The text that arrived in my phone's inbox at 11:30 pm on a Thursday night seemed innocent enough: "Give me a call when you get home, ok?" I didn't think much of it at the time: For the past few weeks, things between Jessica had been going swimmingly.

We'd spent three consecutive weekends in which we'd met up on Friday night and I didn't decamp back to my own apartment until the wee hours of Sunday morning, and only then because of a pesky little thing called work. I'd passed muster with her "board of directors" (her closest girl friends and her gay best guy friend). My friends actually seemed to like hanging out with her more than me. ("When is Jessica getting here?" was a common refrain. It was only made half in jest.) Hanging out never seemed forced or unnatural or awkward--if anything, we had the rapport of two people who had known each other for ages and were instantly in tune with each other's senses of humor and rhythms. And if you're wondering, after a rough start, things in bed had started to improve.

In short, we'd gotten to the point where when I was out without her I a) wasn't concerned with hitting on other girls, and b) didn't really care that I wasn't concerned with hitting on other girls. It was the first time I'd found myself in that situation in months. Maybe even years.

Yet something about the text gave me pause: for one, the urgency struck me as odd. What could have possibly changed since we last talked a few hours ago that necessitated further conversation? She also knew I was out with some buddies in her neighborhood, so why didn't she just ask me to come over instead? I instantly chalked up these concerns to the fact that I am generally a neurotic over-thinker in my interactions with members of the opposite sex. But I still couldn't shake the possibility that something was off. And so with slight trepidation, I sat down on my couch, picked up the phone, and dialed.

We made it through about thirty minutes of idle chit-chat when her voice started quivering.

"So I kind of really need to talk to you," she said. "I don't really know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it. I feel like you want this to turn into a relationship and I just have to say that I am not in any position in my life right now to be in a relationship. And I feel terrible about it and I really don't know what to do."

Whoa.

To be continued

Posted by J.H.

Related Links from Cosmopolitan
* Sex Tips from Guys
* Decode His Body Language
* Hair That Get You What You Want
* Cosmo Celeb TV
* Want More Sex & Love Advice? Subscribe to Cosmo & Save up to 71%!

Reprinted with Permission of Hearst Communications, Inc.