I know what I need to do, but I need to hear it from someone else. I also need a little backbone. Ready to hear my story and help me?

Oh. First, let me say I had an amazingly wonderful birthday, mostly due to my great friends and a crush I have. We'll leave it at that, for now.

So here's the story, and it's kind of a long one, but bear with me. There's this guy at work. We'll call him Mike. (Names have not been changed.) Mike is 40. And in a wheelchair. And I'm absolutely not interested in him.

Despite the facts, I agreed to go to lunch with him one day, thinking that co-workers can go to lunch together without it meaning anything. But he paid for lunch. (My first error of many.) He also grilled me about spinal cord injuries, asking me "how do you feel about that?" "What do you understand about spinal cord injuries?" Ummm...absolutely nothing.

Then, at the end of lunch, he asked if I wanted to do it again sometime. What did I say? "Sure."

So then we went to lunch again. He grilled me again about spinal cord injuries, but this time went into gruesome detail I could have done without. I don't need nor want to know that he has bladder control problems. But now I do know.

By the end of lunch, I was pretty much totally turned off, and wondering what in the world he told me all that for. He had his reasons. "I'm telling you all this because I wanted to know if you would like to go out sometime."

You already know what I said. "Sure." I felt guilty. He said something to the effect of how going out brightens his day, etc. (I pushed out of my consciousness that he also said something about how going to lunch with me the first time was so exciting that he almost couldn't handle it.)

I am a great fool with no backbone; but I don't want to be dishonest anymore when it comes to relationships and whatever else. I know what I want and don't want in a man, and I don't want to ignore my feelings anymore. I've been on too many bad dates to do it again. It's not any fairer to the men I string along than it is to me.

You see how I know what I need to do? But I just don't know how or if I can do it. For one thing, Mike has already gotten an ASU basketball schedule and asked me which day would work out best for me. We're getting down to the details here. Should I go with him once to be nice, since I already agreed to it, and then tell him? Should I tell him I made a mistake by saying yes, that I have no interest in him? Or should I tell him I just want to be friends, and I would go with him as a friend to the game, but nothing else?

I have to work with this guy fairly often, so that makes it even more awkward. Maybe I should just tell him, hey, I know I said yes, but I don't believe in relationships with co-workers.

Help me. What should I do??!!

Song on my life soundtrack: Ricochet in Time, Shawn Colvin

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