Boyfriend, Best Friend... Or Both?

On Sunday evening, Angie and I attended a “silent rave” in Union Square Park, which is essentially a few hundred people dancing wildly to the music on their iPods. So if you’re walking by and happen to see this, it looks like a few hundred crazies rocking out to no music. And I mean, rocking out – arms flailing, rave-type stuff. It sounded like a lot of fun and another chance to act like a kid again (and Angie loves stupid fun just as much as I do) so we hopped on the idea.

It was crazier than I imagined. There was a conga line, beach balls, lit-up pineapples, Japanese break dancers, a girl in a banana costume, lots of NYPD, and Angie and I, jumping up and down, screaming, “I KISSED A GIRL AND I LIKED IT!” After much effort, we had synched some of the tracks on our iPods so we could vibe to the same song.

We wound down before the party did and I was so amped that I was still hopping around like a monkey on a Red Bull as we made our way back to my place to eat. That’s when I realized that I could never do this with a boyfriend. A boyfriend is a boyfriend and your girls are the ones you act crazy with. The ones who you’re completely uninhibited with – unleashing your unvarnished self.

Basically, I have never had a boyfriend who is my best friend.

Andre – well, he was my heart, my lover, my confidant, my therapist (a shitty one, but still) but he wasn’t my best friend. I told him some of my secrets, but not the one or two that really matter. I was silly around him, but it’s not the same. It makes me wonder what I’m missing out on. I have friends who have told me that their boyfriend is their number one, the Clyde to their Bonnie. That concept is about as foreign to me as low-fat ice cream.

I worry about being best friends with a boyfriend because doesn’t that mean that sexual fire has dimmed down? I’m all about uncontrollable, fierce, passionate chemistry between me and my man. Can people actually have both? Honestly, if I found the whole package in a man, I would want that for keeps. And the idea of keeps gives me the heebie jeebies.

That myth about women always keeping an eye open for their soul mate is a complete lie. I’m not ready to meet the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to go through at least a few more Mr. Right Nows first. If that sounds slutty, you’re judging me. If it sounds like it makes sense, may the good Lord bless you because I hardly think my theories make any sense.

But sense is something that’s not always needed, especially in the middle of a giant, raving group of twenty-somethings holding their iPods. I’m going to get philosophical for a moment, and go as far as to say that that silent rave party is my love life.

Yes, everyone’s around and things are fun and chaotic and every so often you get hit in the head with a proverbial beach ball. But in the end, I’m listening to my own music, busting out my own moves. I can only hope that someone, somewhere in the crowd is rockin’ to the same beat, and that maybe one day I’ll find him.