Adrian Mole and Pandora.

Oh dear fate really can be rather cruel... I have been bemoaning my lack of male attention but then when one does suddenly get some it is always from entirely the wrong sources. My oldest male friend asked to plight my troth to his last week leaving my feeling unjustifiably betrayed and outraged. We have been friends for a very long time and although we indulge sometimes (him a lot more than me) in harmless flirting we have been such sound friends that there seemed to be no danger of such a ghastly development. I like my male friends to be safe and our relationships free from any sort of tension created by unrequited feelings of that nature. Yes flirting with them is lovely and I do enjoy them acting all protective and so on with me when I am fragile, but I never want or expect them to have deeper feelings than those of pure friendship.

Alas not the case with this friend, however. He did ask me out a few times way back in our long forgotten school days but I was as unattracted to him then as I am now (a lovely chap but physically not at all my type). We moved on and grew up and stayed in intermittent touch thanks to the joys of msn chat and now facebook. We only quite recently reconnected and it has been lovely and great fun to have him back in my life. He is very clever and we have terrific discussions about things, and because we are friends of such longstanding we trust each other and confide all sorts of things about relationships, friends and our love lives. He has always reminded me greatly of Adrian Mole due to the sort of way they live their lives, outlook and to my mind they look very similar also.

But if he is Adrian then that makes me Pandora. And he really should have worked out that they never get together. They are very good friends but she flits in and out of his life, their relationship is mainly based on a shared adolesence and that while sadly he, like Adrian, seems to continue the early feelings of love for Pandora, she never returns them and really lives in quite a different world to Adrian.

It all made me very sad and the email in which he asked me out was truly lovely. He said he knew he didn't have much to offer me but his small all was mine for the asking. I let him down as gently and quickly as I could the next time we spoke but he has clearly been avoiding me ever since.  I really wish all male friends were simply safe and that one could be quite happy knowing they would never suddenly ask one out. I suspect problems of that nature with another of my male friends from whom I also want only friendship. He has been distinctly odd with me ever since i became single last summer and when he gets drunk I try and avoid being alone with him in case he says or does something for which I would have to rebuff him.

Oh fate you are a cruel mistress. I long to be asked out only to have totally unsuitable men do the asking!