Update

What's that you say? It's been over a month with no update? Yes I know shush....I've been busy. I have however written three handy new chapters to my ever so fun tale of gay sex and drama. I am kinda screwing with my own continuity a bit here....and some of the chapters should no longer exist in my mind (ie. the Justin chapter in my last post)...but I will at some point re-organise it all...until then...enjoy a new chapter of Justin-themed fun!

Justin
There is a fine line when you first meet someone, the line between friends, and “friends”. Although quotation marks don’t appear to make a great distinction between the two concepts, they are the difference between a friend who you go shopping with and do social activities with, and a “friend” who you go on dates with and shag.
Ben was 23, worked in the office building across the street from me, and despite having an unfortunately common name among the gay population, also had the unfortunate problem of sitting somewhere on that line between friend and “friend”.
Because although there are activities that fall firmly into one category or the other, there are those that could be construed as either one, depending on your vantage point. For example, in the last week Ben and myself had gone underwear shopping (normally a friend activity, but underwear leads to the expectation of seeing it which is more of a “friend” thing), had dinner at a cafe (we split the bill, which is more friend, although he offered to pay which leans toward “friend”), and had coffee on our lunch breaks three times, each time mostly being spent whinging about work (a friend activity, but the regularity is definitely on the “friend” side of things).
All in all, I was rather confused that although I was spending quite a large amount of time with a very cute boy, I had no idea if I was making my way into “friend” territory, or whether I was going to be relegated into that awkward zone of friendship.
“So your housemate drunk himself silly after getting dumped?” Ben asked, sipping a glass of water
“Basically – as much as he liked to pretend he didn’t have feeling for Xander, I think the drunken stupor indicates otherwise”
“Your housemate dated Xander? Poor guy...”
At that awkward point in the conversation our food arrived, which delayed my response.
“You know Xander?”
“From St Kilda right? Yeah I dated him a while ago for like...twelve seconds. Total skank, and felt that the best thing to do after we broke up was for him to try and shag his way through my friendship group.”
“Oh...” Was the best I could reply.
This is the problem with the gay world sometimes. There isn’t a huge population, and there is the inevitability that when you meet someone, you will be able to hear something that they have done wrong from someone else. It can really ruin some guys when you hear they’re the “shag and run” kind, but then sometimes, such as now, you hear how horrible a person is *after* they’ve screwed over your friends.
Even more unfortunately for me, was the fact that Ben had dated him. I’d met Xander, and in terms of looks and personality he was very different from me, meaning I probably wouldn’t be considered to be Ben’s “type”. There was also the fact that Ben had sunk to the low of dating someone as despicable as Xander, but that’s the kind of food-for-thought best considered after the second date.
“By the way...” Ben continued, apparently oblivious not only to my flirting but also to the fact that my mind had wandered into a new train of thought. “...did you want to catch a movie on Tuesday night? I have some free tickets to use.”
Back we went to that line....dinner and a movie is the archetypal first date, a very “friends” activity, but of course sufficiently close friends could also go to the movies again, especially with free tickets. It was the kind of thing that Colin and I did all the time, and neither of us were under the delusion it was anything more than killing time. I just had to wonder whether or not Ben and I had reached that point in our friendship.
“That could work, any idea what you want to see?”
“I haven’t even looked yet...how about I check times and everything and give you a call on Monday night?”
And just like that, Ben and I had plans for what might have been a date. The only way to find out really was to go on it and hope I didn’t get stuck watching a boring chick flick...