Left turn, Clyde. Again.

Well, I just got my heart strings tied in a knot. Not broken, mind you. Just knotted. Reality sucks.

New Fella called me tonight, on his way home. We had a great conversation, about his week of hell ahead (busy, busy), and my bad day yesterday. "Sounds like you've had a rough couple of days," he said. "Tell me about it." After the telling and discussing, he lost the phone signal in the canyon.

He called back. And I decided to cut to the chase and ask some questions that have been driving me batty lately.

"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"Am I the only one you're seeing right now?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"I was just wondering that. I've turned down a couple of invitations lately, and wondered if we were on the same page with that."
Pause. A little nervous laugh. "Well, I don't know that I'd tell you to turn down anyone who asked you out, just yet."

Stab.

I shouldn't limit my options, he says. If someone comes along who is better suited, I shouldn't turn him down. If I had a date with someone else, it wouldn't hurt his feelings. He said his life is very full, very busy. He doesn't have time to really do much, or get too involved in anything. He's in no hurry to get married again. If someone he works with said, hey, I have this friend you should meet....he would.

Yeah, he said that. Exactly.

"But I'd tell you about it," he said. No lying, sneaking, hiding things. At least that part of my paranoia can stand down.

"The ones I've turned down," I explained, "have been because they weren't someone I wanted to see more than I wanted to see you."

"I can understand that," he said. He wasn't trying to be conceited, just understanding where I was coming from.

I also reminded him that, at the onset, I'd said I wasn't in any hurry to get married. And I'm still not. My kids have had two bad experiences with stepmothers and it's made them gun-shy about me getting married again. And if he looks at my track record since being divorced, I was with my last boyfriend for the better part of eight years. Definitely not in a hurry here. And I also have a very busy life, between kids, work, and school.

He told me about the last woman he dated. For nearly five months. He said he "really thought she was something else." Then, out of the blue, she breaks it off. It baffled him. "Didn't send me into a dark funk or anything," he said, but baffled him. He thought she just couldn't handle it starting to get serious.

Five months, eh? We've been together about half that long.

He explained that just after his divorce, he felt almost desperate to not be alone. But as time goes on, he kind of likes being able to do his own thing and not "have to answer to anyone." He can sit around all day and watch sports or stupid sitcoms, if that's what he wants to do. "I'm not going to miss a Broncos game or a Rockies game," he said.

"And you shouldn't have to," I added, but I'm not sure he heard me. And I do mean that. A lot of women make the mistake of demanding a man give up what he likes to do, for what she likes to do. It's not about "either/or"; it's about melding the two.

I told him that I do appreciate the pace we've been taking things. The slow pace is new to me, but it's good. He said he's liked that, too. "Except for that one time...," he says.

"Yeah, that was a weird day," I said.

He's referring to the passionate "incident" in the foyer, when he had me against the wall and things got a little wild. I've since realized that being interrupted was a blessing in disguise. Our "intimacy" has gone other places since then, that having sex would have probably derailed. It would have upset the progression we've gone through now and made things a lot harder.

He went on. "That day, I just said 'Whoa! What's going on here?' I mean, I can do meaningless sex, if that's what we want, but in this situation it would really confuse things. I thought that we really need to be careful."

I jumped in. "And as I get older, I find keeping it meaningless is increasingly hard to do."

"Yeah, me, too," he added.

"I do think we've got a good start to something going here," I said.

"I do, too," he said. "But if we get to where we want to take it to the next level, then there's some things you should know about me. We'll have to sit down and have those hard conversations. I've done some things in my life that I'm not proud of, and you should know."

Okay, I know it's not a criminal record. I've already looked into that (I can't help it!). So, I'm not quite sure what he's referring to, but I'll have to wait for it. A little scary. But if these are regrets, and things that stay in the past, I'll be okay. I think.

So, I wrapped it up by telling him that I really do enjoy him, and his family. He answered by saying, "Yes, it seems to be going very well." And he promised to talk to me tomorrow, as usual.

I'm sure no one is surprised that this conversation disappointed me. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked, but I also needed to know. I'm afraid that now I've pushed him to want to have a date with someone else, if only to make a point to me or put some distance between us. I don't know how I'll handle that.

And I also have to say....it smarts. In essence, he let me know that I'm not so special after all. He's interested, but not enough that he doesn't want me to see someone else, and he can certainly imagine being more interested in someone other than me. But he thinks we have a "good start" and it's "going very well." How confusing it that?

I think God likes to screw with me. Again. Dangle that carrot, then yank it away. Why do I not deserve the "happily ever after"?

Dang. I hate this.