“I love her and I told her a thousand times, and I don’t know …,” Nate confessed to me over the phone. “It really hurts. I’m talking about more than 25 years of crushing over this lady.”
Nate is not a friend of mine. Nate is not even his real name. The man you will come to know as Nate called me out of the blue to tell me his story after reading “Black & Single” on the regular.
As a person once involved in a long-term one-sided love affair, I instantly sympathized with Nate’s heart-wrenching state.
Just like we all do when we like – or so we think love – somebody, he told me the story at least three times.
He met her as an adolescent and fell hard quickly. She was not having any parts of him and shut him down in the ninth grade.
Nate’s feelings NEVER subsided. Now he is 40 and he wants her to be his wife – he told her this recently, by the way. They attend the same church and see each other during service.
She is much more cordial – as happens, when we become adults – but is yet to reciprocate.
“She’s a very beautiful sister. I’m talking about a 10-plus,” Nate said. “Every time I see her, my heart starts to flutter and I get a little panic attack.”
It was cute to hear this grown man talk about his schoolyard crush still going strong after the fact, but he put me in an uncomfortable situation.
I think he wanted two things from me.
First, he wanted me to offer him hope that he would have his “Princess Charming.” Second, he wanted me to aid and abet by using my designated space to write an ode that would make her fall head over heels for him.
What I decided to do for my newfound friend Nate was something that one person finally did for me as I endlessly ran back and forth in front of this man for nearly a decade to no avail.
My good friend Kelly Donovan broke down and told me the truth: “Can’t you see that he doesn’t care about you?”
It completely knocked the wind out of me. She instantly apologized, probably because I looked like I was going to stroke out in the middle of the company cafeteria. But there was no taking it back.
It didn’t happen overnight, but her confession changed my perspective on the situation.
My situation was much different from Nate’s. Me and the guy had some remnants of a relationship and he was stringing me along as a permanent ego-stroker, whereas the object of Nate’s obsession is graciously declining his aggressive advances.
Still, the same medicine was required. You see, Nate has gone hard. He even snatched her up and kissed her right (in the mouth!) in the middle of service. Yes … in the middle of service! I told you he was going hard!
“I hate to do this, but I feel like I wouldn’t be right if I didn’t offer you the reality of this situation,” I told Nate, while cringing on the other end of the phone.
“I really think that this woman doesn’t love you back. You’ve done everything in your power. She knows, and the feeling just isn’t mutual … and that’s okay.”
He instantly tried to convince me otherwise. He says that whenever she sees him she hugs and kisses him (on the cheek) and tells him how good he looks. I told him she’s just being a polite church member.
He wasn’t having it, but even he had to admit that when he planted that kiss on her during service, she got up and ran out of the church (rightfully so).
After five solid tries of letting Nate know that she’s just not that into him, I threw in the towel and asked him to sum up the situation.
“I suspect that maybe she’s afraid to call me,” Nate said. “I really think she’s sitting at home thinking, ‘Should I call this Negro, or what?’ I just really want to know how she feels about me.”
In one last attempt, I let him know that by not calling or acting on his advances she had already said everything he needed to hear.
“All I know is that I love her,” Nate said.
All I could do was hang up the phone.
