coming in handy

Lately I have been wondering whether life just goes around in circles giving us variations of our lives?I have been friends for years with someone who recently expressed interest. Recently divorced and childless, he made some obvious moves that were quite endearing and being friends, we talked about looking into something more. Lo and behold, he reminded me of someone I had known twenty years ago who is now dead, as well as an amalgam of someone else I have already mentioned. But I chose to suspend belief. I was dealing with the strange experience of taking a friendship I had never thought of acting on, further. It is so funny, You know someone forever, but you know absolutely nothing about their sexual side at all. Thus the awkwardness began. My instinct which has become sharper and sharper, but I have been battling with of late, because I believe that it was on vacation with the last person...was very clear throughout this encounter. It was telling me that the whole thing was too weird. But speaking to a dear friend of mine, the opinion was that this is a long standing friend, and what could be healthier? Basing a relationship on such a foundation should be 'magical'. This proved to be very true, magically mind blowingly BAD. His taste is so unappealing to me that I cannot get around it, and this is after trying just to consider romance, he drops a hell of a bomb on me with what he considers good sex. To him it involves only penetration, caressing the other person and kissing. Ok, that doesn't sound horrible. However, if you read that over a few times it should hit you. It means that foreplay, the most obvious, most (to me) purposeful reason to engage with another human being, is off of his agenda. He just wants to focus on upper body and then plough into female flesh.I have never heard anyone liking that, but it is clear that he has met women who love it, as he said the typical thing to me, " I have had no complaints!' Smirk. I had an instant complaint! What made it all the stranger was that I had taken a week to wrap my mind around the image of him and I actually doing couple stuff and possibly being together in the hazy future. It took some doing, but it began to seem possible.Now I must conclude that great friendship may not mean great romantic relationship! I have seen in the past that common held beliefs about what you look for in a man does not always mean that it translates into something meaningful either.Keeping an open mind is key, but also, I must state that in this situation my instincts were sharper than ever. I just had to say no right away and my boundaries were unwavering. Sometimes people are just not compatible no matter how they look on paper.