Phileo

Josh told me he was falling for me again.

I don't know if I should've seen it coming or not. Sure, we've had a history. We dated for two and a half years - when I was in high school (major detail). It was serious, but I was young. Young and stupid. Everything was serious to me in high school.

It all unfolded when I was up in Santa Barbara last weekend. I'd had vibes for at least a month that Josh might like me a lot more than he made out, but I was in denial - it was the worst thing I could think of so naturally I tried my best to NEVER think about it. Still, enough was enough. I tried on two occasions to talk to him about it in private but those didn't pan out quite as picturesquely as I'd like and I could tell he knew what I was getting at and didn't want to talk about "it" either. There was an elephant in the room and we were both trying to avoid being stomped on.

But it happened. And not in the most elegant of ways. It was a couple of my friends' 21st birthdays (reason for going up to SB) so of course I was drinking and having a good time. And, in my drunken state, I had the brilliant idea of texting Josh and asking him just how much and in what way he liked me. He jokingly told me "a tad" and I eased up a bit. A tad? That's teeny! Nothing to worry about. The next night was a different story. I was sober and I wanted to know if he really meant "a tad" as a little. He told me no, he was joking, that he actually liked me a lot. And that's when it got messy.

To skip over the theatrics I am now in a situation of sorts. He doesn't want to talk until March. He needs space. But I don't think that will help. At all. The only thing I can think of "helping" (only him) would be to cut me out of his life. But he's my best friend. I really don't think he will. But I don't know. As much as I think I know him and what he'll do, I can never truly know anyone (I learned that one from my last relationship). I could understand if I treated him like a complete asshole...but I haven't. I just want my best friend back. And there's nothing I can do.

It's like high school all over again. When I broke up with him. It's the same reason all over. It was my senior year when I started to really think about "love" and what that meant. I was reading The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis and I realized that the love I had for Josh was of Phileo. Let me give a short lesson on the four loves.

The Greeks came up with four categories to describe "love":

-Storge (Affection)
-Phileo (Friendship)
-Eros (Romance)
-Agape (Unconditional love)

An example of storge would be when people say "I love that band!" That band's not their good friend (phileo), they're not in love with that band (eros) or will love that band no matter what happens (agape) but they do hold a great sense of affection for that band. Phileo is more self-explantory. Eros is simply (and I say that lightly) the feeling of being in love, (sidenote) Venus is the sexual undertones that implies. Of course you don't have to feel eros to have sex with someone, making it different from Venus but of course it's also included. Agape is the ultimate form of love. It's usually used when discussing the love of God - an all-powerful type of love. When I was reading The Four Loves it was more of an awakening than really learning about it for the first time. I had always known the love for one person differs from that of another, I just didn't think (teenagers) about it until I started to grow up a little. I realized I didn't feel eros for Josh, but it was more than storge. It was phileo. We had a bond that ran deep, and potentially breaking it scared me into prolonging our relationship for longer than it needed to be. Ultimately, I did lose him (for two years) but I don't think he ever believed it was for that reason. Maybe that's why he didn't believe me when I told him there couldn't be a future for us. But maybe - no, definitely - he just couldn't control how he felt. I know how that is, and I hated it when I couldn't control my feelings which is why I think he doesn't want to be around me. He doesn't want that constant reminder. I don't think I'll lose him, but I don't know how things will be now.