An awkward evening with a long term friend...

[bikermice]

Hello all, I've lurked around this forum for a while. Everyone seems to helpful and ready to offer their opinions and advice, it really does seem to be a safe place to let one's worries out, I'm hoping I can receive the same kind of help so many before me have gotten.

 

It's a long story, so please bare with me as it may take some reading, though I appreciate being able to say it more than anything else, as I don't have anyone I can talk to about it for various reasons as I will point out.

 

It involves myself, a 28 year old man, and my friend of 16 years, a 29 year old woman.

 

We've been friends for a long time, in varying degrees of "closeness" which seems to get bigger and smaller as different things have happened in our lives, we've been in relationships with other people but it's been very much a platonic relationship all this time, more like siblings than anything else. We joke around, I boss her about, usual banter I suppose, we always enjoyed each others company and cared for each others well being.

 

She was in a long term relationship, 10 years long in fact, which ended badly when her partners turned into a stalker of sorts, very possessive and mean to her, seemingly out of nowhere. They'd bought a house together at this time and everything was in place for them to potentially spend the rest of their lives together. Ending the way it did had a big effect on her, she went to drink and became depressed, he then went into full stalker mode, harassing her, needless to say she was emotionally tortured and by her own admission currently "broken" emotionally. After that relationship she got with another guy, who although seemed good at the start, had addiction issues and too ended badly, after a year long relationship, further knocking her confidence.

 

I mention this to give you some idea of her past and the things she's been through but I should also mention that she is one of the friendliest, kindest, sweetest women I've known who everyone loves being around and generally a superb reliable friend to everyone, she's just had very bad luck when it comes to men. At this time, her father is currently very ill, and with the prospect of something bad happening looming over her also, I'm sure this just adds to all of the mixed feelings going around her head.

 

Anyway. We're good friends. but recently something happened between us. On a trip with other friends. She'd recently been in a short relationship with another friend of mine. It had ended 2 months prior and only lasted for 2 months. He was on the trip also. It's worth mentioning that. They were still polite and civil with each other, but it wasn't all friendly in reality, they had fallen out when the relationship ended.

 

So, we were on this camping trip, with several large tents, with separate bedrooms inside. Everyone was drinking and having fun, nothing out of the ordinary. She's a flirty person in general, always has been, she got something on her pants and I laughed, she sat on my lap to get it on me, nobody was paying attention to us as we were all sat in a large circle, she rubbed herself on my lap, in an effort to get it onto me too.

 

Now, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, when the drink is there, you're both single, and a girl rubs her bottom on your lap, things will happen to a man (I should mention that, I've never really had a crush on her, she's a pretty girl, and is attractive, but I've never thought of her "that" way, in all the time I've known her, she's always been with someone, or I have, we've never been in the situation before where we have both been "available") So, she was rubbing herself, for about 10 seconds, then, a split second decision, when she went to get up, I put my hands on her waist and tugged at her to come back down, which she did, and she started to rub again. Anyway, I don't want to go into too much detail, but there was lots of touching, nothing graphic, for the next several minutes. Nobody could see, though I wouldn't have been ashamed, but everyone there are close friends and I dunno, it was secretly happening. So, I have to get up to get a drink or whatever, she asks, out loud if I will escort her to the toilet, as we're camping in the woods and the toilet is about a 30 second walk away. So I did, we walked to the toilet, not saying a word, I stood and waited, we walked back in silence, she put her arm around me jokingly and mentioned how cold it was, I swung her round and kissed her, to which she responded favourably. We were interrupted by other friends walking to the toilet, they didn't see, we saw the light, so we stopped and went back to camp.

