CaringScared

Thank you very, very much for this. I find this unnerving. I'm positive it's true--what do I know? What experience do I have with any of this?

But then I do find myself questioning it in certain ways.

I knew the guy for at least four months before I started to feel the strong interest. During that time, we would talk and he would express interest, but I deflected it because he was so much younger. He didn't really push the issue. He was just someone I talked to once in awhile.

It was my own personal situation that led me to consider beginning to flirt back. Basic loneliness and having decided to be more outgoing in my life and to pursue an opportunity even if the person was younger. I know his family--I patronize their business, that is how I know him--and his father is a WONDERFUL, wonderful person. So it's not like I have no context for who he is. Is he really just an awful, deceitful, manipulative charmer? That's creepy for me to consider...

He was horrible to me when he was in the hospital BUT, I will say these things for him: 1. He has never really shown an interest in even finding out where I live. He knows it's a mile or so away from his house, but we've never really discussed it. 2. He has never asked me for money, not once ever.

I'd like to think it wasn't in the back of his mind to find out where I lived or to get money from me. I'm sure if I was still in contact with him, those things would've changed eventually.

When I left him one night so he could do his thing, he seemed truly miserable and said he would "get better" the next day. I talked to him two days later. He was miserable and crying. He said he had tried not to use for a day, but that he just couldn't do it. He said some pretty mean things too. Then at one point he stopped himself and said, "You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't watch the ship go down, it isn't healthy."

The next day he checked himself into the hospital and the mean, desperate messages began.