Hi guys...
So over the past few months I've developed some kind of friendship with one of my suppliers, he's awesome, we really do gel and I know he feels the same. It's one of those cases where you just know someone. So anyway, not only do we chat for hours on the phone at work but after hours too, we call each other on our mobiles at all hours and usually spend around 4 hours on the phone just chatting. We really have developed a good friendship but there's one problem.
All our interaction has happened telephonically and we've never met. He asked me to meet him once but life happened and I couldn't make it, so a few weeks later I asked if he wanted to go for a drink and he finally came out with it.
He feels that he could be attracted to me,and he knows that we gel really well together but he has self esteem issues and thinks that if I meet him I will change my mind about who he is. He says that because I'm quite athletic and work out a lot I would never be interested in him.
I don't know if I want anything more than friendship with him, or anyone else, because right now I'm focusing on myself. I'm getting really frustrated with this because I value him in my life and I've grown to care about him, but it gets really frustrating when I keep trying to convince him that I'm not that shallow and our personalities have already gelled and that's what matters to me, but he keeps backing off.
How should I tackle this? I've all but conceded and we've stopped talking so much coz' I get so frustrated. What I want to know is should I just back off or is there some way I can perhaps convince him that meeting me wouldn't be the end of everything?
Please give me some advice coz' things aren't going to work out between us if I don't figure it out.
Thanks in anticipation...

Well there isn't a lot you can really do!
Im afraid the choice is down to him, you can't keep persisting you meet and he doesn't want too! He is being very silly, as you expressed how you feel.

Have u tried to explain that you are meeting as 'friends' and nothing more?

Thanks for your advice, I guess that's what I thought, it just bugs me coz' I don't get why is being like this. I've explained that I consider him a really good friend to have, and that's what I want to meet him for. I don't know ey, now all this work stuff is complicating the issue and I feel like this could be one of those special chances that you get and you'll regret if you let it pass by. Know what I mean?

Yes sure, but you have done your part. Now its up to him.
I think he has low self esteem issues.

Hi all,

So this thread pertains to my last entitled "He's worse than me". By the way, thanks for your advise Krs, it kind of cleared my mind up a little, but now I just don't know.

So a couple of days after my last thread my company had a fallout with his and they were pretty close to losing our account, I'm pretty much the only reason they didn't, but he doesn't know this. So after that incident he was all of to me, me being the kind of person that I am, I went out with some other guy over this past weekend, a co-worker of his, and he knows, he's the one that introduced us online and got us talking, but he wasn't happy at all!! His reason being that this other guy is too young for me.
I spoke to my friend today, and we seemed to get along really well again, after him being so distant and us not talking about anything other that work for the past like 2 weeks or something (it felt like a really long time). We chatted and everything seemed great or at least back to the way it was. He eventually told me that the reason he is so upset and disappointed by me seeing this other guy is that he knows that I can do so much better and this guy is not right for me and everything like that.
So now I don't know, we're getting along but now he keeps telling me that this other guy is so wrong and everything, I'm not interested in anything serious with his co-worker, he's just a lot of fun to be around, which I needed coz' I went through I bit of a rough patch.
I don't know, do I close the door and leave everything from here on up to him or do I try a new approach? I still don't know that I like him as anything more than a friend, but I know that I care about him and think about him, and I take his opinions to heart, which I don't often do. He however, still maintains that I could never be interested in him and he doesn't want me to hurt him and he's not what he seems blah, blah, blah. Aren't we all like that? Coz' I know I am!
The thing is, I don't often get close to people, I don't have very many good friends and I don't let many people see the 'real' me very often, but he's one of the one's that I have. I don't even really like spending time with many people, but I, on numerous occasions, put off my plans and sat on the phone to him all night, I know I feel something and whatever it is it means a whole lot to me. So I guess in a way I'm afraid that this is his way of rejecting me, saying all this to cushion the blow. The more I think about it the more confused I get...
Help... Maybe there'ssomething wrong with me and the problem isn't with him. I don't know, I reckon I'm so messed up right now, and I'm not even sure that I know who I am anymore. I think I'm just going to post a new thread coz' this is going off on a tangent.
Thanks for the best advice.