Just another Friday night. Just another club. Just another shot of tequila. Just another friend. Little did I know that the next morning won’t be ‘just another’.
I was in a three year long relationship with my college sweetheart. For the past few months, I was at a point in my relationship where he stopped being my boyfriend, I stopped being his girlfriend, and we somehow became that old couple who are there for each other just because they’re supposed to be. Now that I think of it, it was probably that ‘taken for granted’ attitude that started causing a rift between us. Not that things got boring, no! We did have our fun, we did celebrate our weekends, we did enjoy our movie nights but the excitement had fizzled away.
It all started at a friend’s birthday party. The venue was really far from where I lived, so I decided to crash at a friends place. He shared a flat with a roommate. We had known each other for only two months. Our mutual love for F.R.I.E.N.D.S had us stay up all night and binge-watch. We were reciting dialogues as if reading from the script. Episode after episode, season after season. We were laughing, quizzing each other, having pizza leftovers straight from the box, it was a perfect Friday night.
He was surprisingly competitive — a complete opposite of me. Yet he matched my frequency on almost all levels of crazy. Suddenly out of nowhere, we stopped to look at each other. He leaned in, kissed me, and stopped to see if I was okay with it. To my surprise (and his), I was.
We spent the rest of the night with him in his room and me in the living room, and the more I thought about it the more I knew what I had to do the next day. I came out clean to my boyfriend and we broke up. It was the ugliest break up I have ever had, but something that we should’ve done a long time ago. I had found the Ross of my life in a friend – he was just as comforting, just as understanding and just as loving.
Yes, I cheated on my boyfriend, the potential love of my life, but I don’t regret it. I don’t regret it because whatever happened that night did not happen out of guilt, or loneliness, or because we were ‘in the moment’. It happened because two people made each other happy, despite their differences. Why do we choose partners so different from ourselves? It’s not fate or chance or cliches like, “the heart wants what the heart wants”. It’s compatibility and understanding – we choose them because they manifest the qualities we wish we had.
You always get together with someone hoping to find ‘The One’. It may not always work out but I do believe in happy accidents. I was caught up in one. I still am. And I couldn’t be happier about it.
Images: Shutterstock
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