nothing is ever simple...

During the fall I'd briefly dated this boy. I'll call him a boy because, well, he is. He's 24, which is not necessarily a boy, but he could be remarkably childlike at times, despite his intelligence.

He'd just moved here from Ohio and was helping take care of his parents, one of whom is recovering from surgery. He had a job in the quarter, but no friends here.
Of course, my Achilles' heel is someone being lonely. I can't help it. I've been lonely so much of my life, I can't bear it to see someone else lonely too.
We went out a few times, nothing terribly serious (at least not for me).

I hadn't seen him in a while, but we've communicated by email a bit.
Things weren't going well for him. He's barely subsisting. His parents are trying to find work, unsuccessfully. He doesn't have a car. They've cut his hours at work and now he's bored and lonely and poor.

A few days ago, he invited me out to celebrate his birthday. I was busy, but said I'd see him and maybe treat him to dinner the next week.

The night before we were supposed to have dinner, he called me asking to go out. I didn't respond. I emailed and told him I was sorry, but couldn't. I went to bed, exhausted after a particularly grueling day of work.

Sometime around 11, I heard my doorbell ring.

It was him. I went down. He was crying and apologized for waking me. He wanted to leave, but I made him sit down and listened to him tell his tale of woe. He hadn't been able to make any friends. He didn't have anyone to talk to.
His landlord was trying to evict them "because they were white." He'd gone back to visit his friends, but all of his friends there had moved on. "They didn't need" him. His wages were barely allowing them to live.

I talked to him for about an hour, trying to comfort him. He kept apologizing and then I drove him home, after having to plead with him not to walk home at midnight.

The next morning he emailed me to apologize again and told me that he was off his meds since he's "yet to find free/affordable psychiatric help here. They always send me the runaround, and no place will help me unless I'm either a drug addict or suicidal. I'm almost tempted to lie and say I'm suicidal just so I can get the help I need. Oh, wait... um... yes. Well, you were bound to find out sometime. I've been diagnosed with depression and borderline schizophrenia."

Leave it to me to get in this situation. ahem