"You’re my best friend" she said softly, as my heart shattered

It’s happened again. I’m her fucking best friend!!!

What, precisely, am I doing wrong here? All the fucking time?

Against all odds – possessed of a mean temper, a persona that sways between joyous-for-the-hella-vit and Lovecraft-dark, and prone to fits of pique that’d shame a 4-year old – I’m somehow a fairly good bloke, and there are a surprising number of women in this world who actually seem to like me.

And that’s about it. Like me. Nothing more.

I’ve got an improbable number of ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL women in my Outlook Contacts, intelligent and charming and about 10 lightyears out of Mr Average’s league. I have coffee with any one of these women, and guys on the street outside are pressing their noses up against the window, slackjawed and drooling, in pure wonderment at what they’re doing hanging out with a guy like me. If only they knew…

… that not ONE of them is currently cognoscent of the fact I’m a red-blooded male. I get about four emails a day from female friends agonising over their latest husband/ boyfriend/ conquest /don’t-know, and the logical next step for them seems to be ‘Let’s call Chris.’ Yeah, just CALL. That’s it.

I’ve had the ‘you’re my best male pal’ conversation about 60 times in the last two years, and I’m fucking SICK of it. I’d call it emotionally draining, except I don’t have any emotions to drain.

The latest one lives nearby, smart as Versace with a billion-watt smile. We chat in the corridors a lot and Facebook daily. I’d almost have called it dating. She didn’t quite say ‘Let’s be friends’ in our latest exchange, but that’s what she meant.

I’m SICK of these either/or relationships. I appreciate I’m a handful, but in a village of 5,000 single females shouldn’t there be a FEW who don’t recoil in horror at the thought of having an actual relationship that involves both talking and intimacy?

I’m going back to dating undergrads. At least they put out, even if the conversation’s not up to much.

Nicholas Bate, if you’re reading, there’s TEN GRAND in it for you if you can solve this conundrum.