just a friend

if you know me at all, you know that i have the following dating rule: i don't date friends. i never thought this was that big of a deal but i've gotten gasps and people looking at me like i'm crazy when i've said it. i get questions and comments thrown at me like why don't i, why don't i want to take the chance, i don't know what i'm missing.

...zzz...

first of all, to those people i say shut up and have a nice day.

secondly, one big reason why i don't date friends is because if you have established yourself in my life as my friend, there is a 95% chance that i am not physically attracted to you. trust me. i am not hoarding sexual feelings for you. i am not "too afraid" to try to be with you. i just don't want to sleep with you. don't get me wrong; there are guys in my life who are friends [even great friends] of mine who i think are very attractive people. and if, when i met them, i felt that click of attraction, i can guarantee you that i've at least made out with some of them at some point [just being honest]. but other than that, while i can honestly look at you and say "yes you're an attractive person", i am not attracted to you. that window has closed and is boarded up.

and third...the main reason why i am so against dating a friend is because i've done it. because after years of what i thought was a great friendship, i had a situation where i finally just put the wall down and admitted that i wanted to be with them. and after years of hearing how much they wanted to be with me, it just made sense that it would finally happen. that this person that knew me inside and out, knew my parents and my friends, stood by me through so many things, would be "the one". and he wasn't. this person that i loved, that i was IN love with, and that loved me and had me on a pedestal, broke my heart. and not in the way of saying they didn't want to be with me. no they broke it in utter betrayal. they took an instance in my life and threw it back at me while my back was turned [but because the world works in funny ways i found out anyway]. their true colors came out and punched me in the face and i felt so stupid and sad and broken. this one person that i always felt safe with, physically and emotionally, became the very thing he spent years trying to protect me from.

to say that this was a catastrophic event would be an understatement. you see, i'm the type that when i break up with someone, i just kind of push them out of my life, at least for a while. i need the time to get over it and be able to not want to talk to you. but how do you do that when the person that did it was one of the people you always ran to to begin with? this wasn't me losing yet another man, this was losing my FRIEND. one of my best friends to be honest. as cliche as this is, the person who wiped my tears for years was now the person that had me standing in target bawling on the phone with them, while my now best guy friend tried to make me stop crying.

so there you have it. i'm not the type of person that says they don't do something "just because". i always have a reason and this is mine. i've never written about it and i barely talk about it, because in true form, i just shrug it off like i'm ok and nothing happened. but the fact is that i miss my friend, i do. we were there for each other for 6 years and in a matter of 5 min, it was all lost. i forgive but i can't forget, and the fact is that i simply don't trust him anymore. we speak occasionally and every conversation is so generic, like 2 strangers forcing themselves to ask how the other is doing, how are our families, how's work. i hate it but i barely trust him with my words anymore, let alone my heart.

and i refuse to go through that again.