This is not quite within the remit of your website, but maybe you can help?

A long time ago I had a bit of a 'thing' with a colleague. We had got close during a project and kind of fell for each other. I bought him a CD and he made me a tape of slushy love songs which were pertinent to 'us'. We kissed a few times but then I came to my senses, as I was married.

Glad you came to your senses.  Marriage is far more important than brief flings.

I found another job and left the company a few months later (for OTHER reasons!!)

The thing is, twelve years later, we found each other on Facebook recently. He remembered every little detail about me and my life as it was then.

I asked if he had Skype and gave him my Skype username; he replied that he didn't but gave me his phone number.

We've spoken on the phone twice since then. But THIS is what is confusing me - he is nice, funny, etc with e-mails and Facebook messages most of the time BUT the day after we have had a telephone conversation he sends me spiteful messages that seem to be designed to hurt me. Then he goes back to 'normal' messages again.

Not sure of the content of these messages but people seem to have a habit of mis-interpreting email messages, women tend to be particularly bad at this.  The problem with email is that you can't see the person's body language and you can't hear the person's tone of voice and you can't get a sense of someone's emotions.  For that reason it's virtually impossible to tell whether something is being angry with you or just displaying some sort of humour.  I always never take an email seriously, rely more on what he is like when you meet up.  When you meet up and talk that's a true reflection of a guys personality, not some text typed into an email or by MSN.  

Why is he doing this?

Without knowing the content of the email messages I can't comment whether they were really spiteful or anything else.  I suspect they weren't intended to be considering he has now returned to normal messages.  If someone wants to be spiteful, they will do it consistently they won't just turn it on and off.  Emails are good for certain things, but certainly not good at getting to know what someone is like in real life. 

Sometimes as guys are getting to know women, they feel as though they can take some risks with humour.  Often a guy will be nervous and cocky and try to show he's macho when communicating with a woman who he is getting to know.  This not only reflects in verbal conversations but it can also reflect in emails as well.  It's a sign he is nervous but also hoping to take the relationship further by making risks and trying to sound humourous.  The problem is he isn't being humourous he is sounding cocky. 

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