NC. I'll try keep this brief and not drip feed.
Met X online in January - we're both 50. We had 3 Zoom dates and before we'd met in person he told me that he didn't see a romantic future but was interested in friendship if I was. All good for me, we were in lockdown anyway, I was happy to chat and that was that.
When we were allowed to, we started to meet for walks and we continued to communicate by email/whatsapp. All of his communications were very 'warm' and after we'd met twice in person I felt like he was sending mixed messages so reminded him of what he'd said originally and asked him what he actually wanted. He apologised for causing confusion, reiterated his position and said he would really like us to be friends but that was my decision to make. I liked him and enjoyed his company so told him that I was fine with this, no harm done and we carried on. I've always had close male friends so I was happy with this. For the next 4 months we met up regularly (every weekend) for walks and coffees, never more than a hug, lots of open communication and talking about everything and anything. I carried on with online dating and he was dealing with an ex who had resurfaced wanting to give it another go.
Then in June I had a health scare and he stepped up in a way I didn't anticipate or expect. He was concerned, ringing me daily to check on me, diarising my hospital appointments so that he could check on how they went and generally kind and thoughtful about being a listening ear. Then he went to Europe for the summer (home country) and was away for 2 months. I thought that him being away for so long so early on would mean that the friendship would fizzle but instead it strengthened, he rang several times a week, FaceTimed me to introduce me to family and friends and was generally attentive and available. Our friendship grew from strength to strength and we confided in each other about stuff that was going on. He shared his past relationship/commitment issues and told me that he was in therapy to deal with it. We both shared how much we were looking forward to catching up when he was back.
He got back this week and we met up the other night. It was amazing/awful. I felt like there was a huge amount of sexual tension and I'm so disappointed. Several times in the evening he did that thing where he held eye contact for longer than necessary and at one point he held it for so long I had to look away and felt really uncomfortable. But it surfaced strong feelings that I don't want and I now can't get him out of my head and don't know what to do. I want to have him as a friend - I don't want to being his next casualty (he has a string of failed relationships behind him). What doesn't help is that he's also very attractive. For the first time since we met I felt awkward in his company and I don't know what to do about it. I know he doesn't want more than friendship, and I also know that he really values our friendship and wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardise it. I'm tempted to talk to him about the other night - we communicate very well and to-date no topic has been off limits - but I'm worried about making things awkward if I imagined the 'frisson' and he didn't feel it. Help! What would you do? We're meeting up again on Sunday.