Mr. Unavailable #81: Eek a Mouse

Vital Stats: 31, 6'1", Solidly Built Sometime Furniture-Maker. Aesthetic: Upper East Sider with Brooklyn Hipster Accoutrements (Ben Sherman clothes, messenger bag). Missing a fingertip from a furniture-making accident. Demeanor: Strangely meek.

First Date: We met via Nerve.com in 2002. Great Lakes Bar, Park Slope, Brooklyn

First Impression: Big guy, small presence. He wasn't much of a talker. How he spoke made it seem like he regretted every word. I remember thinking, "How could anyone date that voice?"

Signs of Hope: After our first date, I told him I'd rather be friends. We hung out a few times after that and I realized I had a crush on him. He seemed pretty laid back. In due time, I also discovered he was a recovering heroine addict, which, like working for the mafia or lion-taming, I found pretty exotic.

Red Flags: 1. Sometimes, just sometimes, a girl just wants a guy to pay for dinner when he asks her out, particularly if it's their first dinner date. Some guys seem to know this. This guy was not one of them.
2. A few weeks into our dating, he asked me why I was dating him. He knew I'd gone out with 10 other guys on Nerve.com and he wanted to know if I had just settled for him. He said, "I don't know if you know this but I have low self-esteem."
3. How his fear of intimacy partially manifested itself: Whenever we would watch a movie, he'd stiffly sit on the edge of his couch with one arm on the armrest and his eyes directed at the TV. And he wouldn't move.
4. Even when we were in the "friends" phase, he stood me up. (Although the night he stood me up, I was waiting for him at a bar and I met a guy named St. Martin who later invited me to a nightclub to introduce me to one of the princes of Morocco.)

Turning Point: I spent an awkward Christmas dinner on the Upper East Side with his family. Let's just say dinner was eaten mostly in uncomfortable quietude, the only sound the clinking of silverware against dinnerware. It was, indeed, a silent night.

We'd made New Year's plans, but, at 6:30 p.m. on New Year's Eve, he called to ask if I had something else to do if we didn't go to the party he had asked me to. Translation: Our dating situation was done. Yes, I got dumped on New Year's Eve.

Diagnosis: He did me a favor. Neither one of us was in any kind of place to handle anything with any kind of substance.