 

The drinking kept happening, we sat next to each other, exchanging glances and time went past, people went to bed, leaving a couple of us, including her ex awake. It was late, I said I was going to bed, she asked if she could stay in my "pod" in my tent, which had 3 other pods, all occupied by other friends now sleeping. I didn't object and we went into the pod, to sleep, or so I thought. She stripped off in the pod, and we were both drunk, she was asking me to make love to her, she was being loud, all I could think in my head was my friends having to hear what was going on, so although comforting her I was asking her to go to sleep. You may be saying Why!! as I now do in hindsight, I know I started it...believe me I know. She didn't want to sleep, and was becoming more vocal about what she wanted to do, saying she didn't care if people heard, this had now woken up the others in the tent. So I was trying my hardest to calm her down as she got increasingly worked up. I pleaded with her to go to sleep, to be quiet and she kept blowing raspberries at me and refusing.

 

After some time of trying, I got back up and left the tent to "go to the toilet" I went out there, to see two friends still up by the fire, including her ex. Who was oblivious to anything happening. So I stayed with them for a few minutes talking, and she came out of the tent, and stood there while I did, I went back into the pod and she followed, the same thing happened, only she was more worked up, I tried to get her to sleep, she refused, I got up and left again, and this time I zipped up my pod...worst mistake ever, she flew into a rage, ripping at the pod to get out, a side to her in all our years as friends I have never seen, like a possessed woman, furious at me, for reasons at the time I could not see. She came storming out, Everyone by now I can imagine was awake in their tents but dare not come out, she shouted at me, but gave no reason, kept acting like she was angry at me for something to do with her father, this came out of nowhere. She was clearly drunk and shouting at me for not playing golf with her father. I don't play golf and have only met her father a couple of times, so as you can imagine this was all very weird. I went back to bed and left her out there with the others.

 

I lied down on my bed in my pod, after about 10 minutes I hear crying. All the tents are within hearing distance of the camp-fire, after the commotion I imagine everyone is still awake listening. I hear the crying for a few more minutes and decide to go and get her and bring her to bed. So I do. I go out and ask her to come and get some sleep. She stands up and agree's, follows me into the pod. She might finally be going to sleep...no. She gets in and begins chuckling as she undresses. She tells me she knew that I'd come and get her if she was upset, that she's done it to lure me, to get her back in my pod under false pretences. I am now at a loss of what to do, she's asking me to make love to her again, I just want to run away, I get up and walk out again, she's naked so it takes her time to get her clothes on to come after me, I whisk over to my friends who are still awake, only to see they have walked further away from camp to get away from whatever was going on, both of them completely baffled by it all, as was I. I told them I had no idea what to do, they didn't either, she came stomping over to us, right up to me....SMACK!...socked me right in the side of the jaw, a closed fist, almost knocking me on my bottom..."I think you'd better go to sleep hadn't you!" she barked at me, which I did gladly.

 

The next morning, we were still here for another day and night...I got up about 10am, having gone to sleep at about 5am. To be informed that she had only just gone to lie down, having not stopped drinking.

 

Nobody discussed what happened, though everyone knew something had. she got up about an hour later and went for a walk with one of the other girls. Said nothing to me at all, didn't even look at me.

 

The day went on, and nobody asked me anything. I went away from camp with another friend to gather some more supplies from the store, came back, the day went on like nothing happened and the evening came about, the drinking started again, I should mention she continued drinking throughout the day, but everyone was also. We never spoke at all until late that night, when she asked me to take her to the toilet, out of nowhere, another friend asked if she could come too, we all went, I waited there, the other friend went into the toilet and then she just wrapped her arms around me and kissed me, and said sorry, standing there hugging me, we sort of bolted apart when the friend came out of the toilet and must have looked very suspicious. Anyway, and I realise I'm rambling here, the night went on, she asked to stay in my pod, she was much calmer, we went in, we talked, she tried it again, I told her later to try and parry it, seemed to work, we chatted for an hour or two where she told me that she'd loved me for all these years, which I took no notice of because of the drink, we just lied there chatting until we fell asleep, it was nice. We woke up in each others arms in the middle of the night, some foreplay ensued, hearing someone else getting up stopped it, we fell back to sleep. Waking in the morning, like nothing had happened we got up, and packed out stuff away and left.

 

So, that's the weekend how it happened. The problems arose afterwards.

