Hmm... Slight overnight development, and not a good one.
Given communication was received at 3.30am after a party, I'm guessing alcohol was involved, but I'm not really sure that's much of an explanation/excuse.
I don't want to repost his email because it's private, but the subtext suggests that he feels a little insecure/doesn't really (know if he can) trust me. It wasn't nasty or unpleasant or self indulgent at all, and was very brief. To summarise, he said that he cares about me, but isn't sure how I really feel about him. Oh and he's realised that he's done the love thing and doesn't want to do it again (I already knew he was hurt very badly in the past - but, to be fair, no more than most of us on here have been).
I do feel that if that's how he really feels/felt, then he probably shouldn't have said that he did love me. There was no benefit to him to saying it - I didn't expect it and I didn't really want to hear it. I think that, because he knew that I'd never been loved by anyone, he was just trying to be nice. I don't know.
So, I'm back to never having been loved...
I've replied to him and responded to a couple of things he said, but not in an 'justifying myself' sort of way, and said that I do want to do 'the love thing' and so it looks as though we just want different things 
To be honest, I'm not sure it is going to happen for me, now. A few weeks ago, I felt that if I discovered that he hadn't been honest about his feelings, then I'd be devastated. I don't feel devastated though. I am feeling sad and a little fragile, but not heartbroken.
I'm not sure whether that's because there's a bit of me that thinks I'll get another email later that makes it 'all right' again; or whether it's because I'm just so resigned to the fact that not being loved is just The Way Things Are that I'm not able to be hurt by it anymore; or whether it's because I'm just stronger now and so it has less power to upset me. To be honest though, even if he does send me a "argh, I didn't mean it to come across quite like that..." email later, I'm not really sure I can do it anymore, anyway.
But it's given me a great deal of food for thought in the last two hours (woke up very early!!) and I think I really do just need to resign myself to the fact it isn't going to happen for me and I think that's the hard part.
I shall refer back to the man who asked me out (only because it's my only other reference point). I know his ex girlfriend. She's a really lovely 'girl next door type' - very pretty (not beautiful, but very pretty); tall; slim; really 'cute'; lovely person... I couldn't compete with someone like that and everyone is going to have someone like that in their past. I just know that in any relationship I'll feel inferior to someone else, because I will be.
My mother once told me that I was the sort of 'girl' that men settled for when they realised they couldn't get the one they really wanted. Sadly, it would seem that she was right.
I know it probably sounds like I'm a bit 'desperate' and so come across like that. Actually, I'd think the opposite was more likely to be the case. I have quite high expectations of how someone should behave towards me, but very low expectations in terms of how I think they should 'feel' about me.