The End

Thank you for your letter, what you say is both very kind and very reassuring. I owe you both a thorough explanation and a sincere apology for the distress you've experienced thanks to me. I hope this clarifies matters -it is not intended to excuse my behaviour which I apologise for, but to explain myself and to be something of a peace offering...

This goes back to long before I met James, I was friends with a chap who turned out to be a lot less scrupulous than yourself. We were friends, he asked me out and I said i'm flattered that you like me but I do not want to and continued to be friends so as not to be rude to him and preserve a precious friendship -at a time when friends were hard to come by. It turned out to be the worst thing I could have done. I continued to be a friend to him and go for lunch, to parties etc and experienced several very uncomfortable encounters and propositions from him before one of his friends intervened with a few home truths. As we were so close and the whole thing had gone on for so long, everyone around in college assumed that i'd either led him on or that something had gone on and he couldn't let go. Either way, I came out of it all never wanting a shred of doubt cast over my intentions towards someone, and with the firm belief that i woud rather be thought
of as rude to someone that as a tease.

There's the history...
Now i'm years older, crucially not wiser, and I got to know and like you entirely on the secure foundation of us both being happily attached. Or not so happily as things turn out. When you told me the truth I was blown out of the water by how stupid i'd been (again) ignorantly assuming that I was happy with my couple/ single status, therefore, so is the rest of the world. I spent a long time looking back on our friendship, decided i was a plonker and convinced myself that it was all my fault for permitting a close friendship in the first place and set about making myself as unfriendly as possible in the hope that you'd not get the wrong message. When you then continued to get in touch despite a promise to the contrary I took fright I'm afraid at history repeating itself. I was angry that you'd told me and didn't see why if you wanted nothing to happen you felt i needed to know. Clearly from your letter your feelings are quite strong towwards me and
it has been more than a passing 'grass is greener' type thing.

Over past months given what you've told me i've thought carefully about my underlying feelings which are often deeply hidden i admit. I have unearthed the following.. should my circumstances change i am afraid I do not share the passion which you talk of -I just do not like you as anything more than a friend, never have and cannot foresee doing so. I do not have the same fondness for things about you that you have for everything about me. I have never felt anything more than frienship. I was upset when I realised that we couldn't be so close but not as upset as you. The friendship meant more to you than to me. But it isn't an all or nothing situation, I am disappointed not to be able to continue the support and social life we had going.

It's all come at a difficult time for us both with a list of things quite aside from the work/ job palava to attend to and come to terms with. The bottom line is that I really want to be a friendly face at work and feel I have let things get to be more of a situation than they should have been. I hope that this (I'm afraid brutal) honesty approach helps set the road as I mean to go on.

Nicola