This may not be the right topic to put this under but I’d like people’s take on what I should make of this, if anything at all. I have a friend who I know through a local campaign group of which we are both members. I’m a mid-30’s straight single professional female, he is an early 50’s straight single professional male. There has been some flirting between us over the 3-4 years we’ve known each other and a couple of other members of the group have suggested to me, individually that he may have more than friendly feelings for me, but he has never said anything of that sort to me or made any sort of move etc so I can't say that that's true. We mainly see each other at group events or with other members of the group, socially.
He had a birthday in February and I dropped a card in the post to him a few days before it, as I do for all of the people from that group that I am friendly with (about 8 of them). I then thought no more about this.
Fast forward to yesterday when I saw him at an event held by the group. We sat together all evening, with others on our table and had a lovely time. We were both leaving at the same time and walking to our respective cars, parked quite near each other as it turned out. As I was about to get in my car (and he his), he suddenly stopped, walked over to my car and thanked me for the card. I can’t deny I had forgotten all about it and replied with
“oh, you’re very welcome” and he then said “I haven’t actually opened it yet”. I was quite bemused by this, as it’s over four months since his birthday, so just replied “oh right” rather nonchalant. He then explained to me that he keeps fishing it out of a pile of unopened mail in his house and putting it to the top. I was even more bemused by this and so clarified by saying “well it’s only a very boring, ordinary card so just open it, it’s not worth preserving” and I said this in a very light-hearted way, not least because it’s true.
He then thanked me for the card again, and repeated that he keeps fishing it out of the pile of unopened post and bringing it to the top again, telling me in fact it’s on the top of the pile of now. My natural reaction to most things is to joke about them and so I said “You know you can’t stop getting older by not opening your cards?! Honestly it’s nothing exciting so just open it, it’s really not worth hanging on to!” He laughed, hugged and kissed me (on the cheek) goodbye and we parted company.
In the grand scheme of things I have much bigger (AKA real) worries but it’s made me curious all night and today. I know I should have just said “why’s that?” to him and intend to next time I see him but it just seemed so unusual and I felt I was missing something. In trying to analyse it, I’ve thought; why mention it at all? He could have just said “thank you” (as he usually does) and I would have just said my usual “you’re welcome” if he wanted to acknowledge it. He seemed to want me to know that he’s holding on to it/putting it to the top of his mail pile. I never asked if he’d received it or about his birthday at all so he didn't need to say anything or explain. I may be missing something or of course it may mean absolutely nothing at all but all viewpoints are very welcome!