Where's the line with Willow?

Back in high school (9th & 10th grade), I had a huge crush on this guy Willow. Before homeroom, I would go with my girlfriends to walk around the halls, and we would purposefully walk by the door of his homeroom just so that I could take a peek at him as we walked by. Slowly. Another girlfriend once called him to talk to him on the phone to ask him questions while staying anonymous herself, and then she'd tell me the answers. Stuff like "what classes are you taking?", "do you have a girlfriend?" Yeah, silly high school stuff. I had a crush on him for almost a year.

This summer, I ran across his profile on MySpace. I was afraid to add him as a friend at first; after all, we never actually ever were friends. I had a huge crush on him, and he maybe knew that I existed. But a high school girlfriend who knew the whole episode convinced me that I should just do it, add him on MySpace. So I did, and ever since then, we've been emailing and talking online, for the past three or four months.

When we first started chatting, I think I had just met RC. We talked about dating a lot, and we were both single, so we were talking about our different approaches to dating. He wants to date to settle down. Back then, I said I wasn't done being single. I wanted to date for the sake of dating, and I wasn't really to settle down with anybody. Everything between us had a lot of sexual tension (if there is such a thing over IM), and we were always very flirtatious with each other, and it seemed fairly obvious to me that he was interested. Eventually I told him that I was dating someone, as RC and I got more and more serious, but Willow and I kept talking online.

He recently moved back to Ctown (in the last year or so), where we both went to high school. He had left for college, worked elsewhere for a couple of years afterwards, and recently found a job near Ctown, so he came back. Knowing that I would be home for the holidays, he suggested that we get together for lunch/dinner/drinks or something. I agreed.

Tuesday night, we went to dinner and a movie afterwards. He paid for both. I offered, very sincerely, but he kept saying that he's working, and I'm still just a student. We saw a silly movie: Charlotte's Web. Cute, but very slow, and put me to sleep at times. As we were saying goodbye (he drove and dropped me off at home), he said "yeah, we should go see a non-stupid movie next time. I'm so sorry I suggested we watch Charlotte's Web." So I told him I'd give him a call the next day.

Wednesday night, I called him after dinner and said "hey, want to go watch another movie?" He agreed right away, and we went to see Night at the Museum. I told him I'd meet him at the movie theater this time around, but when the movie ended, he insisted on walking me back to my car (we parked in separate lots). That really surprised me, in a good way, and it made me feel really good that he would be so nice as to walk me back to my car.

Through all of this, the sexual tension present over IM was kind of amplified in person. Though I tried to be as proper as possible, I have to admit that I was wondering the whole time while sitting through dinner and those two movies what it would be like to be dating him.

A really good friend of mine from high school, SK is also back in Ctown to spend the holidays with her family. I wanted to catch up with her, and she happens to have been friends with Willow in high school, and they even dated briefly during our college years. So as we were saying goodbye Wednesday night, Willow asked if I would want to all three of us hang out. I immediately said yes, hoping to spend more time with him.

So during the day today, I called SK to see if she'd be up for drinks tonight with me and Willow. She agreed right away, and it turned out that her boyfriend would be flying in tonight too, so he would join us. My immediate thoughts were, wow, so it would be kinda like a double date.

Willow insisted on driving, so he came to pick me up at 9:45. When we got to the bar at 10, SK and her boyfriend were already there waiting. We sat down in a booth, had a couple of drinks, an decided to try our luck at some pool. By this time, Willow had had a couple of drinks. With very low tolerance, I think his inhibitions were a bit lowered. Pool was me and Willow against SK and her boyfriend. Every time he handed the cue stick to me after his turn, Willow would briefly touch me in some way: hand on my back with a "good luck" or "accidentally" brushing his fingers on my knee when I was sitting down or a pat on the shoulder. We would stand really close together, shirt sleeves almost touching ... and the tension builds.

As he's pulling into my neighborhood to drop me off, he asks half-jokingly "are you hungry?", because there's a little diner right before the turnoff into my neighborhood. I look at my watch and say, "actually, maybe. Are you?" So we get some food at the diner and sit and chat for a while. I told him about why my parents don't like RC, how awkward that's going to be (not the full story, just the screws in the back thing again). And we talked about a lot of other things, like dating.

While I was with him, I played down RC a lot, saying that I wasn't sure where things were going. That I want to wait and see how things go, making it sound very up in the air... I could feel that he wanted something between us, that had I been single when I came home for the holidays, there may be some sparks flying. I felt like I was playing with fire. He's a decent guy; he would never make a move knowing I have a boyfriend, but somehow, I wanted him to tonight.

I don't know how I can act like this and what this means about RC. I came home, felt really guilty, and started looking through a bunch of pictures RC took with his webcam yesterday and sent to me. I wanted to remind myself that I'm with RC, that I love him, that I'm fighting tooth and nail with my parents for RC. How can I then go on all these multiple outings with Willow? I can deny them being dates all I want, but come on, who spends that much time with someone from the past whom they barely know?

As Willow dropped me off tonight, I told him that RC would be in town tomorrow, and that I'd probably be out doing something with him and some friends from back home whom he doesn't know, but that he was more than welcome to join us. I mentioned the same thing to SK and her boyfriend, and they immediately thought it was a great idea. When I mentioned it to Willow, though, he didn't seem to keen on the idea.

This made me think about whether or not he was wary because he didn't want to hang out with me when my boyfriend was around? ...

I think if there were a line about these things, I am dangerously close to it, perhaps even with half a foot across the line.