What is up with that?

So I announced to my guy a couple of weeks ago I would never be his girlfriend. When I start thinking like "girlfriend" I start thinking like a twenty something and putting all those expectations on him that just don't matter to a forty something. He was oddly disappointed.

He said he liked to think of me as his girlfriend and didn't understand the issue with semantics. But whatever. I should do what I need to do if it means we can still hang out together.

And ever since then, he's been acting like a boyfriend on steroids. I've never had such a great boyfriend at a time when I especially am not looking for one. Right now, he is in the other room nursing my sick 11 year old, tolerating my 8 year old's need to watch Sponge Bob and politely telling the 5 year old not to pick his nose. It's an interaction that any mother could relate to, but not a mere mortal of no blood relation.

My guy actually left work early this week to check on my sick son. I was at work myself and couldn't leave so he checked it out. He brought my son a sandwich and stayed with him until I got home. My ex-husband during our seventeen years of marriage never did anything like that.

I'm confused. If this is "boyfriend" then maybe I should be his "girlfriend". If this is "man trying to convince me that boyfriend is not such a bad idea therefore I should be his girlfriend then after he proved his point he goes back to being average guy", then he can never be my boyfriend.

This dating thing is confusing.