Dear Meredith and LL readers,

I need some perspective. One year ago, I met a man. We were both living abroad at the time. We saw each other often. It was a comfort to talk with another American in this unfamiliar place. About a month after meeting, we spent a night together — it was unexpected, yet it was what I quietly wanted.

We began a relationship that would remain utterly undefined — at times intense and at others indifferent. It lasted five months. I fell in love because he is an incredible person: artistic, bold, creative, defiant, and caring. I imagined a future together, where we could be a team and see the world. The glitch was that our relationship was floating (it had a big deadline, when we were both leaving the country).

We both kept our distance from each other, thinking no future would be truly possible. I never knew how he really felt about me. Compliments were nonexistent and feelings were never spoken. We both left this faraway country with this void of words and understanding; I loved him but had no idea if he ever had any need to see me again. Maybe in the deepest ways we were too similar to be partners. Essentially, our time was cut short before we could discover or reject our long-term potential.

Now, seven months since we said goodbye, we chat infrequently by email. Still, he’s in my thoughts everyday. I have always been emotional, but man, I cry over this more often than I can admit. I have also faked love in the past, but this is real. He is a good person who I admire and trust. The problem is neither myself nor he views me in an equal light. I don’t deserve him, and so though I have asked him to visit and remained his friend, he has never again expressed the same kind of intimacy of feeling we showed each other abroad.

Am I crazy to linger in this love? To be his friend? I have this small hope that in a few years he may be ready to settle down, and we may yet be a fit for life. As a friend, he continues to inspire me. Please advise me how to move on or garner the courage to share with him this heartbreak in not seeing him and understanding him.

– Lost in My Hometown