What Is and What Should Never Be

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about guys I've dated or wanted to date who are jerks, but I do have one former love interest who is an awesome guy.

This guy was a friend of mine for a year or so before we dated. A lot of drama went into the decision to try dating, mostly revolving around who was more interested than whom at what point in time. When we finally started dating, we managed to keep it together for only a matter of about two weeks before he called it off. He broke my heart, and I cried every day for a month. It took a lot of time and effort, but we eventually patched things up. By now, I think we've been friends for seven or eight years.

This guy and I have had some major fights during the course of our friendship, some of which involved whether or not to transition to a romantic relationship and some of which involved other things. Every time, we could have let the friendship end, and we usually didn't talk for a few months, but we always found our way back to being friends. I asked myself why that was when I flew to his city to visit him two years ago, and I determined that it was because he and I really love each other.

That realization begs the question: In what way do we love each other? I think the answer is: as good friends.

As I mentioned, this guy is fantastic. He's smart, he's funny, he's handsome, he's kind. He's everything that anyone could ever want. Since we live on opposite coasts now, we see each other rarely, but we keep in touch by phone and email. The past two times I've seen him (the aforementioned visit to his city two years ago and his current visit to my city), I've wondered whether our relationship might take a romantic turn again. After all, we love each other, we each think the other one is awesome, so what's the problem? Why on earth would we not want to be together? I don't know.

I guess I can blame it on chemistry, or maybe on fate. Neither of us seems attracted to each other in a romantic sense. Back when we tried dating, I think we both were trying to convince ourselves that we did, could or should have those feelings, but they weren't there. We're fated to be in each other's lives, but we're not romantically compatible. It's kind of a bummer, really. I mean, it's wonderful to have him as a friend, and I'm glad that our attempts to see if more was possible didn't ruin things, but it's hard to accept that the two of us can care about each other so much and still not be able to make a relationship work.