A colleague (now ex colleague actually) and I have become friends for over a year now, well I think we are friends, but it is really confusing at time.

He is what one can call a real alpha male, married, and having an affair... He can be rude, nice, obnoxious, sweet... anything really... but weirdly we have become somehow close.

Sounds like a slimey cheat.

He was the one starting provoking me at work, joking, etc... That is how we started talking to each other...mostly on msn, or via text... We spend hours chatting, I confide in him, and he does too, telling me all about his dark secrets as he calls them, and more mundane things.

It has always been very clear that there will never be anything between us, as he is married and he knows what I think about affairs...I have always brushed him off when he has been making silly remarks...

I know he likes me because I am funny, have high standards regarding respecting other people, I guess he might think I am a bit challenging as well, I am not sure, and I am pretty sure he does not fancy me, which helps.

He has this image of me as being rather inexperienced immature, and naive, which I am not, Just because I always want to see the good in others, and help if I can. He also thinks that my having created my little world, my very own little circle with the people for whom I really care and who really care for me, in which everything is as nice and uncomplicated as possible, is a way to escape reality, which is not true... When I say I cannot cope with some things, that it is too complicated for me, that it is wrong, because they go against what I believe in (like respecting people, him cheating, being caught and acting if he did not care how much his wife could be distressed by it, saying that it is life!!!)... His favourite expression is "stop the world, I want to jump"...

Anyway, I really like him and appreciate our friendship, but I feel he is really hard sometimes. We are supposed to be friends, but I feel he is not being completely honest, and even tries to treat me the way he treats the women he chats up and are happy to sleep with him...

Am I one of them???

I am genuine with him, I enjoy talking to him, his advises, the fact he confines in me, that I can tell him everything, and he let me tell him what I think about what he does (not very nice things really!)That he enjoys talking to me for hours, when I am sure he could do better things, like work for example!...

But I also find his way to put me down at times, saying that I am a twat, that if everybody were like me (trying to be honest with myself and others) there would be a nuclear war...and worse!!!... Really hard.

What does he want from me, is he just playing?

I adopted him in my little circle of people for whom I care, because I really like him a lot... I do not mind putting up with him being hard at times, if he is sincere.

But I am not willing to carry on if it is just for him to get a kick out of it, as for me it is disturbing, complicated and hard work at times. 

If you see him as a friend, treat him as a friend.  There is no need for it to go beyond that.  He sounds like a bit of idiot to me, with his head up his own arse.  But he also sounds like a very unique guy, even though it is unique in a bad way.  So that might be entertaining because he is different to many people. 

Trust your instincts, if you like him, then be friends with him, if you get bad vibes, ditch him.  From your description he sounds like a really distasteful man to me.