As you have previously read - last year I actually met someone who saw me for the person I was (and not the act we all hide behind when we are trying to sell ourselves). But as ever there were problems... It all started summer last year when I was recovering from my mouth operation. I was working from home and a guy (who I had chatted to a fair bit online) managed to invite himself around to my house... Well considering I wasnt feeling 100% and was still recovering from an op it probably wasnt my brightest idea! Needless to say he came over and I did my usual hospitality thing, yes let him sit on one sofa and I will sit on the other and I will make a nice cup of tea (I think sometimes I can act much older than I really am - I suppose this stems from growing up where everything would always be sorted out over a nice cup of tea, and when you hurt yourself my family would insist on giving you nice strong tea with lots of sugar.... hmmm). Anyway, this guy was obviously interested and worked out pretty quickly that I wasnt going to make the first move (possibly the little sub boy inside me... or more the lack of confidence brought about by my current lack of self worth). He came and sat next to me, and proceeded to start the mating ritual - yes this is the touchy leg thing, then quickly proceed to sticking ones tongue into other persons mouth. I may have complained slightly - esp seen as I still was recovering from my mouth op! This proceeded to "bedroom fun".... - I only wish all things were this easy! We had a great time and over the proceeding weeks whilst I was working up north he would "pop" round and visit - likewise we would meet up for coffee if I was near where he was. It turned from a "sex meet" into a full blown friendship. But there was added complexity.... On the very first sofa session he informed me that he had a girlfriend and only played with guys cause she could not give him what he wanted in the bedroom, but they had been together a while and he loved her lots.... well this is fine I thought as there is 200 miles between us so there was enough physical distance for it not to work anyway, and considering my track record I rarely put faith is things going according to the fairytale. So we continued to meet, and speak on the phone (yes this is where the £200 phone bills came from!)... and discovered we had lots in common and enjoyed each others company. I could be myself... an annoying little tech geek, and he tried to put on the "I just want sex act" for about ten minutes then fell back into the hugging, kissing little girl mode... which I actually liked. I can honestly say that for the first time in a while I think I had found someone who loved me as much as I loved them... at this point I could go into specific details of dirty nights in Manchester where I was introduced to Krispy Kreme, and where building sites have a new meaning :) But thats probably too personal... needless to say things were going pretty well. Until.... We had organised a weekend where his "other half" was going away and I was going to stay at his and "hang out"... well you may say this is probably going a step too far, but in honesty it worked well. The uncomfortableness only lasted about 30 minutes then we fell into the natural arena where it felt as if this shady scary relationship that could hurt so many people was "normal" for want of a better word. The weekend was like a normal couple doing normal things.... pratting about at Tesco, cooking together, watching Glee, pillow talk... it was a very happy weekend... and led me to think that potentially things could work out, if it wasnt for the fact that someone else was involved in the relationship, and he was shagging around a lot (yes I did forget to mention this earlier.... not that I could have influenced this or that I would want to, we were just FTF's (friends that fuck) so was not my place to comment or give advice, although I was jealous). Anyway.... the weekend came to a close and I drove home... very happy. We continued to talk via MSN and the phone over the next week. For a while I had been juggling my diary so that I could spend time up north, even to the extent of seriously moving customers around to suit my own ends. On occasions it went to plan, and other times it didnt. One such time was when I was working in the city where he lives and the job should have finished at 3pm, yet I was still there till much later, this happened on a few occasions but this is just the nature of the job. Most of the installs I do I can be out of within a few hours, but sometimes things dont go to plan. We organised to meet up on the friday as I was doing an installation in Leeds. At 2pm the server was up and running, customer had been trained and services were coming back online. So I text to say would be done shortly and can meet at Ikea Leeds. He text back a few times just to confirm everything was deffinately done. I said yes it was and continued to drink the free coffee from the customer. Now it usually takes about 40 minutes from when services come online to devices getting provisioned and working, now in this instance for some reason the devices did not provision. Manual intervention was not working, and I began panicing as thought I was going to have to roll back an entire days work and come back on a Monday morning (this is precisely why we dont do installs usually on Fridays!). Calls were hastily made to support teams around the UK then in Canada to try and get the services back working for this customer.... at this point texts were coming from my "date" asking me where I was, what was happening etc. I was still trying as hard as possible to get things provisioned and get out of the door so I could see him, even if it was just for a coffee and a cuddle. After escalating as far as I could there was nothing left to do but to start reading the manuals and logs to find out what the hell was wrong.... at this point after being stood at Ikea for about 10 mins, in fact he arrived at 3.13pm and text to tell me he was going at 3.31pm. then another one at 3.45pm telling me he was very pissed off at me for making him trail the 10 miles from his house to Ikea. (Not that I had travelled 200 miles to get to Leeds, and arrived at 8.30am so could spend more time with him....).  I did send a text saying sorry but got back a curt "Fuck Off", then later a message telling me he was so dissapointed and he would write in more detail online. I eventually left the customers site after eventually resolving the issues at about 9.30pm, and arrived home to a message telling me that he was very hurt and feels he has been messed about and cause he has let me into his life he feels he has been badly hurt... and pretty much goodbye... followed by blocking me on MSN and removing me as a friend.... I was hurt... I was pretty upset... and cause no one was home had no one to turn to or confide in... so went to bed. That was Friday.... today is Wednesday... I did temporarily remove my profile from online... and block him also... but then felt I was being petty so reinstated but informed people I was currently not up for meeting guys. Im very dissapointed... he has a point I should not put my job first... but my job is one of the single solid things I have in my life... without that I am nothing... I feel confident at work because I have self worth, am very competent and belong to a good team.... outside of work I am none of those. Im a insular, brittle person that when I open up I tend to get hurt... so dont tend to trust people anymore. Its a sad state of affairs... I feel hurt that this guy feels that he has been hard done by, when every night he had a girlfriend to go home to... I have no one.... he has lots of guys chasing after them and because he is a mature student he can afford time to go randomly shagging, whereas im very career orientated and am trying to climb the greasy pole of a multinational by being good at what I do. I wouldnt want to shag around that much as I would just feel dirty and used, and be paranoid about catching things. I find it so dissapointing that someone who obviously has some feelings for me can allow something so petty to destroy it. Personally I feel that he may have become too attached, and could well be using this as an excuse to create some distance. If that is the case I would have preferred some honesty rather than making me out to be the bad person in this. I remember saying to someone in a similar position that there is nothing good can come from chasing someone who is attached, and it will only destroy you when it doesnt work out the way you want... yet here I am, eating my own words. Life can be cruel sometimes... The last message from him read: I don't know what to say. . . I really don't. I've obviously let you get too close and the end result is I've got hurt.