S: The "F" Word - upDATE

This just in. I put on my big girl shoes and went out with my friend from the previous “F” Word post the other night. Just the two of us and a few delicious beverages. 5 hours of good conversation, with about 10 minutes of awkward conversation sandwiched in the middle.

Yes…we had “the talk.”

In a nutshell (because I’m a nut and that’s where I belong), I told him we couldn’t date. Since we are in the same group of friends, several of whom have been his friends a lot longer than they’ve been my friends, I didn’t want to risk a falling out. I just can’t lose his friendship or the friendships I have with everyone else. They are all too important to me. I also let him know that I’m not in a place in my life where I want to start up a relationship with someone. I want to date and if I were going to go so far as to take our friendship to another level, I wouldn’t want to just “date” him for the sake of going out with someone. (Which, as you know, is why I have not considered my time with him as Date Club qualifying time.)

Again, my feeling is that if I’m going to date a friend, it’s going to be because there is no other option for our relationship. It will not be a casual, pastime thing.

It was a difficult conversation to start. It took me about 3 hours, a martini and a bloody mary to get to it. But finally, as we were on our way to our second watering hole of the evening, I just blurted it out. And there it was…in the open. He said he was totally ok with it and actually appreciated that I brought it up and we could talk about it, as opposed to just getting all weird about stuff.

Score points for maturity I guess. Who knew? I’m mature. I have no idea how or when that happened, but there ya’ go. And now I’ve set the bar a little higher, which means I’ll have to continue to be mature. (Although, I’m not sure I can do that since every time I see the word “mature” here I think it says “manure” and then I snicker at how I keep referring to myself as animal dung.)

Anyway, the conversation went rather well and then we moved on with our evening with no weirdness whatsoever. To be perfectly honest, we had a fantastic time. I’m a bit disappointed in myself that I don’t want more with him. He’s cute and sweet and funny and I love spending time with him. But there’s no spark. I don’t know why. Most likely my flint striker is malfunctioning in some way.

But, whatever the issue is, for me there has to be a spark. I want the spark. I miss the spark. I’m not going to muck up a friendship without the spark.

I couldn’t be more relieved to have “the talk” out of the way unless it had also included getting my taxes completed and filed. And I really feel like we are better friends for it. There aren’t any elephants stinking up our room and I believe we both gained new levels of respect for each other. And that’s the best I could hope for.

Boyfriends will come and go. Surrounding myself with people I can love and respect for the long haul is far more important than adding notches to my lipstick case.

(Which is easy for me to say with 20 days still left in February. Talk to me in two weeks and I bet I sing a different tune.)