Things felt great with my new friend. After a few months of cultivating and enjoying our friendship, we had developed a kind of closeness we couldn't quite define. Neither of us liked the term "best friends" for various reasons, but we recognized that label could be used to define us. After some time, he began speaking to me of his inner battle regarding commitment. While he had avoided specific details, we did speak about other girls he was seeing, being that our friendship was so based on openness and honesty. He shared that he was considering committing to one girl in particular and having a monogamous relationship. Aside from his concerns with commitment in general, he also expressed that a part of his hesitation was enjoying his time with me and feeling uncertain of how that would change. On hearing and internalizing that specific point, I made the realization that I had to really think about what we were doing and what would happen with us long-term.
I spent a lot of time exploring what we were, what he meant to me, and all the potential avenues we could go down. In analyzing our friendship, I realized there were a lot of elements I valued in relationships and I realized if I let things go on unchecked, I could very likely develop strong romantic feelings for him over an extended period of time [with me, romance develops through compatibilty and a strong foundation, never before]. Considering his strong feelings for this other girl and what he'd told me of her feelings for him, I knew anything more than friendship developing between us would end up in drama and emotional turmoil. I did not want to even leave myself open to that possibility so I told him I wanted to change the dynamic of our relationship. I wanted to stop having sex so nothing would happen that would jeopardize our friendship [there were also other reasons for the sex to end, but that was the most relevant in my mind].
Within a few short days of that conversation and decision, he was happily committed and we were optimistic about the future of our friendship with these new, defined intentions. We still tried to speak and text often, understanding that he was spending a lot more time enjoying the new stage he was in with his new girlfriend. He introduced the two of us and tried to encourage a friendship between us, knowing that he wanted both of us in his life for a long, long time. He and I didn't spend as much time alone together because we had usually been together late at night and it had usually involved sex. But in the few times we were together alone, it became quite apparent that our sexual attraction had not gone anywhere. We hadn't given ourselves any time to learn how to be just friends and, since he was now in a committed relationship, there was no space allowed for us to figure that out. We decided the only solution was to just not be alone together.
After a couple months of limiting ourselves and our friendship, we got to a point where we really missed each other. We figured it was time for us to rebuild our friendship, spend time together the way we always had enjoyed doing. The attraction was still strong, but we both saw it as an attempt to really test ourselves. In retrospect, we realized neither of us had much faith in passing the test, but we figured unless we were going to cut all ties and abandon the friendship we had worked so hard to cultivate, it had to happen so we could work through it. I went out after work and bought all of our favourite snacks. He brought over a movie. As we had done a million times before, we stayed up all night on my couch hanging out. Throughout the movie, nothing abnormal or inappropriate happened. The movie ended and we started watching tv shows online and still, we were just sitting on the couch, watching. But even though there were no touches or looks, the sexual tension was thick. I did have the thought that he should go home, but I knew that would be running away from something that would keep following us. Knowing the two of us and our personalities, I didn't think running would be the answer either of us would be happy with.
Without any significant signal, we went from sitting innocently on the couch to touching in every way we could. Most of what happened after that is a blur to me; I have very little memory of what happened, except that it was intense and it felt right. I remember having the thought, while it was happening, that it felt so right and it confused me greatly that something that wasn't allowed seemed exactly what was supposed to happen.
We were up all night. I had a show the following morning, so he came with me. Again, while there, I remember thinking it felt so right. I had wanted him to come see me perform, come hang out with me backstage, so many times previously that it was bittersweet to have him there under those circumstances. Yet still, we enjoyed it. We allowed ourselves to enjoy that morning, enjoy being together without hesitation or limitation, enjoy each others' company again for what seemed the first time in months. We went back to my place and enjoyed our bodies some more, while discussing and trying to figure out what it meant and what the next step was. That night, ironically enough, was his girlfriend's birthday celebration which I had been invited to. I obviously was hesitant about being there, but he asked me to come. It would be easiest, we would avoid awkward explanations or excuses. He told me he would feel better if I was there and we would figure out how/when to tell her what happened later. I had no idea of what the best thing to do was. Neither of us did. So, with such little time to think, I agreed.
That night was incredibly awkward. I showed up almost two hours late, because I had such a difficult time going into that situation. For the first time in the entirety of their relationship, I felt she actually reached out to me as an actual friend that evening [previously, I had always gotten very negative, very closed off, jealous vibes from her... understandably so knowing my relationship with her boyfriend, but unpleasant for me nonetheless]. He and I joked and interacted as closely as we always did, but there was an underlying sense of strain between us. Later that evening, he told me his girlfriend made a comment about thinking I had feelings for him, which ended up being a slip of the tongue, but we both felt it was a Freudian slip. Or maybe we were just paranoid.
It being her birthday, he decided he wouldn't say anything to her yet, but we both decided at the first opportunity, he would be honest with her and take it from there. Needless to say, it did not go well. She was furious, she was devastated, she was heartbroken. She decided to remove all evidence of my existence from her life -- deleted me off facebook, deleted pictures of me, etc. She told him she didn't want to hear any stories about me. She didn't even want to hear my name said. She couldn't tell him he was not allowed to be friends with me, but she clearly stated she would never accept it happening again so he and I needed to work through whatever it was we had to work through... as long as she had no part of it. A very understandable reaction and we both had no arguments to any of it because we acknowledged what we did was wrong. So, all that was left was to try to figure out what on earth we could do from that point and how to move forward.
That was the immediate beginning of the absolute most difficult year and a half of my life. I spent so much of my developmental years setting very specific standards for any type of relationship I would ever have, romantic or not, so I could avoid excessive amounts of drama, stress and heartache. I think in the months that followed, I got enough heartache to last me a lifetime.
[okay so Amy Winehouse's 'Back to Black' album is gonna make a lot of appearances in this blog over the next little while. Musically, lyrically, artistically, etc it is *brilliant.* But aside from that, it expresses a lot of what I went through over that first year quite accurately.]
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