Working on my Friendship Skills...

...Amongst other things.

The past few days with Gary have been different. For one, we've been keeping our hands to ourselves. And he's not just being a great listener, but also an awesome friend. Thanks to him my job search has extended beyond postings on websites to actually speaking to people with vacancies on board. BTW, this is not a cheap trick to get people looking for jobs or recession-related posts onto my blog. I have genuinely been looking.

I had no idea Gary was such good friend material. Admittedly, he hadn't had a chance to prove his worth in the past given that his lips were always otherwise occupied when we were together. But this recent discovery has led me to wonder- does the road to friendship with a guy go through sex?

Once that was well out of the way, Gary and I had a chance to develop genuine affection and interest in each other. So is the way to make a good friend out of a guy to sleep with him? (I can almost here the men clicking away on this theory. Next thing I know, it'll be in Playboy and there'll be cheesy pick-up lines written about it. For eg. I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Let's just get the sex part out of the way first.) Now I don't want to start some controversy but I really feel like I've stumbled upon something big here.

Will get back to you when I've done further research ;) Hey, before you judge, it's all for a good cause. A gal's caught to have some pals, after all. (I cannot believe I wrote that. I hope he kills me when he reads this.)

The Power of Belief

Updates

I was seeing this guy for a while. Before you balk at not being told about this sooner, consider how short our ...er... relationship must have been if it happened between my last post and this one. We've actually been friends for a while and were just trying this out, but I felt we were better off as friends so we're back to square one.
One evening, while we were still trying to find more in each other than there was, he came up to me with this sheepishly wretched or wretchedly sheepish expression on his face. I was sitting at the window and reading and when I looked up I gathered (with my Sherlockian deduction skills) that all was not well. "What?" I asked, getting to the point without any ado. "I've done something bad," he said in the most repentant voice I've ever heard out of his larynx. I tried to resist but the thought was too painfully funny- I burst out laughing. For a minute, he just stared at me, trying to detect if the laughter was hysterical (his deduction skills are sadly lacking). Then he ventured, a little irritatedly, "Why are you laughing?" And I managed to reply: "You always live up to my expectations!"
I think it took a few minutes for him to understand ( his deduction skills are not the only ones that are sadly lacking). And then he waxed between indignation and laughter. We were more together in that moment than we were before or after that. United by honesty and laughter.

Even Better

There are some things that you are too afraid to ask for. Things that you desire a lot more than most others but have never dared to voice the desire for, in fear that it would most certainly be refused. The most pleasant surprises in life are when you get these things.

Getting over Even was one of those things. Needless to say, it was difficult to obtain. But it was worth fighting for. There's a great joy in being true to your own welfare. And he was never good for my head. Unlike carrot juice, whose qualities my mum never stops extolling. No, he was more like rice at lunch. Makes you lethargic and slows your reflexes. So that you're easier to hurt and find it harder to recover.

I'm not sure why it took so long (other than the obvious reason that I saw him almost every day) but I feel the lighter for having gotten over him (mentally lighter, physically I think I'm about the same). The surest sign of recovery is that I no longer want him to pine for want of me. I just want him to wither away (kidding) (God, I'm the one in recovery and you lose your sense of humour.)I think I should celebrate my Even-free or even freer existence!

Winter

I think the universe (not The Universe, but the ordinary one- where everyone else lives) is telling me to move past Even. After sitting close to him for six months, I've been shifted to a new location. Strange people, funny feeling, emptiness. I think I didn't notice the difference when I moved earlier because he was there. And now, even though I have much more space, there's nothing to warm the shackles of my heart (the phrase caught my fancy- don't ask me why).

This loneliness isn't new, it's acuteness is.

Disgusting as it sounds, I miss him. I am ten desks away from him and I miss him. How is that possible?? Why am I reacting so stupidly to the separation? Why am I even calling it separation? This feels strangely like the L-word. I hope it's not. From previous (unfortunate) experience, I know that I'd best avoid it- we're just not meant for each other, i guess (not Even and I, love and I).

I am not sure what do to lessen that strange feeling in my chest. I just don't know how to make it go away.

Maybe it's not meant to go away.