I took Rock's advice and returned Good on Paper's Facebook message. After some small talk about other things, I wrote the following:
I really appreciate and value your friendship. I know our connection in grad school didn't pan out, and I'm very glad we were able to remain friends and keep in touch. However, some of your comments lately have got me thinking that you're still hoping there's something there. Unfortunately, it just isn't there for me. Sorry to have to articulate it, but it'll be easier for me to focus on our friendship if I know you're aware of this.
That was last night. This morning, I received a reply:
Your friendship means a lot to me. Some of my comments are flirt-acious [sic]. I'm not trying to re-kindle a connection. I hope this next part makes sense; I feel I could explain it better talking rather than writing. You're very easy to flirt with. You have a lot a great characteristics that I like. So I feel comfortable flirting with you. It's how I show I care. I don't realize I'm doing it a lot of the times. I'll try to be more aware of it, so you won't feel uncomfortable. I am a guy though, so you'll probably need to point it out... and be ready to forgive me when I put my foot in my mouth.
Very courteous and mature and GOP. The reply doesn't surprise me a bit.
However, I don't 100% buy it.
He is a friendly, sometimes flirtatious guy, it's true. However, his behavior around me in the past, plus our history, leads me to believe it's not just friendly flirting. In fact, call me presumptuous, but I KNOW it hasn't been purely friendly. He was never creepy or overly pushy, but when I laughed and rolled my eyes, he'd press on.
Yeah. There was definitely more than a friend vibe on his end.
However, I'm not going to argue. I'm going to let him think I totally believe he just sees me as a friend.
Because letting one save face is what a friend does.
Has he been flirtatious with anyone else? I've met guys who enjoy flirting not necessarily because they try to get more than that, but because they like it when people respond to them. On the other hand, if he was only flirting with you, then he was probably just trying to save face in that response that he wrote.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he was lying. He's a very friendly guy by nature, which I'm sure translates into flirting. However, since we have that history and since I've had to make it clear to him before that we are just friends (and he still persisted), I do think there was a bit of a hidden agenda. There's nothing wrong with that, it just made me a little uncomfortable. And just his over-explanation in the message made me think "the lady (in this case, man) doth protest too much." Does that make sense?
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