Sooner or later I really should tell F about this blog.  I mean, it’s not good to keep secrets from each other, is it?  And this is a big part of who I am, possibly, probably.  Which makes this post more dangerous than others because, not only is this blog not known to him but neither is this other problem – which wasn’t a problem – until last night!

And I ummmed and ahhhed about this and whether I should post this but, since I had decided this blog would detail all of the ups and downs of life after V, I feel I owe it to you, dear reader, to tell all – well, almost all.

The question is – how to post this without sounding a bad person when really, it’s not because I’m bad, it’s because I am too soft.  And I know that you will have opinions and have advice over this.  Don’t think, for a moment, that I haven’t already been through all this in my head already.  I know what I should do.  I know what is the right thing to do but………

The problem came only last night.  Before that it was controlled and controllable and no problem, since it was only chat and nothing else.  And the problem with last night was that the three magic words were uttered and now I feel a cad – and, yet, it’s really not my fault, even as it is entirely my fault.

I am a bastard but a kind and loving bastard, albeit a bastard all the same.

And so, you need to know the story.  On this one site, where I was meeting some men, there was this kid (and I say kid though he is 30 and at that age I had a company and a new boyfriend (V) and the start of a 20-year relationship).  We had chatted a lot.  Some of it of a sexual nature, him liking certain things that I also like.  But not always about sex, in fact, often not.  You may remember, if you were reading at that time, he had a boyfriend in Spain.  He kept on promising to meet me but never did.  He also has other problems and, being the person I am, I felt that I might be able to help him.  And so we chatted.

Then he came over one night but only because he was in Milan anyway for some friends dinner and we had like 20 minutes.  And then there was F.  And so, with all the other men and the forthcoming arrangements I had made, I sent a standard chat message to say that I couldn’t really see them any more as I had started a relationship.

See, I was being good and not hedging my bets – after all, F was the ‘one’.

Except this one.  I don’t know why (and it’s not that I find him particularly attractive or anything and nor that I thought we had any future (the boyfriend in Spain being a major part of that thinking)) but I felt that I should tell him face-to-face; to break it more gently; not to dismiss him without him seeing that I was sorry it could not be more even if it was destined not to be more in any event.

And so, for a week or so we hardly chatted.  And then, over the last few days, we chatted some more.  The day before yesterday no sex chat as he was feeling really down, then yesterday afternoon, the sex chat as before, which does nothing for me but seems to do quite a lot for him.

And, yes, I know – I should not have replied, or kept it off sex or something – but it’s harmless, right?  I mean, it’s not like we shall meet any time soon, right?  And even if we did I would be strong and make sure that nothing happened, right?

Well…..yes….but……………………

And then, at the end, he wrote those three words.  And I thought: ‘Oh shit’.

It was unexpected.  I couldn’t reply for almost an hour.  I mean, we’ve had chats and seen each other for 20 minutes.  I replied that he didn’t even know me.  He said he knew that.  I was at a loss for words at that point.  I thought: ‘If only I had told him like the others'; ‘If only I had done this or that’.

But I didn’t.  And I thought of those three words and the fact that I had said them to F and that it had made him scared.  I don’t feel scared by having them written to me – only………

Only what?  Only something. I don’t want this guy to be hurt and I know by my failure to tell him the real circumstances originally, when I should have; when I told everyone else, I WILL hurt him.  But I cannot just leave him hanging…….after those words…….

I am a bastard.  And now?  What am I to do about it?  He is young enough to be my son and, kind of, I wanted to help him that way, but this thing is blurred by the fact that this thing was not clear at the beginning, became less clear as time went on and is now so unclear as to leave him in complete darkness.  And to tell him?  With the shit that he is going through anyway?  This will make it worse?

And so, I have dug this hole and I am in it up to my neck and, it seems, I am digging deeper.  I have to find a way out.  Seriously!

You may judge me if you want; you may comment if you want; I will put them through although I may not reply.  I have to sort this thing out – I want to sort this thing out.  I want it to be ‘right’.

To be honest, I have been saying all the way along that he should just move to Spain.  To be with the boyfriend who, apparently, loves him like crazy.  Before those three words were written last night, there was nothing, really.  But now?

I am a stupid bastard.

Oh, yes, and in case you were thinking that this was the problem I mentioned in the post before last….it isn’t.  I am a stupid, seriously fucked-up bastard.

But, it wasn’t meant to be like this.