OK...it was my second year of college when I first saw her. She was dating one of my frat brothers. I was dating my high school sweetheart who had just followed me to school. I didn't know much about her except she was always hanging out and taking pictures. Very sweet person, and I never understood why she was with him. We all thought he was just lucky, but everyone deserves someone, right?
A year later my gf and I had gotten engaged and were making wedding plans. She was supposed to be one of the bridesmaids. In the meantime, she'd broken up with her bf and gotten back together with him. TBH, I'd always thought he was a jerk, lazy, unintelligent, and I never understood why a) girls liked him so much, and b) why his profs tolerated him. We were both music ed majors, we both played clarinet. He never practiced, never studied, and always seemed to do really well. What I found out about a) was not that girls really liked him, but they felt sorry for him. He was charismatic, strong, flirtatious, and constantly chasing girls and flashing that smile. Girls thought it was "cute," but not cute enough to go out with him. I think they knew deep down he was a manipulator and avoided getting too close to him.
Meanwhile, my own relationship had long been emotionally abusive, and I finally reached a point that I realized I'd be happier alone than with HER. So I broke up with her.
Time passes and he gets kicked out of school. He stays in town, gets an apartment, and has a job. Even though she has a dorm room, he demands she check in throughout the day and expects her to be at the apartment when he gets off work. My ex and I are trying to be "just friends." It's not going well. And since my ex and his gf are such big buddies, we all end up hanging out, eating lunch/dinner together, etc. I can't help but notice she gives me this "look" sometimes. The thing is she's drop-dead GORGEOUS, and I'm like, I'll never have any kind of chance with her. Girls like her and guys like me don't ever get together. So I was just happy that we were friends at all.
So the university marching band was the exhibition band at a high school marching band festival which, if you live in the USA, you know these are an all-day thing. So it was nighttime when we got there and a little later in the evening when we left. We were at a restaurant and I was looking for a couple of frat pledges that I'd been mentoring and reserving a table for us. She sees me looking around like I'm lost and invites herself to sit at my table. We all got together, had a nice time, and my little bro was always one of her favorite all-around people. She'd ridden with my ex there since my ex was planning to spend the weekend with one of her friends. My ex had a date and was looking forward to getting laid, and I think it was because she thought it would make me jealous. Sorry, nope. So she rode the bus back and sat with me the whole way. We talked and talked and talked and talked and...really got on everyone's nerves because everyone else just wanted to sleep. It was a long trip!
We were inseparable after that night, much to my ex's annoyance. One night she'd finally had enough of her ex's BS and decided not to answer her phone or report back to his apartment. I kept telling her she needed to go, and she insisted on hanging out with me. We're out in public, in full view of EVERYONE, and we're not hiding. He finds us and threatens to kill me. I'm half acting smug because, *snort*, what's he gonna do HERE? Besides, I'm willing to take a beating or worse if it gets her away from his dumb @$$. She finally insisted I leave, which I only did when she promised she'd be ok and that she could handle things. She dumped him that night and never looked back. I didn't really care about her that much before that night. I was too busy feeling thoroughly pleased with myself for having her in the backseat of my car a couple times. We were just thinking, meh, it's just sex and we're just blowing off some steam, and we were honest about using each other and probably not really going anywhere with the relationship. We were just going through some stuff together we couldn't handle, and it just so happened we bonded over it.
The sad part is there was another girl that I'd been flirting with who was on the way out with HER bf, too, but it wasn't quite the extreme situation my friend was in. We'd get together and kiss for a few minutes and that's as far as it went. But I wouldn't have minded dating her either. I'd only ever had sex with two girls at this point, the second one being my friend! When things took a violent turn for the worse, I told Other Girl that it might be best she patch things up with her own bf, that my little bro was seriously crushing on her and she should consider going out with him if not, etc., because my friend needs me right now and being IAR is just not gonna work.
It got so bad every time he was around, she'd go into full-on panic attack. It was near impossible to stay away from him. But I stuck by her as did her other friends. Eventually we had to go to the police. After going to court over this problem, PTSD finally set in. She took time to rest, and she didn't really want me touching her at all. Over time, though, we admitted to ourselves and each other we had strong feelings for each other and decided to try being IAR.
I still had some issues to work out myself and still had some hangups over other girls (one in particular) that I'd been interested in since high school, but didn't pursue because of Evil B!+¢h From Hell (ok, to be perfectly fair, I'm not Mr. Perfect, either). I was confused because of feelings I had for two girls, plus the only reason I was even WITH my friend in the first place was because a) we'd both come out of bad relationships, and b) I didn't want to see her go back to her ex, which is what happens with a lot of girls in that situation. I knew that if I wasn't sure that this relationship was right, it was best not to continue it.
So we broke up.
I went out with Other Girl 2.0.
It didn't work out. Other Girl 2.0 likes Other Guys. Other Girl 2.0 was also a virgin and preferred to stay that way. My Best Friend was well aware of this and rather enjoyed getting me alone. So we got back together as I was leaving college.
We never "officially" broke up after that even though we did sleep with other people. I left the state for grad school, had a relationship with an AMAZING girl from upstate NY, but still got nightly phone calls from my Best Friend. Other Girl 3.0 wasn't stupid--she figured out what was going on but never said anything. So when I graduated with my master's degree and went back home to Best Friend, 3.0 wasn't exactly surprised.
