It took one night for me to realize what I needed to do. Being with Mr. Seemingly Perfect lit a fire in me that had been burned out for more than a year. In a matter of hours, he rescued me for the second time. Without thinking twice, I finally signed my divorce papers with my heart and hand. Please don’t mistake this sequence of events for an act of sudden passion. Mr. Seemingly Perfect did not woo me to the point of no return, prompting me to rush to my lawyer’s office and sign my papers so that he and I could run away together (it paints a pretty picture in soap operas, but I’m not a harlot, my ex-lover is not married to my sister and I’m rather confident that I have no secret twin).

He simply reminded me of what I deserve, bringing me back to a time when I didn’t care about my past. He is the only guy that ever made me want to forget everything I’ve been through.

After meeting up for supper, Mr. Seemingly Perfect and I made plans to have dinner again, which turned into phone calls and gave way to other plans. After a couple weeks of this constant contact, I had a strange feeling we were headed down a familiar road.

At this point, my heart would have followed him anywhere, but my head, which was much more cautious, screamed, “Not again!” I might as well have had a bright neon sign flashing in front of me, telling me to turn around and beware of the dead end lying ahead.

In situations like this, the only thing a woman can do is look at the facts. Fact: He broke my heart before, and he could very well do it again. Fact: We never worked out in the past, and we probably never will. Fact: Our track record isn’t very good, and crossing that boundary with him again is not worth destroying something that is probably only meant to be a good friendship (as much as I hate the word friendship).

We can’t rely on possibilities, fantasies and maybes. They’re too vague. Hope is the most painful thing in the world, and I refuse to live my life on the fragile wings of one word that could bring me down just as quickly as it builds me up. So instead of trying to rekindle the romance, I decided to give the friend thing a real try. We sucked at dating. Perhaps this was something we might be good at.

Soon after, Mr. Perfect joined a group of friends and me for drinks and dinner for my birthday. We had been sitting next to each other talking when it happened-a familiar touch ran through my hair as he grabbed the end of the long strands and twirled them in his fingers.

It was a maneuver he frequently used when we last dated. He always told me how much he loved to twirl my hair, and there he was, twirling away just like he used to. Like I was his world. Like it wouldn’t complicate things. Like it wouldn’t cause either one of us any pain to, for just a minute, get lost in the moment and tell the voices in our head to shut the hell up.

My head immediately screamed, “Damn you!” because deep down I knew what it meant. He was crossing that boundary, and I didn’t want to go there. Why can’t we just stay friends? Why can’t you just leave me be this time and let another girl down instead? (I hear there are plenty of tattoo-artist wannabes seeking companionship!)

With one subtle touch, I was addicted, and as far as I’m concerned, that was his plan all along. As I sat there, contemplating what to do in that brief moment, hands in hair, I thought about the facts one more time. Fact: He could hurt me. Fact: This could be dangerous. Fact: I didn’t care about the facts.

I let the twirling continue.

He kissed me goodnight.

Forget the neon signs.

After that night, Mr. Seemingly Perfect and I agreed we would take things slow and get things right. After weeks of holding hands, late night phone calls and “I miss you’s,” I began to remember why I called him Mr. Perfect.