 

I got a text later that day from her, asking if we needed to talk, or if it needed to just be left in the woods. To which I responded I'd like to talk about what happened. Since getting home I'd not stopped thinking about it, and her. I couldn't tell anyone what happened, we're all friends, I felt almost like I'd betrayed her ex, even though we aren't that close, and she and him had only known each other about 6 months, and he'd only recently joined our circle of friends as he was the older brother of a friend already there and needed to get away from his "bad crowd". I just felt it best to stay quiet about it. She too is a very private person and didn't tell anyone anything, her walk in the morning with another friend was to find out what happened, but she just said she was drunk and had a lot on her plate.

 

I told her that it happened out of nowhere, that It wasn't a bad thing and I didn't regret taking that step. She said she didn't regret it either. But I'd had my chance, I'd opened the door and slammed it in her face. We spoke over the next few days, texting each other all day. It boiled down to me wondering if there was anything between us, and her saying she did too, but ultimately, I'd rejected her when she'd offered herself to me. I explained to her my reasons and that I didn't reject her. That our friends were all awake, I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable hearing us going at it. I thought it was a pretty good reason. In hindsight I should have gone for a walk with her or something, I told her that, but I didn't, I apologised but to no avail, she kept going back to the me rejecting her, saying she wasn't angry about it, that it is what it is. That friends fool around from time to time, which I don't believe. From being so emotional and angry at the time, fuelled by drink no doubt, to act like she didn't care and wasn't fussed just didn't make sense to me.

 

We went on to agree, that regardless, nothing could happen between us for now. It's too soon after the break up from our other friend, who I might add is still very much into her, even though she's told him that it will never ever happen again between them. Also that she is emotionally just not ready for anything as big as what the two of us getting together would be. All points we were in total agreement over. So from there we left it, and continued to speak, all day every day pretty much, for a few weeks. On the weekends she'd go out with her other friends, and would drunkenly text me saying how the the nice things I'd said to her, how I'd like to see if something was there between us had made her feel all funny inside, in a good way. And that she hadn't felt that way in a long time. She's always worked all the time, so we didn't see each other that often anyway, but spoke more than we ever did. We went out for something to eat, and to a movie, it wasn't a date, but the movie was a horror she gripped my hand all the way through it. Every so often that trip would be brought up, she would continue to mention the rejection, in a joking manner, but would always hammer it home and then act like it didn't bother her, I know I'm trying to understand a woman, something which us men just aren't programmed to be able to do, but it just didn't add up to me.

 

I don't know what it is I'm asking of you all really, I know it's a massive wall of text, it's just good to get it all out there, as I've still not mentioned this to another person, neither has she, at least not the details. The friends that were woken did indeed hear everything, and it was whispered about and joked about throughout the group. Her basically offering herself to me and me saying no, which is no doubt very embarrassing to her, but the worst part is they don't know I didn't want to say no, and that I started it all! But still we've said nothing and it hasn't been discussed. I'm trying to figure out if it really didn't bother her, because it doesn't seem likely, because she is always bringing up the rejection part, even jokingly.

 

I guess I just needed to get all what happened off of my chest. I don't know how to proceed from here. Our relationship isn't the same. Though we talk, it's different. I know I'm probably to blame for it all, and as initially mentioned she'd had a tough ride, and really seemed to explode when she perceived to me to be rejecting her. Perhaps some of you could give your thoughts on it, what she could be thinking? what I could of done wrong? what she really means or if it was all just drunken nonsense.

 

Thank you for reading.!

Edited December 27, 2013 by bikermice

[ja123]

It is good to get it off your chest.

 

 

Right away, though, I'd be turned off by her manipulating you by crying. That there would make me run a mile. It would even make me consider why the heck I have her as a friend. In my books, she would be relegated to an "acquaintance", even though I might see her frequently in my social circle. I just wouldn't trust or open up to her.

 

 

I don't blame you for reacting to her rubbing, 'cause there was drink involved and you are a guy.

 

 

But, I'd steer clear of this chick. You both know that there's no relationship potential, so why drag things out. Just stop texting. There's nothing to discuss.