To protect a falling star
She is a friend. Is she anymore than that? Let’s see.
She is a friend. She is the former girlfriend of a friend of mine. Neither is a greater or better friend than another, though the rule of bros before hos is echoing around my head at the moment. She has just started dating another (ostensive) friend, one with a reputation of using women. Not violent or abusive, just selfish and unthinking. I can see it ending so badly.
Three things are on my mind. First is jealousy, the second is jealousy, and the third of information. The first is that I am jealous of any new relationship. I am happy for the friends involved, but even of the participants aren’t friends, I still have a pang of jealousy about the lack of similar relationships in my life. Yes, this is a path I have chosen for myself. I took up the veil, and knuckled down to the writing, a decision which may, soon, bear some fruit. But, I do miss the wondrous potential of a new relationship. Like the blank page, it holds all the potential of wonderment and heartache, and all the grey in-between.
The second is jealousy of someone taking up the time of my friend. I want to spend time with her, and not as a third wheel. I’ve experience this jealousy before with other platonic friends, so it’s not a romantic thing. It’s about someone intruding into my world without my permission. Selfish I know, but the people I value I can count on one hand. I like to keep them to me.
The third is information. I know the new suitor well enough to suspect that his intentions aren’t honorable. This could be little more than a young guy wanting to get laid, and for all his other conquests I’ve remained silent because the women in the equation weren’t my friends. This is different this time. Add to this that I’d recently started picking up on a number of falsehoods, a number of questionable statements of fact that has made me wary of his true intentions to anyone, his true face.So, do I tell the girl about these misgivings? Do I warn her off?
The question raises itself through all this… do I have stronger feelings for her than I initially realised? And the answer is probably, yes, but not so much that I would act on them. I like her, I enjoy spending time with her, and she is very attractive. But, there is/was something else. Something preventing me from taking that next step, either with my heart or my hand.
Maybe it’s her ex-boyfriend. Maybe it’s my focus and direction at the moment. Maybe I don’t recognise it when I see it anymore. Or maybe I don’t want to spoil the friendship. In truth, I think it’s a little bit of everything, and add a little of I want to be the one pursued. If she pursued me, I’d probably let her catch me.
At the end, I won’t tell her my misgivings. I’ve told her that I’m happy for her, that she should take things slow, that I will murder the bloke if he hurts her, and that she always knows were I am. I have the strangest longing to be the hero once more, to be the shoulder. Such a sinister core to a nice action.
