the one who was my best friend

2009 marks 10 years of my friendship with mr a. It all started a decade ago, from just one chat on mirc (yes, if you recall, it was all the rage then). Normally, I don’t give out my number to chatters on IRC. But as we chatted, I found that he’s actually a friend of my poly mate. Somewhat comforted by this close degree of separation, we exchanged numbers.

On our first phone call, I remembered being wary of him and was acting rather cool. But even so, there was hardly any awkward moment coz he was easy-going and eloquent, always with something to say but without sounding pompous. He had a way of drawing people out from their shells and soon enough, I warmed up to him. From one call, it progressed to daily calls, sometimes a few times a day. Each call would last at least 1 hour, sometimes 2. Our record was an ear-burning 4 hour marathon. Funnily, in those hours, we never felt tired and it never ceased to amaze even ourselves what we talked about. It was really about everything and nothing… complaining about our siblings, telling each other how our days went, his never-ending girl problems, NS woes and even toilet habits!

Soon it was almost impossible to go a day without talking to each other. Whenever I had a bad day or saw something on TV that made me laugh, he would be the person I’d think of to share it with. He turned to me when he had a crush on someone or broke up with a girl or when his bike broke down in the middle of the road. In short, we told each other everything.

The weirdest part was, we reached that point in our friendship 2 years after that first chat but we had never seen each other. Not one meeting. Yeap, he was my invisible best friend. My confidante without a face. He was practically a stranger and yet, I never felt so at ease with anyone else. On my part, perhaps it was BECAUSE we had not met each other, that’s why I opened up the way I did.

As friends, we loved each other. A friendship not based on looks, money, status or material things but from sharing of experiences and inner most secrets.

All throughout this phase, we only fought once. I can’t remember what it was about but it resulted in us staying on the line for 15 minutes without saying a word, both fuming but refusing to hang up first. 1 week of not talking to each other. But he called me eventually, saying that it’s too weird not talking to me for so long. I admitted that I missed our conversations too and we decided then that no argument will be too big to end our friendship.

We did meet up eventually of course, after almost 3 years of being friends. It wasn’t even a date, we just met up to study together near my place. Even though I was looking pretty hideous with my unruly hair and thick specs, and him with his bloody blue-tinted glasses, how we looked did nothing to diminish what we had, which really was something :)

The turning point of our friendship was when he entered into university. With new friends and a busier social life, he became more preoccupied. Each call would always be about his new found friends, and how he was having so much fun. From there, I felt different. I didn’t know what it was then coz the emotion was something I never felt before, but I was jealous. I felt like he was starting over a new life but without me in it and I felt crappy about it.

Now, I never had any kind of close friendship with a boy at that time. He was my first close guy friend. And I’ve always prided myself as someone who was independent, I was perfectly happy being single and I didn’t feel any need to get attached. So at that time, I surprised myself by being so affected by all these changes happening to him. It dawned on me that maybe he doesn’t need me after all. And another thought came crashing after that. The reason I was jealous was because I was dependent on him.

It was more than I could take. I did NOT want to depend on someone else to feel happy. I was happy on my own. All these years, without me realising, I had opened up myself too much and now I was in trouble. I decided then that I had to ‘break up’ my friendship with him to stop myself from getting any deeper.

When I dropped the bomb on him, he was stunned. In all fairness, things were going great and I never mentioned my insecurities to him. I told him my reasons for doing this. Even though we’re close and we care deeply for each other, he was after all just a friend. Not my boyfriend. I can’t possibly rely on him all my life coz eventually we’re going to hook up with other people.

He panicked and didn’t understand why I needed to leave him. He then began his big speech… on how the chemistry between us was so amazing, how we clicked so well, and how we always ‘get’ each other, and that it’s weird to be with someone else. He asked me, what if we got married to other people? Wouldn’t it be wrong knowing that the only person we can confide in wasn’t our partners, but in each other?

It was then, we both realised, that we can’t just be friends. After 3 years of friendship, we had come to love each other so much that it seemed silly to not take the next step. And the only natural step to take was forward… into a relationship together.

Thus began, my relationship with my best friend.

tbc...