The non-girlfriend.

I read a post on a blog somewhere recently. I'm convinced it was at Midwest and Wombat's place, Kiss'n'Blog, but I'll be damned if I can find it. The post (it was by a bloke, and in this case that would have been Wombat) mentioned women who were platonic friends, but who treated you like a boyfriend they wouldn't shag i.e. not splitting the bill at dinner, using you for something they needed done etc.

While reading this post, a light bulb appeared over my head, cartoon-style. PD could be this type of person. OK, she's extremely easy on the eye and has one of the greatest racks I've ever seen (although I haven't given it the close scrutiny I'd like to) and as I've no doubt said before, was great fun to talk to. We met at a work-related night class (though we do not work together) at the tail end of last year, found ourselves sitting beside each other at the back of the class, often sniggering like we were schoolkids again.

It turned out that I'd covered most of the material at university, so it was mostly old news to me – just a refresher course, but it was all new to PD. As possibly the only person in the class that she conversed with, I ended up helping her out. I can't remember if she asked or if I offered. Does it make a difference? Maybe, maybe not. It didn't take up a lot of time anyway – perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes to look over each assignment we had to hand in which was about once every three weeks. So, it was hardly the biggest commitment in the world.

I found her easy to talk to. I'm not a big conversationalist, so finding people that I can simply talk to is a rare thing and I try to keep in contact with these people because they are so rare. The class did end before Christmas though and we did agree to keep in contact. PD explained that, at the very least, she felt she owed me a drink or two for guiding her in the right direction throughout the course. As a single guy who likes the company of attractive, sexy women, I was never going to argue.

And we actually did stay in contact… at least by email (though she has other contact details of mine). There were even plans to try and get our respective groups of friends to be in the same bar at the same time, although these plans invariably fell by the wayside as last minute changes were made. However, over the past few weeks it occurred to me that I was doing all the running. I was the one sending the emails, asking the questions, making the suggestions. PD, if I was lucky, might send a reply that was friendly but non-committal. Does that make sense? I'd never really made up my mind if PD was someone I wanted to pursue romantically (she does tick a few of ruuude's checklist boxes for potentials but there are negative aspects, too) or remain just friends with her.

So, was she using me? The email contact is getting worse, briefer and less regular (and I'm still making the running). Perhaps I should just dump this non-girlfriend?