Dear Frumma,

I know that your advice column is supposed to be for the readers' entertainment rather than for the person asking for advice, but nonetheless I'll ask about a problem which has been really painful for me in hopes you can help me.

I have an old friend --- in both senses of the word --- who I have liked since the day we met so many years ago. Since MOF is so many years older than I, we never dated, but I thought about MOF often, even when I was with my boyfriend. After more than a year, I realized I was with the wrong guy; even my boyfriend got the situation and said I should just date MOF. Briefly, there was real potential, but then he said that the older person is always vulnerable in a relationship with a big age difference, and stopped talking to me. He doesn't even pick up his phone when I call, and says he'd like to be friends only when I have a boyfriend.

I haven't communicated with MOF for months. I'm not obsessed --- days go by without my thinking of him --- and his bad behavior of late has ensure that I don't idealize him --- but when I do think of him, I feel so much more for MOF than for anyone else I've been dating.

Obviously, if he doesn't want to date me, I can't change that, but I'm really afraid that I will get really close with someone, and maybe marry them, but still like MOF better.

Signed,

MOF On my mind