Charming, but single

Had one of those amazing, two-hour conversations with B last night. It was nice, albeit slightly painful at times. He was talking about a girl. I choked back my feelings and offered my friendly advice and a woman's perspective. After all, I have not spared him details of the boys in my life. Ever. "I don't want to sound like I'm butting in," I said before I offered any advice. "No, no. Any perspective you can give is good. Very good," he said. So we talked about her and the Relief Worker and then that lead to a conversation of fears and opening up and how hard it is to let someone in when you've been hurt in the past. The fact that I'd been hurt in the past by B was danced around, although we both knew it was there. He seemed to want to acknowledge it at one point. I was saying that sometimes it is tough to want to put yourself out there and then be rejected, but you realize after doing it a few times that rejection hurts, but it doesn't kill you. You can live to tell the tale of a broken heart, I told him. "It hurts to put all of your cards on the table and then be left hanging out there," I said. He paused and sort of smiled and shifted in his seat. "This, um, this is odd," he said. He stopped himself. "What?" I said. "What do you want to say? Why did you stop." He shook his head. I knew he wasn't going to come clean or cop to his feelings or anything like that. I think that was the closest he's come to ever acknowledging that he'd hurt me. And yet he stopped short. We talked about things I've always known about him -- how he holds things inside and won't let people in. We talked about why, but that's not really mine to share. We talked about relationships and what we want out of them. "I wish I could be one of those people who just dates someone and breaks up with them and then starts dating someone else," he said. "So you want quantity over quality?" I asked. "I'd rather have something special and real than months of just getting by with something that is just okay. I'll wait my whole life for something real. And if it never comes, then I guess I'll just have to be enough." We kept talking. He is stressed and confused and any number of other things. As we left the bar, I leaned against his truck. "What would make you happy?" I asked him. He paused and thought for too long. "You think too much," I told him. "What would make you happy right now? Don't think about it. Stop trying to intellectualize your feelings. Just say something that would make you happy right now." He paused again and looked at me. "What would make you happy?" I giggled. "French toast," I said coyly. But I was lying.