As a newly single woman is there anything better than a guy best friend?

The answer is no, as long as you can keep him in the friend zone. Which I was terrible at.

Tony was the brother of a good friend of mine. He weaved his way into and out of my life for a span of almost two years. Better to chat to than a girlfriend, somehow he always knew exactly what to say to not just make me feel better, but also normal. I was also very physically attracted to him.

For a while, I mistakenly thought he was the “one” and I told him so. He seemed to know me better than I knew myself and explained how, because I was newly separated, it was going to take time, and several relationships before I found the right one. A long lasting one. I didn’t want to believe him at the time, but he was absolutely right.

He was the person I layed beside on the couch and simply watched tv with, sandwiched together, me running my fingers through his soft hair. He was the person I chatted to about dates gone wrong, boyfriends who were jerks and how much I hated my ex. The paths I took always seemed to lead back to him.

And there he’d be, sitting on the couch, waiting to hear about my night. A steady in my life. I felt so comfortable around him. The feeling when you’ve tortured your feet in heels all day and then you slide your bare feet into Birkenstocks. Just like that.

Such a good fit.

We went out together, got drunk together, came home and slept together. We had sex under the shrubs of a friend’s front yard in the dark and sex on the tailgate of his truck late at night. I was completely infatuated with him. I mistook it for love. It was just me being lonely and needy. And he knew it. Thank god he recognized it for what it was and what it wasn’t.

We don’t talk at all anymore. I’m not even sure where he’s living. But he’ll forever linger in my memory as one of those bright spots in my sad and pathetic thirty-something single life when I was newly separated.