I tried pursuing 2.0 for a while after she dumped me the second time. But as I was in the middle of an internship, I just didn't have the time, the money, or the energy to waste on her. But it sucked because I had to move away from my Friend. After my internship, I moved back for a temporary job as a paralegal. I had my own place, and Best Friend, who at that point was my GF, would visit me almost every night. I got fired because the summer months are slow in a law office and he didn't need two people working anymore. I had to move back home with mom for a couple of months while I got ready to leave for New York. That was the last time we lived in the same town together. We were in a LDR for 4 years after that.
I proposed to her back in 2003, in December. She was in her last year of college after having taken a year off and I was in my first year of teaching. We were taking a bath together (sorry if that's TMI) and having a fight about my willingness to make a commitment. So I asked her, in the bathtub, to marry me. Of course she said yes, but she was like, "it's not real if I don't have a ring." Maybe not those exact words, but something like that. So I said, "fine, I'll buy you a ring. I was saving up for it anyway." So I took her to the jewelry store and had her try on different rings, looking at diamonds--y'know, "girlfriend" stuff. When we agreed on the kind of ring that was best for her, I told the salesman I'd take it, applied for a retail credit card since I was a couple thou short, and did the whole knee thing on the shop floor. I mean...she ACTUALLY THOUGHT I was taking her there to shut her up, that we were just looking. She didn't know I was actually going to propose to her. My plan had actually been to propose to her later on the NEXT year and not draw out the engagement. But after our fight in the bathtub I realized she was ready to leave me and move on. It wasn't so much being engaged that she wanted right then. It was she needed some REAL indication that I wanted to move things forward, even if the timing was less than ideal at the moment.
We're still friends, too. We're just friends who happen to be married, have children together, and don't want to be intimate with anyone else EVER. Our relationship started out as two unsatisfied people just looking for a break and to keep each other out of trouble. Being "just friends" was "just fine." Falling in love was NEVER part of the plan. But here we are.
The "just friends" thing is great because you spend all that time with someone that you know how they act when they don't think anyone is looking. You have something else besides that "magic" or that "spark" or all those "feeeeeeeelings" that can come and go with the wind. You don't take friends for granted because friends don't heap unreasonable demands on you. In the Bible, I believe David referred to Jonathan as a "love greater than women." That's EXACTLY what I have with my wife, and have always had. Our three children have this special bond--they are CONSTANTLY fighting, but when one of them is sick, or spending a weekend at someone else's house, or away at camp, or whatever, whoever is left is just a sad sack. It's just pathetic how mopey they get. Or when I watch young boys who are growing up together and you NEVER see one without the other. Or even grown men. That whole tight "bro's before hoes" thing. Women do the same kind of thing with each other. And I think it is so RAAAARE that you find someone of the opposite sex you can have that sort of relationship with. But why not? Why CAN'T you have that sort of all-in-one relationship? But that's the beauty of what we have, of where we've been together, and where we are now.
I know OP you're not asking for ALL THAT in your post. Our journey has been defined by our friendship more than anything else. The simpler, shorter, more practical answer is you know who your friends are before you date them. You already know that a certain guy is moody, or he has uncontrollable flatulence, but you don't care about all that because he's your FRIEND. And if you can deal with that as FRIENDS, it's not quite so hard being more than friends. You also know if your FRIEND is superficially charming but treats women lower than dirt. You would know you'd never date a guy like that. You don't get nasty surprises with your friends. If you date a friend who acts like a jerk, it's because you ALREADY KNOW he acts like a jerk and you think he's worth looking past all that. I mean...that's up to you to decide, but you can't say you got into a relationship with a friend NOT KNOWING what they would be like. My wife knows I'm attracted to other women and can't help it. She also knows my whereabouts at all times and that I don't spend any time alone with anyone else but her. We talk about EVERYTHING. She has a "friend" she usually sees once a week who gets super pissed at her because she (the friend) has no concept of a close relationship with a husband. The story behind that is her husband is getting old and showing early signs of dementia, and she's still in denial over it. He's had some trouble keeping a job very recently, although that's worked itself out by this point. She's cheated on him, and she spends more time fighting with her ex-husband than giving positive attention to her present one. The irony is when my wife and I were having financial problems this woman was telling her to get a divorce, like her marriage and life were so far superior to ours. She gets super jealous that my wife actually would rather spend time with me than her. You don't get all that just from "classic" dating. You get that from already knowing that about the person you're going out with.
I'm more convinced now that dating strangers is really just an American thing. Please, please, PLEASE don't think that American-style dating is the ideal. It's not. It's a mistake. Get to know people, include MOOS in your social circle, people you spend the most time with. Give it time and keep an appropriate distance. Watch, observe, and learn. Stay closer to men you like and just see who seems to like you back. Don't be afraid to feel something, even if that means you'll be disappointed. Disappointment is all just part of it, but you won't ALWAYS be disappointed. Just let things happen. American-style dating is stupid because people DON'T know each other when they get together. You can't just separate people into a "friends" stack and a "lovers" stack and pretend your friends are just supposed to be better than your lovers. It doesn't have to work that way. Why can't you be friends with a lover? Why can't your lover be your best friend?
12 Mar 2019, 6:13 pm
That was a fascinating 6000th post!
