At the very least Lois has to make it clear that she want Clark Kent, before he can tackle the other issues.
That, to me, embodies what I thought "fatalistic" meant when I first read this thread. Not that he has no free will, or even that he thinks he has none. Rather, that he thinks others have clearly chosen something other than what he wishes, and therefore feels the need to step back and let them have what he thinks they've chosen.
Whether or not they've really chosen that is a moot point--Clark thinks they've chosen it, so he's not going to force them to choose otherwise. Lois did that too, when she practically pushed Clark out the door to go to lunch with Mayson.
In the heat wave, he didn't see how anything other than he could be causing the heat wave, so he felt he should "bow out gracefully." I'll bet that it hurt him to see Lois push the issue, simply because he believed that the scientists were right, and he might've thought Lois was just handing out false hope.
With Scardino, Clark was ready to MOVE AWAY when he thought that Lois had given up Superman for Scardino. It didn't even occur to him that Lois might have chosen HIM instead--as he said, he and Lois hadn't been getting along very well lately.
During the Arrrgh:
When Lois told him she'd never loved him, etc. I think that Clark was just so dumb-struck that he'd forgotten what Jimmy'd said about Lois calling herself Wanda and being in love with Kent, not Clark. 'Cause when he goes into the Ace 'O Clubs to talk to her, he says his name is Clark.
That said, he lets her go, because he doesn't remember that she thinks she's someone else, and he really thinks that's what she wants. Not to mention, she pulled the "If you really love me . . ." card.
