What a jackass. 
Kick him to the curb.
Oh, believe me, I have no reservations about telling the guy to get lost. I haven’t yet sent him the e-mail telling him it’s over, but I will soon enough. My life is too short to waste on crap like this.
Contrary–I was being euphemistic. I didn’t mean to say that I would have been obligated to go to bed with him; I meant that I got the creepy feeling that he was determined to have sex with me whether I wanted to or not. Thanks for the hug.
Astro–I’ve dated men before. This is a bit different from what you have in mind, I think.
Thanks to everyone for your replies and support.
I don’t know who’d still be interested in reading yet another installment of this sordid tale, but just so that no-one can say I misled them or lied to them, I 'm posting this one last thing.
I ended up speaking with the guy last night. He’s not a predator at all (he was genuinely surprised and upset that I thought so), but he was very conflicted about dating me. He told me that if he got involved with me, it would be a serious relationship, and he knew he’d have to choose between me and going home. Since he knew that he was dead-set on living in Mexico, he wanted to stop seeing me now, rather than hurt me and himself later on. (He told me that this was probably the worst part of living here. He meets people he wants to have relationships with, but they’re never from Mexico, and he always knows that there’s no way he could make it work long-term. I wanted to scream “BULLSHIT!!” and “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY APARTMENT, YOU COWARD!!” but I sat there, paralyzed and numb instead.)
I’m not sure how much of his explanation I believe. After all, who’s going to turn down a shot at someone truly special, no matter what the hell country she comes from?
So…that’s it. It’s officially over. I feel like my heart has been torn out and eaten alive. But at least there’s no more suspense.
“Anything that don’t kill ya will make ya stronger.”
–Hoss Cartwright
Better days ahead, Scribble.
(And thanks for the update)
Howard–thanks for your words of comfort. But I never really understood why people would actually believe that anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What if it just maims you for life?
(That’s not to say that I think I’ve been maimed for life by this. I haven’t been. It just hurts like hell right now.)
But, you’re right–there will be better days ahead. Like tomorrow, when I have oral surgery. I’d rather have my jaw cut open than my heart cut open any day of the week.
Ugh.
I don’t like that explanation either, Scribble. Sounds like he wanted to make himself feel better. Which was stupid of him, probably only made you feel worse.
Well, the excuse gets even flimsier when I think back on all the fact that I loved being in Mexico during 3 weeks last winter. I even told him that I’d like to live there for a while.
If he decided that he didn’t like me, or didn’t like me as much as I liked him, or thought I wasn’t worth the effort of constantly speaking English with, I wish he had simply told me outright.
The only person I’d want to date would be someone emotionally mature enough to tell me truthfully and honestly why she wouldn’t want to date me. Too bad it’s a bitch of a Catch-22.
Sucks that it turned out this weay, Scribble. I’d been following this thread for awhile and all the nervous excitement made me smile.