Dating Your Best Friend Part Two

Please be sure to read my first article on this topic as well for some background, and please keep in mind it’s intended to be funny. It will also explain why “Dating Your Best Friend” is about breaking up and beyond.

For those who can’t be bothered, the abbreviated background is this: I dated my best friend for 5 years, I broke up with her, we still live together, we’re still friends – it’s been 3 months so far.

Three months into anything you start to settle into a routine. Our routine looks a lot like our relationship did, except there is no sex. We still wake each other up in the morning. She still reserves the TV for “Big Love”. I still go play guitar in the bedroom because I hate Bill Paxton with an undying passion. We still bring each other lunch/dinner as needed during the week (weird work schedules). We still get horny. We still cook and eat together. We still fight. She still usually wins. She still usually apologizes first. We still go for walks together and watch movies together. We spent New Year’s Eve together. And every night we still get into the same bed. Sometimes she falls asleep with her head on my chest and my arm around her. Sometimes we wake up spooning.

So, as you might imagine, sometimes it’s a little confusing separating what’s real from what’s pretend. But the dreamworld is on finite terms: we’re both moving out over the summer. She got into a VERY presigious grad school about 200 miles away, and of course I am very excited for her. I’ll be looking to move in with a few roommates to save on rent and hopefully be closer to work.

I also have less freedom now than I ever did as a boyfriend. She feels betrayed (and I did genuinely screw a few thing up post-breakup) and I can’t give her very many evidentiary reasons to trust me. She always knows where I am and who I’m with. We got into a fight last week because a situation came up where she didn’t feel like I cared enough about her and that I was being selfish. Really, you throw in sex 2-3 times a week and we’re back together again.

When we do fight, the absurdity of the situation takes hold of me and forces me to look it in the eye. In those moments I start to question myself and think, “This is ridiculous, just get the hell out of there.” But in the end I always remember that I stayed for a reason, and that the reason is how much I care, and how much she still is my best friend.

My mood works like a photo negative. In the rough times, I look forward in time and count the weeks until we part ways; the saving light at the end of a dark tunnel. But when she’s lightly snoring on my bare chest and I’m just drifting off myself, the tunnel is of a bright sheen and the only thing to be found at its end is a dark vortex of doom. It’s really melodramatic and over-the-top.

Three months in, with four months left, it feels like we have it mostly figured out. It’s the stupidest thing anyone has ever heard of, but we’re best friends, ex-lovers, and temporary roommates.