Can You Burn Bridges Without Ending Up Covered In Ashes?

Last night, I deleted my ex's phone number from my phone, and all of the messages he'd sent me over the past year.

I thought this would feel better than it actually did. Other women, the ones who are into symbolic gestures - which I am not, and I'm not judging, it's just not my thing - have spoken of how good it feels to finally delete the messages, or burn the photos, or say goodbye in some other final way. They talk about catharsis and closure and all those things. It's never had that kind of effect on me. Instead of feeling free, or triumphant, or empowered, burning ties to the past - literally or metaphorically - just makes me sad.

I still have to do it sometimes. I just don't hold a party afterward.

I went to sleep sad, but I had a nice dream, about a man who made me feel the way he did during the best times, a man whose face I couldn't see.

Interestingly enough, he texted me today. The ex, not the dream man. I hadn't talked to him properly in a month or so, since we met up when he was on a business trip. For the last month I've been wondering if things are over - either "over again" (because there have been breakups, some of which lasted more than a year) or "over totally" - but never quite wanting to ask. Strange that he would pick today to get in touch. It's not like I told him I was deleting him; that falls under the scope of grand gestures for me.

It was wonderful. He was funny and goofy and flirty and all the things that he was in the good times, the times that I always miss. We flirted. He wanted to see me. I wondered if this was an eleventh-hour reprieve. God's will, or the universe gently directing my plans. I do believe in that stuff, you know. I feel the hand of - something, call it God or fate or whatever you like - in many of the things I do. There've been so many things in my life that feel like too close of a call to be coincidence. Like the time that I was supposed to be on one of the trains that exploded during the London bombings in July '05, but I'd been fighting with the friend I was going to meet - a totally stupid fight that came out of nowhere, with both of us acting totally out of character - so I stayed home instead.

I digress. As ever.

So we talked. It was wonderful. I remembered how much I missed him, and I said so. He said he wanted me in his bed. I said I wanted to be there, but with conditions. We both put our cards on the table, and said what we wanted from each other.

I was willing to agree to his terms.

He was not.

Everyone has the right to turn down an offer that doesn't suit them. I don't feel that this should be a cause for recriminations. People want different things. We're not all compatible.

That said, what I wanted, as negotiating points, were a) occasional friendly conversation where we talk about our lives and share a little of ourselves, like any other two friends do; and b) some affection during and after sex, rather than to be ignored. Not romance, not exclusivity, not a girlfriend-boyfriend thing, but just to be treated like a person and a friend instead of a semi-functional sex toy. This is the absolute MINIMUM I expect in any other relationship or encounter, whether it be platonic or sexual. It's what I expect from any other person in my life, as a matter of course, without even thinking about it.

So yes, I find it sad that someone who I've known as long as I've known this guy, someone who's always worried about me and tried to take care of me, is unable to give what I feel should be the minimum to expect.

But them's the breaks. And like I said, everyone has the right to turn down an offer that isn't right for them.

At some point I do need to delve into the reasons why we love the people we do. It's a thing that's always puzzled me, but never more so than today.