I kind of went on a date last night.

Let me explain what I mean. I met up with Ellis, the gorgeous actor/model I mentioned around December. We stayed in touch ever since then and chatted on MSN very often. He’s got a boyfriend and knows I have one. That’s about the only thing that made this feel as if it wasn’t a date.

Ellis loves to touch. He fiddled with my hair, grabbed my hands repeatedly, pulled my nose jokingly. Our legs touched more than once. We arm-wrestled, laughing out loudly, until I remarked “okay, this is enough, now everybody thinks we are on a date”. We were sitting in full light at the biggest cafeteria in town, by the window (so we were seen from both inside and outside). We were not hiding. That would have made it wrong. Hiding. If we were sitting at a dark cafe in the farthest, candle-lit corner. Then it would be wrong. Right?

We kissed on the bridge before going home. When I say we kissed, I mean we pecked each other’s cheeks. Nothing wrong has happened. Nothing forbidden. Not a single thing. I can have friends, right? It’s okay to be two friends who are attracted to each other and sometimes touch each other in a non-sexual way, right? And that are going to the gym together next week, right?

Thing is, Boo and me haven’t ever been to a date like this. Not once. When I met him, we weren’t officially dating, he invited me to dinner at his place, I brought a DVD. That was all. At the second occasion — again, him cooking, me providing entertainment — I kissed him. Half a year later we sleep together, make love together, go out together, spend weekends together, work out together, borrow each other’s clothes, hang on the phone for half an hour if we aren’t spending the evening together, watch DVDs together, get stoned together, listen to the music together, travel together, plan holidays together… But we aren’t seen at the biggest cafe in town, holding hands and laughing with each other in that semi-embarrassed way two people do when they don’t know each other very well yet.

If you can make sense of the mess in my head you’re better than I am, obviously.