getting the message

So, the other week as I was standing outside of work, a truck pulls up. The guy driving it looks vaguely familiar. He starts chatting me up.

This happens a lot on my office street -- it's a small town, and I'm clearly "not from around there." One of the first questions men ask me is where I live, and unless they're really creepy, I usually interpret it to mean, "which town," because obviously I don't live in that one. Everybody knows everybody there. Hell, when I was thinking of changing apartments back in April, before I got to know Luchenne better, and mentioned it to the guy who runs my favorite junk shop, the next week when I went to get my lunch at Subway, the girl behind the counter asked me if I'd found a new apartment yet. It's that kind of town.

Anyway, I get a lot of attention there. Most of the time it's flattering, and this guy seemed nice...a lot older than I am, but nice. Until he asked me out, and I remembered that he'd come in to the office once to see about starting his divorce.

Um. Now, I have a policy of accepting date invitations from almost anyone, but a legally married man is crossing the line. Especially when he has a ten-year-old daughter, and his oldest kid from his first marriage (the one that's currently ending is his second) is only five years younger than I am.

I had given him my cell number before the nice rational paragraph above crossed my mind, however, so when he called me right after work I had to turn him down. I told him I couldn't see a man who was still in the process of getting a divorce. I also said I didn't want to hurt his case, since he wanted custody of his daughter, and I didn't want to complicate matters and have the situation wind up hurting his little girl. He was disappointed, but said he understood. I congratulated myself for cleverly getting out of that one.

But I was dragged out of a nap this afternoon by my phone ringing, didn't recognize the number, didn't pick up, and when I listened to the voicemail, it was him, asking me if I would consider hanging out with him "as friends," until his divorce was finalized.

I was very glad I didn't answer the phone. Part of me wanted to bang my head against the wall, part of me was ashamed for not just coming out and telling him, "look, I'm not interested," and part of me was annoyed. I mean, I guess you can't blame a guy for trying, but what's a forty-something doing wanting to try the "just friends" label? When has that ever worked? And whom has that ever fooled? What, was I born yesterday? And part of me was mad on behalf of his daughter. Is he just okay with dating and having women "friends"? When he called me that one time after work, his daughter was in the house -- just leaving to go to a friend's, but still in the house. What's he thinking of? Little kids need stability, not Daddy-who-dates-around. I don't want to be part of something that wrecks a child's sense of solidity.

I didn't call him back. I think silence will answer eloquently. I don't have "just friends," except for guys I've known from years back -- they get grandfathered in, my high school friends, my college friends, the guys I met when I first moved to South Bend, because we are friends, in a lot of senses we grew up together. But this weird garbage? I don't think so.

Sigh. As Sir Peter said, paraphrasing Sports Night, "Beware the Almost-Not-Quite-Divorced Man."