Back in April, when I started dating J, he introduced me to a group of his friends. At the time there was a bit of drama within the group with this guy Y and this girl M. They'd been really good friends ever since meeting about 2 years ago, and back in April, both had recently split from serious relationships. Y then wanted to take the relationship beyond friendship, M went along with it for a while, but in the end decided that she needed to be on her own for a while. So Y & M went back to being just friends, with Y being pretty upset about the situation.
During this time, J and I broke up, and I started developing feelings for Y. J and I remained friends, and the group of people he introduced me to, we all geled together into a "clique." My feelings for Y grew, but I really held things back and tried to convince myself otherwise because J and Y are such good friends, and I saw potential for some seriously strained friendships.
Basically, to make a long story short, Y and I started fooling around without any of the others in the friend circle knowing. We'd usually stay the night at one of our places once a week or so. The second time we did this, I mentioned something about "maybe we ought to talk about this." I basically ended up telling him that I really like him, and have liked him for a while. He told me that he still has lots of feelings for M, and he's not sure what will happen to that, and he feels that he's not completely over that saga of his life.
From that point on, we never talked about anything anymore, and we became purely friends with benefits. We'd booty call each other (well, he did most of the calling), fool around for a night, and go back to being regular friends the next morning. Other people in our friend circle kinda caught on to what was happening anyways, but nobody talked about it nor acknowledged it. I did talk to J face to face, to tell him what was going on between Y and me, just to make sure he would be okay with it. He was, and it turned out Y and him had talked already too.
And so that carried on for about two months, and somewhere during this process, I realized that I didn't really like Y anymore. This made me happier because I felt like he was only in the relationship for the physical benefits, and my being on the same page would ensure that there would be no expectations unmet, feelings hurt feelings, and we kinda just settled into this routine of a no-strings-attached physical relationship.
The part that I felt bad about was that I was seeing other people during this time. For example, Y would call me to ask what I was doing Sat night, and if I want to go over and "watch a movie." I would have a date with another guy Sat night, so I would tell Y, "sure, I'm going out to dinner with some people. I'll give you a call and swing by when I'm done." I felt a bit shady having dinner with one guy and then sleeping in Y's bed later in the same night.
I knew that if any of the guys I was actually dating romantically became something more serious, I would have to talk to Y and end the sleep-overs. But nothing ever panned out seriously, so Y and I continued our friends-with-benefits thing. I am actually surprised to say that I have absolutely no emotional feelings for Y. If he were to ask to date me now, I don't think I would do it, despite having been so incredibly attracted to him earlier this summer.
So two nights ago (Wed night), Y calls me to see how I'm doing (I register it as a booty call). I say that I'm stressed out, busy, etc. etc., and I ask how he's doing. He told me that he and M had just had the longest conversation ever sorting out a lot of the tensions/issues still left between them. He sounded really exhausted by the conversation. I wanted to ask him, "do you want to talk about it?" but by then he had already changed the topic. One thing he did say was, "Finally I think that chapter of my life is done."
He then went on to ask me if I want to get dinner sometime, and I told him I'd be free probably Friday night, so he said he would call me Friday (today). He hasn't called yet, and it's already 6pm.
So this got me wondering if he was thinking of taking our relationship further, beyond friends with benefits to a more emotional/romantic relationship. This was a bit worrisome because I don't really want an actual relationship with him.
Ironically, M and I had agreed to get lunch together today. She and I have gotten to be pretty good friends over the course of the summer. (I know all of you are probably raising your eyebrows right now wondering what the heck is wrong with people in this friend circle, why we all hook up with each other and then still are friends with no awkwardness).
M and my lunch convo revolved around Y. She told me a little bit about the conversation she and Y had wednesday night, the mother of all conversations that basically ended everything (I didn't tell her that Y had also mentioned the convo). Then I asked her if things would be awkward between her and Y now, and she said she hoped not, and used J and me as an example. She said that she wanted things between her and Y to be exactly like how J and I ended up.
At one point, she mentioned that Y told her we were dating, which threw me off a little because I never thought of Y and I as dating. Dating has very different connotations from friends-with-benefits. So that was another worrisome fact ...
Now, I'm not sure what to do. It's 6:23pm, Y still hasn't called about dinner. Should I call him? I don't want to because in case he is wanting to make things into more of a romantic relationship, I don't really want to be sending positive signals like my calling him. But then do I just wait around until I get really hungry?
A mutual friend is having a little gathering at her place later tonight (around 9:30pm), and Y forwarded me the invitation, so I know he was planning to go to that. Maybe I should just call and make plans to go to that later and not even mention the dinner ...
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