wierd dynamic (scully)

A guy that I dated about six years ago that I've been friends with since then came over for dinner the other night. We'll call him Shep. We established about five years ago the reasons it wouldn't work between us. Most of which I won't mention here—not wanting to betray confidences. Well, we definitely have chemistry when we're together. And he's such a good man. Seriously, without guile and always wanting to do the right thing. I could see us having a good marriage because of that. So after we had dinner and watched a great 1960s Walt Disney movie with Dean Jones/Suzanne Plechette and everything I started wondering if maybe things had changed. He made some moves that he hasn't made since about five years ago and I was struck again with how good he is. This is usually as far as it goes with him and then he seems to sabatage things and/or disappears for a while. It's like a bad accelerating/braking lesson from the football coach in high school drivers ed. Well, I figured it would do no harm at least to tell him how great I thought he was even though things could never work out so I sent him a short e-mail telling him so. He replied back saying some very nice things in a very heart felt e-mail. My hope soared, but prayed to put it out of my mind and not respond. Which didn't really work very well for the rest of the day. He called that night and we made plans for the next day. So wierd. Right after our phone conversation my excitement for the whole thing pretty much collapsed. The next day he called me at work to say he was going home sick and wouldn't be able to make it. I was not really suprised, though disappointed, and also a bit relieved all at the same time. I'm still hoping to maybe have a conversation with him about the dynamic of the whole thing. Good ol' Shep.