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"A lot of you guys have been asking various forms of the same question: my dude seems to be putting the brakes on, and I don&amp;amp;#8217;t understand what it means. Well, it can mean a few different things&amp;amp;#133;Listen, I&amp;amp;#8217;m not a mind-reader. So I can&amp;amp;#8217;t tell you exactly why he says he &amp;amp;#8220;needs a little space,&amp;amp;#8221; or &amp;amp;#8220;wants to take things a little more slowly,&amp;amp;#8221; or &amp;amp;#8220;needs some time to think about things&amp;amp;#8221; or any of the other vague, overly gentle and therefore more heartbreaking ways he has of saying this. He might actually be gay for all I know, and that&amp;amp;#8217;s an awfully hard thing to diagnose from an anonymous post on Smitten. But I can tell you that it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t mean it&amp;amp;#8217;s the end. I&amp;amp;#8217;ve told every single girlfriend I&amp;amp;#8217;ve ever had that I needed space. Obviously I didn&amp;amp;#8217;t end up marrying every single girlfriend I had (I only married Blossoms, whom I told several times that I needed space). But what it means is that there is something about being in a relationship that has always freaked me out. I can feel the freak-out once in a while even now, when I&amp;amp;#8217;m married, it&amp;amp;#8217;s just that it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t bother me much any more because I know better. But I can make several broad characterizations about what it means when guys say this: 1) He&amp;amp;#8217;s scared. This I can say for certain. Whether he&amp;amp;#8217;s scared because he&amp;amp;#8217;s too much in love and is losing himself, of because he&amp;amp;#8217;s afraid he&amp;amp;#8217;s going to end up married to someone he doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t want to be married to, or because, like me, relationships can just plain scare him, I can&amp;amp;#8217;t say for certain. 2) Yes, he may want to break up. The hard truth is that this is what it seems: a break-up with training wheels. 3) He wants to make sure he&amp;amp;#8217;s in control. This is a really selfish thing, and something I&amp;amp;#8217;m guilty of. But sometimes men just want to make sure that they are in control of a relationship because not being in control is a feeling that makes them very uncomfortable. It&amp;amp;#8217;s the same reason you put the brakes on when you&amp;amp;#8217;re driving or skiing or riding a bike downhill: control. 4) He&amp;amp;#8217;s trying to be honest. While, yes, asking for space can be selfish. And hurtful. And really kind of evil. There&amp;amp;#8217;s also something a tiny bit noble about it. He needs some time to think about what he wants. And he&amp;amp;#8217;s being strong enough to ask for it. 5) What it may not mean is that this is the end. There&amp;amp;#8217;s something holding him back from breaking up. Or else he&amp;amp;#8217;d have said, &amp;amp;#8220;It&amp;amp;#8217;s not me, it&amp;amp;#8217;s you&amp;amp;#133; can I have my keys back?&amp;amp;#8221; Maybe it&amp;amp;#8217;s that he truly does suspect (as it was in my case) that it&amp;#x27;s him, and not you. What do you guys think? Has your man ever asked for space? What happened? What did it mean? And do you think it&amp;amp;#8217;s fair? Is it the most annoying and painful thing ever? Tell me! Photo: iStock"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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