ya know..I don't view it as a "mess". I see it as a learning experience...and it sounds like you learned for $10...and your heart was not broken...and Marc will be minimumly affected..

let's sit back and say what if Gabe had been there for the next two months..you too got along wonderfully...he dropped the broom..the old feelings started surfacing again..Gabe gets a job....things are "honkey donkey" as an Indian friend of mine once said... and then all of a sudden...old broom/new broom rears her ugly head again....

ya feel me???

it can always be worse