I got a call from Friend tonight and deliberately didn't answer it, but when I checked the message later, it merely said, "Hey hk, it's Friend. Can you call me when you get this?"

So I did.

And I happened to be walking back home by his house, so we met.

And he said he wanted to go for it.

And I felt very sad all of a sudden.

Perhaps I should have been annoyed, or indignant, or angry, because it's been so long since the ambiguities in our relationship surfaced. And I did feel annoyed, especially when we resolved everything and he asked a last question about on-campus interviewing, for crissakes, but mostly I felt like I wanted to cry, because even though I don't think we would have been a good couple (for many, many reasons), there was a time when I would have been receptive to it, and Friend's long, drawn-out thought process about it killed any enthusiasm I might have felt for the option. And then to realize that we were in different stages of life and that he is very young -- that slammed the coffin shut and drove in the nails.

I told him again that I wouldn't be seeing him for a while, and we hugged good bye. But as I walked around the corner to get to my house, he ran up to me again and tapped me on the shoulder.

"I don't want you to think it's because you said no," he said.

"I don't think that."

"And me taking so long -- it's not a reflection on you."

I almost said, "No, it's a reflection on you," but I didn't. "I don't think that," I said instead. And he smiled apologetically and tentatively, and said, "Okay, then -- bye."

And hk went inside her building, feeling sad about bad timing and missed chances. Even ones that wouldn't have yielded anything.