He is planning to take a seven-hour flight to see me, and I keep getting stuck on the part where we are supposed to be just friends. He knows I am married. He has also told me he has feelings for me. Neither fact seems to have made him want less contact.
We finally met when I visited his country. He had tried to arrange something on earlier trips, and I had let those opportunities pass. This time I said yes. That first meeting became five catch-ups, and I enjoyed being with him. By the time I went home, this was no longer someone I had vaguely meant to meet someday.
The timing matters. Around then, my husband and I had our fourth wedding anniversary. He was extremely busy, as he often is, and made no plans. There were no flowers. The day went by like any other day, except that I had expected it to feel different. I want to stay in my marriage, but I was hurt and feeling overlooked.
Then there was this other man making time for me. He spent a lot on me during our meetings. More than that, he was sweet and attentive, and that continued after I returned home. We have stayed in touch. I have started to feel emotionally drawn to him, and I feel comfortable and safe around him. That is my experience of him; it does not tell me everything about what he wants.
He says he is willing to keep things platonic if that means he can keep me in his life. Part of me wants to take that at face value. People can have feelings they choose not to act on. I do not want to decide he must be manipulating me simply because he cares about someone who is unavailable.
But he has also said he will stay loyal to me. We are not dating. I do not know what loyalty means in that sentence. Is he saying that I can count on him as a friend, or offering the kind of devotion that usually belongs to a relationship? He is 32, lives alone, and has a life of his own. I cannot tell whether he is making room for friendship or keeping a place open for something else.
I also have an uncomfortable question about my side of this. Would his attention feel quite so powerful if I were not missing it at home? I cannot separate the pleasure of being noticed from the hurt that came before it. His care may be sincere, and my loneliness may still be making it mean more to me. Those possibilities can exist together.
I do not want to leave my husband, and I am not looking for another relationship. Yet I am asking what this man secretly hopes for while already admitting that my own feelings have changed. Calling it friendship does not make that admission disappear.
For now, the visit is still a plan. There has been no seven-hour flight, no arrival, no meeting back in my country. We are still talking, and I am still trying to understand what he means by staying close when I have told him I am not available.
