When I was living in New York, my best friend was a man named Charles who called me his "friend-girl," the only way to describe me since I was not his girlfriend. Charles and I shared a lot of things in common, like going to Broadway plays, watching the latest movies, going to "in" places to gawk at celebrities like Brad Pitt, and most importantly, we loved the same baseball team, the New York Yankees. We confided to each other our hurts and angst, our latest love interests, our shopping sprees, our successes and failures. We called up each other daily and reported our whereabouts. It was like being married to each other without the day-to-day commitment: in love without the sex. All his girlfriends had to accept me, otherwise he would not even consider dating them. The only thing he ever asked of them was never to be jealous of me. Today, he is married to a wonderful woman who is never jealous of me – not even when Charles goes off for a week to visit me in Manila – that’s why Charles adores her. She knows how to give him his space and she understands my position in his life. She is also very confident of his love as he does not give her any reason not to be.
But the question is, during all the years we were "best friends" and did so many things together – sometimes with other people, other times just the two of us – did Charles and I ever consider becoming lovers?
I explicitly remember the night that he took me home after spending the entire day hanging out together. I asked him to come with me to the optician to help me pick out the color of my contact lens, then we shopped around for his golf outfits, went to a movie, then decided to meet some friends in a hip restaurant in Soho. It was close to midnight when we called it a night. He took me to my doorstep and gave me his customary two kisses on both cheeks. Then his hand lingered on my face as if wanting to tell me something. I gave a nervous laugh and brushed his hand aside and bid him goodnight.
That night I could not help but think about Charles and me. We found each other attractive, spent a lot of time together, had a very strong friendship, but why were we not pairing off? We even found dates for each other but we never considered dating each other. Strange but true. But tonight, Charles acted funny at my doorstep. What if I had actually responded when his hand lingered on my cheeks? Would that have been a catalyst for a romance that has been simmering in our faces? What does it take for two best friends to become lovers?
For starters, a man has to overcome the difficulty of the all-important first move. On a normal date with a stranger, if he tries to make the big move and it is unwelcome, he can apologize or make a joke out of it. The humiliation is minor with someone he might never see again. Not so with his best friend. If he crosses the line and blows it, the friendship is ruined or altered.
But suppose Charles and I crossed that line and went to bed? Here are two friends who have heard all about each other’s exploits, romantic triumphs and embarrassments. I literally cracked up when he told me about his beauty queen date who wore her crown to bed with him. And he saw me quivering over a heartbreak with a dashing Romeo. We just knew too much about each other. With so much history revealed, could we jump into a sexual relationship without qualms about our past? Were we going to start to write our own love story? In theory, I would say yes. We were both consenting adults and if we did not have the chemistry in the past, so what of it? I reasoned out that it was not important to explode like a keg of sexual dynamite on the first encounter! Today the chemistry is there, so on with the show. Thanks, but no thanks.
This is my rationale. When friends become lovers, jealousy enters. I would drool over a handsome hunk in my gym, and Charles could listen while I described every ripple of his muscle. If he became my lover I am sure he would be so jealous if I salivated over a donkey. And so would I if he as much looked at some sex bomb in the street. The pitfalls of best friends becoming lovers are numerous. The greatest risk of all: If the romance ends, you could never come back to becoming the friends that you once were. Another important factor: Charles and I spent a thousand nights telling each other our dream image of our ideal mates. Now we both must live up to our expectations. The stress could drive me nuts!
We have spent so many years nurturing the trust that made us such bosom buddies. Do we really want to put that relationship in jeopardy? I guess not.
The next day, I invited Charles to meet me for drinks at our favorite haunt. I wanted to talk to him about what happened the night before. Just to set the record straight, I asked him why his hand lingered on my face after his customary two kisses on the cheeks. Was he thinking what I was thinking? He unabashedly confessed that he had been toying with the idea for some time and last night he mustered some guts after one drink too many. We talked for hours and dissected the whole scenario. We both agreed that we would make marvelous lovers; that all that was missing from our friendship was the intimacy and romance. We even savored the idea for a brief moment. But in the end, we both nixed the whole idea and laughed our lungs out. How could we even think of ruining our great friendship by falling in LUST? We loved each other dearly as friends. We were not willing to risk that love by giving in to our basic instincts.
To this day, Charles and I have never regretted the decision that we made that night. We are still the best of friends even if we have moved on and now live in two separate continents. When we see each other, we never fail to put ourselves on "rewind" mode and replay very funny moments in the past like a broken record while his wife listens happily.