On Friday, I drive to meet him at the SciFi Museum. There’s a party for a new exhibit, complete with lectures and stage combat demos and butterbeer and mead tastings. It promises to be complete, joyful Nerdvana, but I’m mad at myself as I drive: I’ve spoiled everything. After a long, awkward evening and with a sense of obligation, I’ll get my kiss for sure, terse and perfunctory. Or worse, the anticipation will be enough to make us both back away, into a strained friendship, never to mention or even acknowledge this brief foray toward something else.

I park in a lot near the museum, and he texts me: Where are you parked? Wait there.

I had thought of meeting him at the entrance, but maybe it’s crowded there. I lean against my car, waiting and choking back the coming disappointment.

He walks toward me from the direction of the museum entrance, and I can see he’s loaded down again, like he was the first time we met for dinner. But as he gets closer, I can see what he’s carrying: a large bouquet of flowers, which he hands me, then puts his arms around me and kisses me.

It is everything I wanted and nothing I feared.

I slide my arm around him and pull him close, and we walk to the museum entrance. We walk by people dressed as characters from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Star Wars. As we watch a swordfighting demo, he stands behind me and holds me close, like a cape against the wind. We pick up some free Magic the Gathering card packs, and I give him mine, for his son. We sample the beer and spit out the mead.

After a while, we go in to one of the lectures, by the archivist for the Jim Henson Foundation. It’s in a large auditorium, and we take seats toward the back; he puts an arm around me and I lock my fingers through his. We watch early footage of Kermit the Frog, and sing along with the whole audience to the Fraggle Rock theme song.

My arm falls asleep first, then my fingers, but I don’t let go.

That night, I receive a long stream-of-consciousness in my inbox. He’s worried that he met me too quickly after his ex left; I’m much more than a transition person. I’m a city girl to his country mouse; he’s worried that I’m out of his league. He remembers how hard he and his sister were on their father’s girlfriends; he doesn’t want me to have to be on the receiving end of anything like that from his own kids.

He’s detail-oriented: he’s thought of every last thing and found a worry to have about each item on the list, which he rattles off in no particular order but with an increasing sense of panic.

He calls me again, and tries to explain his jumble of thoughts and fears.

Things are much simpler for me, though: I just want to spend time with someone whose company I enjoy. I tell him this, and by way of explanation, remind him that I’ve been in legal, committed relationships twice, and they didn’t turn out so well for me.

I just need the lines to be a bit clearer right now, I tell him. If we’re just friends, that’s fine, but I need to do some things differently if that’s the case. And if that’s not the case, then I don’t understand what you are waiting for.

Kiss me already, I want to tell him, or maybe I do. I think I do.

I understand, he says.

The next day, he is at a conference: lawyer stuff,  suits and lectures. I have a hard time imagining myself paying attention; he has a hard time paying attention, and sends me messages from his phone when he can do so unobtrusively. He sends me information about Friday’s plans to attend an event at the SciFi Museum together. I reply, but rather tersely, then think better of it, and apologize for being out of sorts.

He wants to know why I’m out of sorts. It takes a while to understand some of his messages – his phone’s autocorrect rarely gets his typos fixed with the right word, and at times I question if it’s autocorrecting into English. Most days I chuckle about this, but today I’m not in the mood.

I avoid the question. I had trouble sleeping, I say.

Why? he wants to know.

I feel needy and insecure.

I feel like a teenage girl, trying to get someone to notice me.

Finally, I tell him: I’ve landed in The Friend Zone. You even call me “friend.”

No, he says. No. I just don’t know what to call you, but … he trails off, stumbles around. I have weird quirks, he finally says.

I don’t reply.

He calls me during a break, and asks me to be patient. After my meetings, he tells me, I will write it all out.