The Best Friend I Never Met

V is a friend of mine that I had never actually met. We worked together in different branches of the same company and we developed a friendship outside of work somehow. So, eventually and inevitably, one day, he comes up to visit.
“Wow! This is so weird,” he says shortly after I pick him up from the bus station. “You’ve always been the best friend I’ve never met. And now, I’m meeting you!”
We have a great day, touring the city, wandering miles through Central Park alone. We go to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants and then go back to my apartment to wait for a friend of mine to come into the city so we can hit up the New York City night life.
We crash. All that walking and “fresh” air just tuckered us out. “How tired are you?” I ask him, lifting my head off my hand but barely opening my eyes.
“I feel how you look right now,” he says. Doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. I call my friend and explain ourselves into a night on the couch in front of the tv.
And then, the inevitable happens.
“For hours, M, HOURS,” I whisper into the phone while he’s in the shower.
“Yeah. ‘Cause nobody saw that coming at all,” M says sleepily. “But seriously, man, congratulations.”
We spend the rest of the day being that cute New York couple. We go to brunch. We walk through SoHo, window shopping. We meet M for coffee and cream puffs. We stop in a store for a second and, while he’s off looking at something, M and I gossip.
“So?”
“He’s cute. And really funny. I like him. Good job.”
“He is cute,” I say as he starts walking back towards me.
We leave M and start walking home. “So, have a good weekend?” I ask.
“Had a great weekend!” He smiles and takes my hand.
“So, think you’ll come back?”
“Definitely. Think you’re coming to see me soon?”
“Sure.” He squeezes my hand tighter. I am deliriously happy.

“You ever see that ‘Sex And The City’ episode from the first season, when Miranda sees Scooter with a new girlfriend and she calls him up and says she wants to see him and he breaks up with the new girl immediately and the new girl says, ‘You’re breaking up with me while you’re still inside me?’”
“Yeah,” M says.
“At least he had the decency to pull out first.”
“NO!”
“Oh yes.”
We’re lying in bed together when all of a sudden, my dear, sweet friend V (who has made guest appearances on this blog before) turns into that most dreaded of creatures: a “guy.”
We went from planning trips back and forth to well, we’ll see, this might not fit into our regular lives, blah, blah, blah.
Do you hear the record scratch in your head? Because I did. I got out of bed and went to the bathroom on the pretext of taking my contacts out. “You are an idiot for buying into this,” I told my reflection.
I left the bathroom and went to my kitchen sink, where I lit up. Normally, I have strict rules about smoking in the house, but I figured tonight was the night to break the rules. I was furious.
By this time, V is sitting on the couch, getting the idea that he’s no longer welcome in my bed. I figure I have nothing to lose, so I ask, “Why did you come up here this weekend?” I get this long-winded diatribe with percentages and figures and references to a friend of his from his home town, but I feel no closer to an actual answer.
Then he starts in on how he hasn’t been in a relationship since he broke up with his girlfriend five (five!) years ago and he can’t maintain an infatuation with anybody so he doesn’t want to casually date. And so on and so forth.
“Dude! Let yourself off the hook!” I finally interject. I’m getting sick of listening to this, honestly, because I’m starting to wonder how genuine this whole rant is and, no matter how honest it is, it still doesn’t take away my feeling that he just came up here to try to get laid.
“What?”
“Let yourself off the hook. Look at the shades of grey. So you can’t maintain an infatuation with somebody. That’s creepy, anyway, somebody who is just infatuated with people, rather than developing a relationship with them based on more than that. Stay with her because she makes you laugh or because she cares about you. Don’t get in your own way.”
We talked about that for a while longer. I try to understand where he’s coming from, but I just can’t wrap my head around the whole been burned once never try again mentality. Who hasn’t been burned? If you’re in your 20s and you’ve never been burned, I feel like you’ve done something wrong. It means you’ve never put yourself out there emotionally and I honestly can’t imagine anything more sad then being that emotionally closed off from the world.
After a while, he takes my hand. “You are a very smart person,” he says.
“I’m a very sleepy person,” I said. “Listen, you can watch tv or read out here. The light and noise really won’t bother me. I just have to get some sleep before I have to pull an overnight.”
“Actually, I’d like to go to bed with you.” Knock me over with a feather. Weren’t we just talking about how he was going to be shy-away-from-intimacy guy? I don’t know why, but I felt oddly compelled to let him. I think a lot of that was I wanted to pretend that what had just happened wasn’t as bad as it really was and it would be easier to pretend if he was sharing a bed with me.
We talked and laughed like we always had and I couldn’t help but feel sad and angry all over again. This is what a good relationship was supposed to be, somebody you wanted to share a bed and a laugh with. Very rarely do the two come together. “Why did you have to go and turn into a guy?” I said, hitting him in the stomach.
“What do you mean?”
“You went and turned into a guy when we were really good friends and now we’re not going to be friends any more. It’s going to be awkward because you’ll never stop being a guy now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Oh, it’s true. You’ll call once or twice, there’ll be a few awkward emails, and then, that’ll be it. Next thing you know, it’ll be two years down the road and something will jog my memory and I’ll call you. Of course, without me, your life will take a huge downward spiral and you’ll be a raging alcoholic or something like that, and it’ll just be sad.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I can’t help that you will eventually fall to pieces without me,” I said. “But don’t worry. My fiancé and I will totally get you into a great rehab.”
“Nice.” He swats me playfully. “Thank you for that.”
“No problem.” I roll over on my side and prepare to go to sleep
“Any other prophecies?” V asks as he rolls up behind me and wraps me in his arms. I wish to myself that this didn’t feel so nice.
“Nope. The oracle is going to sleep,” I answer. “Just one last thing: it would be a real shame to miss out on something great just because you’re afraid.”