There is a lot David could say in response to that. About how those who had been hurt the worst, those that had abandonment issues, had a harder time accepting people near them. How it was often easier for them to push people away to save themselves from a fear of abandonment. How likely Jean-Paul was to have done the same thing.

Jean-Paul is more than sufficiently self-aware for that.

"I think for now I'd rather walk a perfectly reasonably aged man to his apartment. There is no way I'd consider you old."