CAN WE BE FRIENDS???

We met, we loved, we lost and decided to go our separate ways but it’s a little hard to walk away from someone when you’ve been intimate and shared a lot with each other... What’s the next logical step? Try to be friends... How that will work isn’t something you think about when you have decided to be friends but you give it a shot anyway and land nicely on your bottom.....

Growing up, most of my friends were guys... As a matter of fact, the first guy who kissed me was someone who’d been my friend for several years... My first crush was my friend and so was my first boyfriend... The idiot who forced himself on me the first time was a friend and it just goes on and on... Sometimes i wonder why i still have male friends but the truth is, it’s very hard for me to not be friends with someone i like... Or someone i dated as the case may be... Seeing an ex and walking by without saying ‘’hello’’ is not in my book... I used to like saying i’m still friends with every man i’ve dated but in the last 3months, i’ve been wondering if that is a good idea...

Ok, so i’ve met quite a few men who fancy getting in my pants but whom i would rather not have that way... I decide we’ll be friends and we become friends... In my mind, he’s just a friend. In their minds, they’re softening me up for the kill...

There’s a friend of mine ‘E’ whom i met when i was 16... We became fast friends because he was my cousin’s best friend... I really liked spending time with my cousin and that meant spending a lot of time with E as well... ‘E’ is a very handsome guy... The kind who breaks 3dozen hearts a year but i never looked at him and saw ‘potential boyfriend’. All i saw when i looked at him was ‘my very handsome friend’... What i didn’t know was that he saw something completely different... After my cousin died and i moved to Lagos, we still saw each other when i went to the South or he came to Lagos and so it was until one night in his hotel room he decided to tell me he’s in love with me and blah blah... All the kind of things a woman would expect a man to say to her... Only catch was, he was saying them to me just because he wanted to get in my pants... Of course i said no... We’re still friends but that easy, free relationship we shared is long gone...

Then there was ‘V’ the body builder whom i met the day after i came into Lagos 12years ago... We became very good friends... I even lived in his house at some point when i had accommodation issues and we went to the gym together every other day. Why, he even hooked me up with a friend of his... You can then imagine my surprise when a few years ago, he told me he was in love with me and has been for a very long time (yes, they throw the L word around a lot)... I didn’t know what to say to him so, i wisely kept my mouth shut on said day. He was persistent, that he was. After a very long time, i decided to give it a shot (my girlfriends convinced me to, arguing i had nothing to lose as i wasn’t in a relationship at the time) and what a bad shot it turned out to be... First time we had sex, it was weird and very very awkward. Found myself holding back laughter half the time and the sex was worse than worst... While thinking of a way to end things without ruining everything, one of my friends found out from her cousin that he was married (something that didn’t occur to him to mention to me)... Reason i didn’t know this was because i didn’t see him for a couple of years at some point... The relationship ended. As a matter of fact, we don’t even talk anymore...

Why did i decide to write this? It has to do with a friend of mine whom i've known for more than 3years and in that time, he'd asked me out but i didn’t like him in that way... I really liked him as a person though and didn’t want to lose his friendship so, i convinced him it’d be better all around if we didn’t have anything sexual to complicate issues...

In the time that we’ve been friends, i hadn’t had cause to regret being friends with him for a minute but i don’t know how i feel about that now given what happened the other day. My sister and her family are in my house and the whole place is full. Found myself sleeping on the floor on more than one occasion and my body was aching from it so, i decided to go chill with him at his place the other night. We’d gone out and the plan was for me to drop him off and go home but i decided to stay when i realized that i had little petrol and it was around 2am... Chill i did and because i figured i was ok and had nothing to worry about, i went to sleep. Of course i had my jeans, shirt and everything on. At some point in the night, i tried to change sleeping positions and realized i couldn’t move. Opened my eyes to find him wrapped around me with 2 of my shirt buttons undone... Realised that the fancy pin with i used to hold my shirt together was on the bed and digging into my back... I saw RED... No, more like a kaleidoscope of crazy colours... Took a deep breath to calm myself, extricated myself completely from him and moved to the edge of the bed. It was around 4:30am and i was sleepy... Didn’t want to have a fight so, i said nothing... Just left the next morning but i knew that there was no way in hell i’d ever put myself in that position EVER again...

Now begs the question, can the opposite sex ever really be JUST friends? Is it really possible? Can we ever find a way to put all sexual thoughts aside and just be platonic friends? I guess not...

That is the reason why i said NO when ‘K’ (a guy i dated for 6months in 2007) asked that we be friends... I learned my lesson, thanks a lot... Thing is, if he doesn’t jump my bones, i might jump his someday. As they say, prevention is better than cure or like my Warri people will say ‘’provision store is better than kiosk’... I rest my case...

XXXX
Bee


Note: This wasn’t meant to hurt… Just speaking my mind…