• 3 - 5 years, depending on how you calculate it

Good Things

• He was understanding, and he actually listened
• He was always willing to talk if I needed it (unless he was extra busy)
• We shared eating out and movie expenses, unless it was a big date
• He was my best friend
• He believed and listened to all my nonsense.
• He believed in me as an artist
• He became a family friend
• He enjoyed long trips to the beach or to Bend
• He introduced me to new things and enlightened me
• He drove from Portland, OR to Caldwell, ID just to surprise me
• He taught me to drive (if putting me behind a wheel and simply saying "drive" is how you teach someone to drive...)
• I got him to start painting
• There was a time when I believed he was going to be the father of my children
• He supported me through the worst moments of my life

Bad Things

• Love was tertiary for him.
• Just small little things that shouldn't matter but all too well tell me just how much he actually cared about me
• When I called to see why he was late, sometimes he would reply "Playing Black Ops. 5 more minutes!"
• When I was invited over to his house on a Sunday and he spent the whole day focused on a sports event
• Every other month, he needed a break (was it actually 5 years, or was it more like 2 and a half when the breaks are added in?)
• He cared more about money than about fun
• He was planning to move away to college without any kind of thought of how I would tie into it...
• He used logic over romance ("I know you love me, and you know I love you, so isn't it kind of pointless to say it all the time?")
• He made me walk to his house in a rainstorm once because he had a long day at work, even though he has a car and I don't...
• I wasn't important enough to invite to family events
• He got me a teddy bear on Valentines Day that was holding a heart that said I was his "cherished friend forever"
• He was more of a friends-with-benefits
• He forgot important events, which I guess is typical for males, but still kind of annoying. Not fun waiting around anniversary day only to find out he had gone out with friends. Luckily he abandoned them when he remembered...
• Sometimes he would cancel plans because his friends invited him somewhere, saying "I hang out with you a lot, and my friends are hardly ever free to hang out" which was understandable, but geeez.
• When I broke up with him, he didn't put up any kind of fight, he just said "Have fun,"
• When we broke up, the only sad thing about it was that I couldn't talk to my best friend anymore...