Catharsis

I wouldn't be reaching out, if at this time I didn't feel it necessary. There is a man that I have been friends with the past 3 years. We first met when we were 16, which was 30 years ago. He and I had quite an encounter. When I met him, it was the first of many in one night. We didn't have sex, but we did have a sexual experience. He was the first person I ever kissed, the first person I ever did anything with-that night. Nothing ever came of it afterwards. He went to a different high school but it was painful for me. 25-30 years later, we connected. We see each other, there is an unbelievable chemistry that can't be denied. He is an artist as well as a salesman.

This is very hard to explain. But through the past 3 years, as hard as I try to forget about him, we have this crazy connection. And he will draw things in his art, that I am thinking about or have envisioned. I don't really even know if he knows he's doing it. There have been instances where, he will draw something, and pair it with a song, a word or a poem. And the poem will be something I have researched the day before, without him ever knowing. He will title an art piece with one word. And that one word, as I'm looking at it, will be repeated at the exact same time on the radio or television. And the word isn't something that is a normal word. For example, he titled an art piece "Catharsis". At the exact same time I was reading it, I heard it being repeated on the television -3 times in within 1 minute. I will vision myself being trapped in a jail cell, and he will draw a woman trapped behind barbed wire that looks like a jail cell, the very next day. The examples go on and on.

I have tried accepting and nurturing the connection. The thing is, the more I accept it, the more he pulls away. The second I try and pull away from the connection and try to break it, the stronger the connection gets and more incidences happen. I've told him about them. And he says he's felt them too, but that's as far as the conversation goes. He tells me he can't have a relationship, but that I'm important to him. It's breaking me. I can't force a man to love me. But we have this crazy connection. Is it all in my head? Am I making them up or making them into more than they really are?

I don't know what to do, because the second I try and break that connection, the stronger it gets. Can I break it? And more importantly, should I break it?

Please help me. I feel tormented.