what's a guy to do?

Sorry about the lack of posting folks. Seriously, I still have not recovered from my late nights last weekend. I don't know what to say. It wasn't a booze-soaked weekend, not even close. I think it's just me getting old. My sleep hasn't been right since then. Also, this week I've been grinding away at a couple of articles, in which a couple of necessary details are evading me. I'm gonna have hire Columbo or something to help me find the last couple of pieces to the puzzle.

Anywho, I have a scenario for you. It's real, but I'm gonna keep it as vague and general as necessary in order to protect the "innocent."

So here's the deal: Grown man is in love with grown woman. He has been in love with her for about five years. When you saw the two of them together it was like Mutt and Jeff, Laurel and Hardy, Amos 'n Andy, Method Man and Redman, Yoko and John Lennon. They were soul mates. It was painfully obvious to almost everyone who came in contact with this couple. But they never spiritually consummated the relationship. I don't know what they did physically. I assume, because of their PDA, that they did what grown folks do. But on a spiritual level, a mental level, they never made anything official. As a result, they weren't really ever a couple in her mind. She is twice divorced. She is a little shy. But she was head over heels for this man and the way he embraced her and her family. The truth is both of them just rolled with it and assumed that one day they'd end up living together as a happy reconstructed family.

But then an interesting thing happened. A few months ago at the wedding of a mutual friend of theirs, she sat in the audience watching him - he was a groomsman, I believe - and she had some sort of epiphany. She wanted things to be official. She wanted the wedding, etc. She'd wanted something official for a long time but had never done anything about it. And so when his best buddy leaned over to her and asked what was wrong she explained all of that...on the assumption that the best buddy would get the hint and pass it on to the good man. He did not get the hint or pass it on.

A month later, her relationship with the good man was the same - good and simple and unchanging. So she figured he had gotten the hint from the buddy but just didn't care. And that, my friends, broke her heart. So she began to distance herself from him. Eventually - within a few weeks - she began dating an old acquaintance. Now, she appears to be in love with the acquaintance. He wants marriage and the works.

The good man is left in a tail spin, wondering where he went wrong.

I don't think it was just him. I think they both should have been blunt and direct and told the other "Let's make this official." And if marriage scared them, they could have at least formally declared their love for one another, so there were no doubts.

But one guy to another, though this may make me sound like a chauvinist, I told him she was looking for security. She had a track record of two other guys who were mean and abusive. She wanted to know that the good man she'd finally found wasn't gonna just up and disappear one day. She wanted their bond to stick.

Anyway, the good man is so distraught that he's ready to buy her a ring, propose that they elope, argue that he should get a second chance after their long history and more consideration than a guy she's just been "officially" dating for a couple of months. I don't know if that's a good idea. He's tested the waters, and she seems reluctant to let go of the new guy, regardless of history.

Is this enough of a soap opera for you?

I feel for both parties. They both feel bad. But he stands to feel the worst if this doesn't swing back his way. Ladies, taking this scenario into consideration, does he have a snowball's chance in hell? Or is it too late - permanently too late? Guys, should he try, or give up, kick himself a couple of times and move on?

Help me help him. I'm curious for your thoughts.