Wait and See

by Gwen Cooper — April 20, 2007

I once wrote a story in which the heroine, in the end, falls into the arms of the man who's been her best friend for many years. "I'm sorry," he says, as he kisses her for the first time. "But I've been waiting a long time to do that..."

You wonder sometimes, as a writer, how much of your "art" imitates your life, or how much you might end up writing the endings for your characters that you secretly wanted for yourself all along.

This question has been on my mind quite a bit over the past few days, because the other night I had a moment very similar to the one I wrote for the above-mentioned heroine. I, too, ended up in the arms of a man who's been one of my best friends for the past few years. And, like the man in the story described above, he told me how long he's been waiting to kiss me.

That first kiss happened in a very public place--in the middle of a crowded party, to be exact. We then came back to my place, where there was more kissing, and talking, and laughter, until nearly dawn. We've found ourselves in rather uncharted territory for the past two days. What does this all mean? Do we tell our mutual friends? How much do we tell our friends?

And what, precisely, is there to tell?

I've turned into the girliest of girls lately. Are we a couple now? I ask myself every five minutes. Surely, if we've been best friends for so long, this new state of affairs must mean we're a couple. He wouldn't have kissed me if he didn't want a serious relationship, would he? But he hasn't actually said that. Does he maybe think that instead of just being friends, now we're friends who sometimes make out?

I had been dating another man for a couple of months before this all came about--a man who's been out of town on business since things between my friend and me changed. The one thing I'm certain of is that I have to end things with this man I'd been seeing. How could I keep dating him when all I can do is think about somebody else?

And yet...what if I'm wrong? What if I've misassessed things entirely? What if I end one relationship that I felt, until two days ago, had strong potential to develop into something, for the sake of something else that may not even be there?

I'm sure you can see that I have nothing but questions at this point. As I said, the territory that I'm in is uncharted, and I'm making the map up as I go along. So I suppose the only thing I can do right now is wait and see where it all takes me...

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, out this month from Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in The Dating Life, click here.