Mr D.

All I'd wanted was for You to man up.

For You to tell me The Answer.

Good friends don't disrupt someone while they are at work to hand a gift to them;

Friends don't feed you.

Friends don't buy lil gifts from various lands almost religiously when they go on missions.

Friend don't call you in the middle of the night, sometimes in a drunken stupor but otherwise primarily sober, while you're on holiday.

Friends don't tell you to put on a windbreaker because they don't want other guys to look at you in your tube.

Friends don't take someone they've not seen for a long time to expensive treats repeatedly over the years.

Friends don't tell You that they're holding onto Your lil gifts from the past and will bring them along to another faraway land.

More importantly, friends don't hide their phones under the table and text their partners discreetly, nor do they refer to their significant other as "a friend".

I'd expected You to break the news to me in my face but all You'd say was "my friend". That was in December 2012.

Had You done something in 2005, I would have chosen You.

When I handed You the pink card back then, I was waiting for You to say something, anything. I hoped that You'd stop me but instead, You sang to the card.

Some years went by and I had the opportunity to move to Beijing as he was asked to helm the HQ over there. This was quickly bolstered by a job offer for me in Hong Kong. I gave these up because I deferred to You and You told me to Stay.

It took me 8 years to apologise to You, to summon my courage and broach on the subject before You left for California in December 2012.

Festooned with some misguided sense of honesty, I did so only because of the expensive Birthday Treat and the subsequent day out when You brought me to get all the essentials which you'd required for your 15-month stint.

You promised that You wouldn't disappear, but indeed You have.

I'm not angry.

I'm just sad that You must think little of me, that I do not deserve an answer for closure.

I remember us second-guessing each other time and time again, only to realise that what we'd wanted was the same, if only we'd just verbalised our thoughts. That was in the past.

But I wouldn't know now, because You wouldn't say.

It reads like badly scripted teen fiction but quite unfortunately, it is a tale of people in their 30s.

We lead separate lives and maintaining the status quo is the easy way out. I thought that You'd come clean if I did. Quite unfortunately, it didn't turn out the way that I'd expected.

I wasn't asking to be chosen.

Something along the lines of "Yes, I did but it's in the past" or "I still want you around" would suffice.

So the best that I can do is to steer clear of You.

After 8 years.