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2001-11-12 - 10:23 p.m.

Oh God.

Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God.

I can't believe I had the conversation I had last night.

I talked to a close friend of mine for a long time last night. For the sake of protecting her anonymity (and because some people who read this are bound to be full of things I don't need to hear at this point) I'm going to call her....Janice.

Janice and I met in high school, and at first we didn't like each other very much. We hung with the same group, though, so necessity dictated that we at least learn to be friendly toward each other. Then our senior year rolled around, and for some reason I still can't fathom (although I will always be grateful it happened) we bonded. Never really spent tons of time hanging out together, but one day is was just like, "Poof" and she and I are close friends all of a sudden. She's been one of my best friends ever since, and one of only a handful of people I make it a point to keep in touch with since we graduated. We've seen each other at our absolute worsts, respectively, and we understand each other pretty well, and since we can still put up with each other, we've come to the conclusion that we'll most likely be friends forever.

One of the cool things about Janice is that, in the course of our association, she is the one and only friend of the opposite sex I've ever had whom I didn't develop amorous feelings toward. Yeah, I always thought she was cute, even when I thought she was a bitch, but unlike all my other female friends, I never really entertained the notion of trying to start something with her, even the time we took a road trip together. We've always been just friends, and liked it that way.

I was going to say something else here along the lines of the way everything evolves, but after four tries, I think I'm just going to quote from the conversation we had last night.

Janice- "Marco wants to take me to the bars before I go home. Get me good and drunk."

Me- "You know, you and I definitely have to go to the bars together. I had so much fun last week on my friend John's birthday."

Janice- "I don't know if it's such a good idea, though, given all the sexual tension that's between us now."

Me (assuming that Janice has ignored what I've said and continued her thought, as she is wont to do)- "There's sexual tension between you and Marco?"

Janice- "No, stupid. The sexual tension between you and me."

And suddenly, my world just stopped. If life were a sitcom, this was the kind of place where you'd do a spit take to get a laugh.

I didn't really know what to say, just like I don't know what to say here (although the speechlessness here is due both to inarticulateness AND a small measure of self-censorship)

She was right. And I'd known it too, I was just trying not to admit it. There has been an almost palpable energy in the air between us for the last few months. We used to have one of those marry-each-other-when-we're-30 pacts, figuring a platonic marriage between two close friends still beats the hell out of damn near anything else. Then we started joking about eloping this summer, and how nice it would be to have someone to hold every night.

We spent the next hour or so discussing this as reasonably and rationally as two adults who are both having an, "Oh my god I can't believe I'm having this conversation with you," type of reaction can at 2am. We talked about the road trip we have coming up this Christmas, and how interesting that'll be now (or even if it's a good idea now) We talked about confusion as to what's going on. Yes, we did talk about sex and the like, something we'd both adamantly sworn we weren't interested in with each other.

Turns out she'd thought I was pretty cute back in high school, too, although she couldn't tell me that because I was such a jerk.

That's a good thing, though. Given the way we both were back then, anything that started would be disastrous. I'm glad I didn't just wind up another one of her 'boys,' and she, like most women, is glad she never came near me back then.

But we've both grown up some since then. And we're closer friends.

Problem is, we're both still pretty cute.

I don't know quite how to phrase what I wanted to say here. No, we're not dropping everything to try being together. Lives as normal, and whatever happens at Christmas, happens.

But of course now I'm left with these nagging thoughts and questions (the usual ones. Is it worth jeopardizing the friendship, what about the logistics, are we in love or something, what if we're repulsed by each other physically, blah, blah, blah) in the back of my mind about a Christmas break that could turn out to be some sort of epic event.

But above it all, there's still this strong feeling of disbelief about what's just taken place.

I just talked about what? Doing what? Being in what?

With who?

No way.

Ken

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