The Ex-Friend 35 – Turning point

As the movie went on, I kept looking at the screen and this guy continued texting, stopping from time to time to speak random topics and share his drink with me. I would take a small sip each time he offered it, as the taste was too strong for me. At one point I declined drinking from it because I wasn’t enjoying it. He may have been in the need of getting a buzz, but that’s one thing I was not interested in sharing with him.

I don’t know how it happened, but I started talking about my dating situation, specifically about this one guy I had mentioned to him before, that was a good man, but always wanted to kiss me, in spite of me telling him that I liked him as a person, but not enough to be engaging in kissing.

“I was at the apartment of a male friend of this guy having dinner with some people, and out of the blue he says to me in front of everyone, ‘Emma, you and I should live together’. I opened my eyes wide and shook my head fast from side to side, to which he said, ‘why not??’, and I replied ‘because I’m not in love with you’; he didn’t say anything else afterwards,” explained I to my then friend.

“He later walked me to my car and said, ‘give me a kiss!!’, to which I did to get him off my back,” continued I. “He saw that I wasn’t happy about it and says, ‘girl, you’re so difficult to get a kiss from’. I mean, he always manages to get one from me, but it’s mostly embarrassing in front of others or in a restaurant. I know I have to disconnect from him if I want to avoid this situation from happening over and over. It’s so imposed it just takes the fun away of kissing all together.”

All of a sudden, this guy stops texting, turns around and says something like, “maybe he should have kissed you like this?”, to give me a quick kiss right on my lips. He then turned around again and continued as he was before.

I was completely caught off guard by what he did and didn’t like it. For starters, I had the taste of his drink on my lips which disgusted me. It also made me wonder if he had been trying to get me into a buzz so some action beyond the movie would happen.

Looking at it all closely, it was the perfect scenario for him, and was just waiting for the right moment to make it happen. And after his past offers of us getting together as a couple, he knew chances of us seeing each other were basically running out and needed to act, fast.

I don’t recall how the night ended, but definitely not anything that transcended his kiss.

The next day, I woke up with the plan of leaving as soon as he would or before he did. His mom was in the kitchen and he sitting by the TV, still using his phone non-stop as the night before.

I was sitting at the table having breakfast when this guys suddenly asks me, “hey, do you remember my girlfriend from high school??!!” (using her nickname), to which I replied, “barely; I have this memory of you two together at a school activity or something, where you introduced her to me. You two were holding hands. Besides that, one time the school she studied at hosted a university fair, and she was the one who prepared my agenda for the day. At the bottom of the page she wrote ‘Prepared by (nickname)’ and added a smiley face.”

My friend looked at me and said nothing else. I didn’t question him about his inquiry about her, don’t know why. I guess I was so into what happened the previous night and me driving back home that I didn’t give it a second thought, like that maybe the mystery person behind the texts could have been her? Which means that now there’s a third woman present in this guy’s life to which participation and motives I have no clue about.

I mean, I would much rather prefer that this guy ends with her high school love than that bitch he lived with. But after last night’s event, question is, where do I stand in all this?

I packed and else after breakfast and got ready to go. It was about mid-morning and this guy was driving his car to the ‘hateful place’, so wanted to take as much advantage of the daylight as he could.

We did the usual of hugging each other before leaving, taking a picture together, saying ‘drive safely’ and ‘call me when you get home’, and look at each other as if this would be the last time we would meet, well, at least I did.

There was this weird feeling inside me that I couldn’t decipher then and very different from other occasions, but I ignored it. It was time to go home and get back to my own life, the one that he has been partially part of for some time.

Will anything get back as before? Probably not. Only time will tell; no, make that what he tells me over time. But, will it be the truth or perhaps the ‘kiss of death’?

Friendship Above All 46 – More than a feeling

I don’t know how long I stayed sitting in the stairs staring down at him. At times my mind wandered away like I have so many times, thinking and overanalyzing everything in my life, without coming to conclusions to any of my concerns.

The stairs were a sort of shelter of my then emotions. It was as if I had intentionally sat in the middle in order to push myself to make a decision about my future.

You either go backwards, or up, and rethink your tactics of what to do, or ignore your issues all together and do nothing.

Or, just go down, or for it, with or without a plan.

But staying in the middle, or limbo, is the worst place to be, because you’re there in a sort of ‘comfort zone’ that doesn’t allow you to ‘move’ into anything.

And as I was into myself, my friend suddenly woke up with an abrupt ‘hey’ like when you had some sort of bad dream.

He looked at me a little confused. “How long have you been sitting there?” asked he.

“A while, I think,” said I. Surprisingly I was calm.

“I was so asleep, but something shook me.” Maybe it was my presence that did it.

I have a vague memory of how things transcended next, but I did walk down the stairs to where he was.

I believe I sat in the sofa to talk to him. But my next memory is that he took me in his arms and kissed me. I can’t recall what lead to this.

This was the first time it happened and it was totally unexpected, and one that I wasn’t at all hoping for during this trip or any time later, period.

It wasn’t bad, but knowing he had feelings for me, I guess it needed to happen, first, to get it over with, and second, finally experience his affection in a more personal way.

What transcended after is more vague. I believe we did go out that night and something happened during the outing that made me decide on allowing him to share the bed with him, as in resting only (for real!).

Perhaps the sofa became too uncomfortable. Or maybe it had to do with his roommate’s activities that were so ‘noisy’ that made more sense for him being in his own room to avoid any contact.

Now thinking back on this, it was weird. If he had feelings for me, considered me pretty, and you’re finally taking a step forward with the kiss, why not follow to the next level?

Reality was he probably applied the advice he gave to my ex-boyfriend that he would lose me if pressured me into something I wouldn’t want to do.

My friend probably realized, like me sitting in the stairs, that he had 2 choices: leave things as they were and keep the friendship. Or, take a step downward that would make me walk out the door to never return, ending our friendship for good.

“I’m not letting a friendship of so many years get affected by anything,” was something he would express to me many times throughout the years. And I believed him because he practiced what he preached.

Me, I did had a choice regarding the outcome after the kiss, to which I decided not to pursue. Besides not having the same love feelings for him that he had for me, there was something holding me back from this ‘good to be true’ scenario.

What was that made me stay in the middle of the stairs? What was that feeling of going back up and away from that guy down there that was telling me, ‘don’t do it’?

Don’t know, but I’ll try getting an answer after I sleep on it.

Take Me Back 19 – Secret’s out

The thought that I kissed Johann in the cab stuck on my head like a bad headache.

It literally did; I tried so hard to bring back the memory, my head starting hurting.

I’m still on denial don’t know why, because it was totally harmless. Even if it hadn’t happened, it wouldn’t have affected the friendship that evolved between us.

Maybe I reacted on impulse. Or, I probably realized that I wouldn’t get to have any contact with him again, so I went for it. Reality was nobody around me was going to know, so the ‘secret’ would be safe.

The other item that I’ve been asking myself is: have I met him in a later time of my life, would have I done the same?

I don’t see why not, but more cautious of not getting too emotionally involved, knowing nothing else was to happen beyond it.

How about if Johann and I have met each other and there was the possibility of being together?

That would have meant leaving the US to a place far away, to an existence completely new to me. I think he would have been a great husband and my life would have been fine.

So, would have I done it? Would have I hopped on the ship and sailed into a new world?

Let the adventure begin.