Submitted on Thursday, December 27, 2007
By Lee, 41, from Florida:

Hi Victor,

What does it mean when a guy uses your name in conversation – when he’s talking to you? What about pet names? This is a guy whom I haven’t seen in many, many years and lives 3000 miles away. He alternates between emailing and texting me several times a day to not talking to me at all. Now he’s calling me sweetheart, hon, darling, babe etc. on a daily basis.

For quite some time he was sending intimate emails. They were “clean”, but there were definite sexual undertones and I welcomed them. Then he suddenly stopped, and seemed annoyed when I would initiate a message, even if it was about something as trivial as the weather. He would ignore me and then later apologize and say he was busy etc.

I stopped initiating the messages – even though it killed me, and then he started sending them again. He’s been saying my name in the conversations for quite some time, but the pet names only started recently. I was surprised, but happy. Now I don’t know how to respond to him. I actually replied to a couple of emails by saying something like “Hi handsome” and “Hi stud” and he seemed to back off again. That was a few days ago. Today he's calling me babe again.

I have my own ideas, but I would sure love to hear what you have to say. For the record, I’m married and he knows it. What he doesn’t know is that I’m separated. He’s married, and he says he’s happy, but I don’t believe it. His wife is cheating on him – I know this for a fact – but I don’t think he knows it, although he probably suspects it.

VictorM's advice:

It "killed" you not to initiate text messages with a married man who lives 3,000 miles away and you haven't seem in many years? You need to find a hobby or something.

The use of your name and pet names could mean that he's grown fonder of you. You're expecting him to respond within your own perceived time frame and when he doesn't, you jump to the conclusion that he seemed annoyed or is backing off but he's simply just not responding as quickly as you would like him to. With a job, wife, holidays, and a life of his own it's understandable if he's not responding quickly enough for you.

There is another possibility: he's desperate to show affection for someone, something he probably no longer can do with his cheating wife. You are just a surrogate for his needs. It bothers him when you respond in kind because he senses you're getting attached and he doesn't want that. And why wouldn't he want that? Because one cheating wife is enough.