Later that day, when I was back at my parent’s house, I mentioned that I had run in to him. Everyone in my family had the same response: “He was such a nice guy!”

They were right. He really was the best boyfriend. He was sweet and polite, and he thought I walked on the moon. He had a nice family and loved his parents. He played sports and helped my grandmother rake her yard.

He was probably the nicest guy I ever dated. Which is why I knew I had to break up with him.

We were both in high school when we started dating. He would wait for me in the parking lot and drive me home from school in his gold Chevy Celebrity. I would cheer for him at basketball games and we would go to Pizza Hut afterward to celebrate.

When he went away to college, he wrote me long letters and spent the money from his work-study job to drive home and visit me on the weekends. We played chess and Scrabble and went sledding in my backyard with my little brother.

He was probably the nicest guy I ever dated. Which is why I knew I had to break up with him.

He was so nice that when I didn’t call when I said I would, it was no big deal.

He was so nice that when I asked him to cancel his plans so he could drop me off and pick me up at my friend’s house, he would do it.

He was so nice that he let me choose where we ate, what we did and when he could see me.

I broke up with him over the phone in February. It was an epic call with lots of crying. I sat in the linen closet in my parents’ bathroom with my knees against my chest listening to deep, gasping sobs on the other end of the line as big, fat, hot tears rolled down my acne-riddled cheeks.

No, nothing happened. No, he hadn’t done anything wrong. No, I hadn’t kissed anybody else. Somehow I just knew, deep in the folds of my unformed teenage brain, that it wouldn’t be good for me to continue to date — or even marry — such a nice guy.

It felt great to be with someone who thought I was perfect. It was an ego boost and an experience that I hope everyone has at some point. But deep down, I knew that I wasn’t perfect. I messed up, made mistakes, didn’t follow through or had bad ideas. Because I was too young to know better, I took advantage of his niceness, believing that it was his way of showing love and that I was deserving of it.

But somehow I knew that I needed someone who would stand up to me when I was inconsiderate. I needed to be with someone who would give me a little push back instead of being a pushover. Without that, I could see myself becoming a relationship tyrant — someone so accustomed to getting my own way that I wouldn’t know how to compromise or consider others’ feelings.

I didn’t want to be a person who was always forgetful, unreliable or cruel, yet when I was with someone who readily accepted those bad habits it became hard to change my behavior. Over time my bratty edges have softened, and I now understand that I treated my high school boyfriend poorly because I wasn’t really in love with him the way I thought I was. Yes, I feel bad about it, but were any of us at our best during our teenage years?

So it was over. Both of our families were shocked and saddened. After three years of dating him, I felt free and a little giddy to be on my own without the expectation of answering the phone or making it to family movie night every Saturday.

And then 20 years passed.