Is he letting go of something potentially wonderful just because he's scared?

A female age 36-40, anonymous writes:

So I am going to try to sum up this situation as best as I can in hopes that I can get some helpful advice. I am 21 years old and a senior in college. I met this guy a little over a year ago in class and the first time that we hung out we immediately hit it off. Literally, I could not have asked for anything better and he said the same, it was perfect. We both have had long term past relationships yet his seems to be more of a problem than mine considering he did not have but a few months between his past one and me. Anyways, we got into our first stupid fight after a few months and he seemed to crawl into a hole after that. We didn't talk for probably a week and for the rest of the year things were basically on and off the whole way through. We got so close in such a short period of time, spent most of our free time together, and at one point I finally got the response from him that he definitely cared for me he just thought we should be friends and see where it went (this occurred about a week before summer and we live almost 6 hours apart) so that we would at least have some type of relationship considering how much fun we have together and comfortable we are with each other. He ended up inviting me to the beach with his family and visiting me at school a few times but in between the times of seeing each other tended to be a bit distant which was definitely hard on me. (Mind you through this, and I think it definitely makes a difference, we never had sex so it wasn't a feeling of being "used") Anyways, he came back to school took me to dinner with his family and things started out exactly where they left off and basically spending all of our time together/some hooking up involved minus sex because he said something about wanting it to be perfect(yea, crazy I know I was floored by that too). He tends to almost put up a wall though every time we start to get close again, so I finally threw in the towel. Once I did that he actually opened up to me and said how he knows that if he wants to be with any girl in the world it is me, but the easiest way for him to put it is that he gets scared. His past relationship was like 5 years and didn't end so great but the fact that they still talk sometimes does bother me because it seems that he just can't get over the first love. So I told him if he could be more consistent with the way that he acts I wouldn't drop everything and I'd give it a chance but if he wanted to be friends then we would have to stop talking for a while in order to salvage whatever friendship we could have. About a week later I drunkily started a stupid argument again and he proceeded to tell me that he just doesn't know about a relationship. We talked for a few hours and he told me "how I am his perfect girl" and he knows that he can be an idiot but he just doesn't want to hurt me anymore by making me wait until he's ready because it's not fair to me. He also said that I would never have to worry about seeing him out with another girl or being with anyone else because if he wasn't going to be with me he didn't want anyone; to trust him it's going to suck that he can't call me the next day/is going to miss me like crazy; it's not at all me he just needs to be by himself but when he was with me he was so happy; and basically that he, himself, doesn't even know what his problem is and he knows that I deserve to be happy so he couldn't stand to do this to me anymore. He has seriously become not only someone that I could see myself with but also best friend and there is just something that is different in our relationship that continues to pull us back together. It is soo hard for me because I know at this point I just need to back off and do my own thing for a while and give him his space (even though he kept saying that he still wanted to talk/hang out especially since both of our friends have all become friends). I just am so confused because I feel that if he cared as much as he insists that he does he would try harder to work at a relationship, especially considering at one point the words "i thought you could've been the one" came out of his mouth. My friends nor his friends or even his family can even understand what the problem is so I'm pretty much stuck. Not that I am going to wait around for him at this point but do I sound crazy for hoping that he does come around, or does that even sound like a possibility? I believe that he does care and is sincere with everything that he says because he has at least been honest and as odd as it sounds mature for the fact that he knows it is unfair to me and actually admits the fact that he needs to grow up. Does it just sound like he is being a typical young college kid who needs to get hit with the realization that he's letting something with a lot of potential go just because he's scared? Or that he just really doesn't even feel the way that he thinks which is why he can't bring himself to want a full on relationship with me again? I know that I over analyze absolutely everything but it's kind of hard not to with how contradictory everything has been. Hope that rambling wasn't too confusing I just tried to make it as clear as possible, Any advice/suggestions anyone?

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A female reader, aunt honesty  +, writes (2 October 2010):

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