De Ja Vu, or something like that

Do you ever have one of those days when you randomly think of a person from your past, maybe someone that you would pay good money to never have to see again, and then you can't get that person out of your head? Today has been one of those days for me.

A long time ago, I had a friend, or should I say I was a friend to a guy (let's call him J.)who seemed to have a difficult time in this life. He was not on good terms with his dad, his sexuality was constantly in question by all those around him, mostly because he put it out there to be questioned, but that isn't the point. He was constantly fighting with his mom and stepdad and he had just moved to a new high school, in a new state, during his junior year. He was talented, funny, attractive, outgoing and supposedly a good guy. One of those characteristic turned out to not really be so true. (Betcha can't guess which one.) I was drawn to him... I think because he was different from everybody I had ever met. He was openly "gay", and apparently comfortable with that and all the comments that came along with it. Even though he was "gay" he wasn't effeminate, or flamboyant in that "queen" way. Although he could put on a good show for people who were really freaked out by it. I was a small town girl from West Texas and he was a new kind of guy from New Jersey/New York. We became friends. I was just coming out of a hard, long relationship when we met and I for some reason found him attractive (anyone thinking rebound?) even knowing that he was "gay". I also think it might have something to do with the fact that he was "safe", I couldn't be in a relationship with him and therefore couldn't be hurt by him.
We hung out alot and got to know each other well, I thought. It came out that I thought he was attractive and he confessed to me that while he still believed that he was "gay", he felt a pretty strong attraction to me as well. We began an on-again, off-again relationship. I stopped seeing him becuase my former boyfriend informed me that he wanted to try again, and since I still had feelings for him, and felt that it could go somewhere, while the current fling was pretty pointless, I got back together with him.
That relationship finally died a slow and painful death, by email, during the summer after my senior year. I renewed the friendship with J. and we began spending lots of time together again. He confessed to me at one point that he had spent a lot of time during the summer thinking of me, which felt good considering that my former boyfriend obviously hadn't done the same. He said he was still very attracted to me and we began "dating" again. I will never say that it didn't happen, because it did, but I wish that it hadn't happend frequently.
Eventually we stopped seeing one another romantically and he pursued a young man. We continued being close friends, so when I called him one day to let him know that I was going on a date I thought he would be excited for me. It was a blind date, and I was nervous, so I really needed him to tell me that I was great and any guy would be lucky to have me. Instead he said he was in love with me and he didn't want me to go out with this guy. I went anyway, and it was amazing. The blind date (guy number two) was a total gentleman and treated me so well. I met his whole family (yes, it was our first date) and I told my roommate when I got home how great he was. I had really been praying that guy number two would be a toal dud so that I didn't have to deal with the drama that I knew was coming. I tried to introduce the two guys and it went badly. I ended up breaking up with guy number two, because I felt that the friendship with J. was important to me and not worth losing over a guy I had just met. (If only I had known what was coming later!) Guy number two still wanted to be friends and I was fine with that, and talked to him frequently, much to the disgust of J. In fact one night he answered my phone while I was out of the room and told guy number two that I didn't want to talk to him anymore and that he needed to get lost, and then told me a totally different story when I got back. He said that guy number two got angry that I was still hanging out with J. and said he never wanted to talk to me again. We never really got back together as a couple officially, but we continued spending time together in this limbo mode of "friends/more than friends" for a while. Weeks and months went by and on J's 18th b-day his mom kicked him out of the house. By now we were definitely "just friends", but life was still kind of confusing becuase he still seemed to feel proprietary toward me. I had just signed a lease on an apartment and told J that he could come stay with me until graduation when he planned to go back to Jersey. This is when it all fell apart. He seemed to expect me to provide for him. He paid no bills or rent, bought little to no food, and expected me to buy his clothes for graduation - even though we worked together, brought people back to my apartment that I wasn't real fond of, borrowed my car and left it on a parking lot downtown all night without telling me - just so he could go home with some guy, got pissed when I wouldn't let him borrow it again, pinned me against a bed, threw a fit over me getting a phone line installed and used the money he was supposed to be paying me for rent and utilities to get a tatoo. I kicked him out and changed the locks. He harrased me for months with requests to be friends again and hateful emails calling me names. Finally after a couple of months I stopped hearing from him. But every six months or so I would get emails from him, and he always seemed to know when some thing big was happening in my life. He found out that guy number two and I had gotten back together. He found my Myspace page. He emailed me to congratulate me on my engagement to guy number two (now my hubby, Jon) and my marriage. He commented on how cute my dogs were on my Myspace page, even though the only pictures of them are on my husbands page. Finally two years ago I pleaded with him to just leave me alone, quit contacting me and stop asking my friends that he still talks to about my life, so that he can pop up and ruin all the good times and make the crappy times even worse. Since that time, I haven't heard from him at all.

But today I thought of him, and now I can't stop the train of thoughts. I keep remembering things about him and I know how to find his myspace page, and his email address. I don't want to be his friend, but I don't want to hate him either. I want him to know that my life is great, and that I hope the best for him, even though I don't want to have anything to do with him ever again. We were good friends once, and so sometimes I want him to know that while I will never consider him a friend again, I don't hate him. But I know that even opening that connection back up will get ugly quick, becuase he won't want to leave it at, I forgive you, J. and want the best for you and that's all. He will want to push it further. Plus hubby Jon hates him and would be super angry if I contacted him, and I couldn't lie to Jon about this. It would be wrong. So I guess I will have to be okay with sending the forgiveness vibes and well wishes for someone that I don't like or hate anymore into the universe.