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"  Marie Claire on Facebook  Lovelies: So, yesterday, I gave you the first half of the Barnaby story--from the mutual-friend-set-up, to the laudable personal transformation, to the ridiculously fun karaoke night out when he checked my fishnets for quality. (I think they passed.)  After that, we stayed in touch--quite frequent touch--the rest of the week; and spent full days, it seemed, emailing back and forth. He invited me out to a Wednesday night get-together, but I couldn&amp;#039;t make it, so I invited him to come with me and my cronies to a Saturday night book event: Stephen Elliot, editor of The Rumpus, was going to read from his new memoir, The Adderall Diaries. Barnaby came along ... and at one point, a friend of mine took me aside and said, &amp;quot;Maura! Barnaby is adorable! And he has a huge crush on you!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Really?&amp;quot; I said. &amp;quot;No, I&amp;#039;m sure he doesn&amp;#039;t. He just thinks I&amp;#039;m ... nice.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Could you please shut up now?&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;Because you guys clearly need to have a serious, long-term, meaningful relationship.&amp;quot; She didn&amp;#039;t seem to be joking. He DID seem to be especially cute that night, in a red-and-navy plaid shirt.  When I asked Barnaby if he&amp;#039;d like to go to a second party that my friends were getting ready to troop off to, he said, &amp;quot;Why don&amp;#039;t you let me take you out to dinner instead?&amp;quot;  So we went to one of my favorite places--MOTO: a groovy restaurant in East Williamsburg, under the elevated part of the JMZ that runs along Broadway, where they always have the quirkiest musicians playing. That night, the fine establishment--so named because its bar taps are made out of retro-fitted motorcycle parts--sdid not disappoint: A jug band, complete with a washtub-bass player, was warbling away in the corner. (Perhaps it&amp;#039;s worth noting that I would not have been able to tell you that the proper term for the quartet was &amp;quot;jug band&amp;quot; or that it was a &amp;quot;washtub bass&amp;quot; had Barnaby not informed me. This is one of the many reasons he&amp;#039;s so cool: He knows EVERYTHING. Also, have I mentioned he&amp;#039;s insanely adorable?) Soon after we sat down, Barnaby said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a little drunk, and I&amp;#039;m going to try to kiss you. So if you don&amp;#039;t want me to, you should probably stop me now.&amp;quot; I told him I had no plans to do so ... and we pressed our lips together a few times--with gusto--and it was really nice.  (When I told my dear friend Ruby Finch the story, she said: &amp;quot;A guy should never ask if he can kiss you--he should just do it!&amp;quot; And, of course, she has a point; I&amp;#039;m sure I&amp;#039;ve used similar words before to complain about a guy who tried to feel me out before he felt me up. But when you think someone is pretty sweet and ridiculously handsome and maybe, understandably, a little insecure--having been overweight his whole life--you cut the person some slack. You maybe even think it&amp;#039;s quite endearing.) After the kissing was over, he sat back in his chair and said, &amp;quot;You know, I&amp;#039;m not sure if I want to date you, or for you to just be my friend, but I do think you&amp;#039;re a pretty wonderful lady.&amp;quot; Hmm. Ohhh-kay. But fair enough. &amp;quot;Are you saying you&amp;#039;re not sure what you want because you can tell I&amp;#039;m not sure what I want?&amp;quot; I asked him. He considered that. &amp;quot;No. I will say that if this was just going to be casual, I wouldn&amp;#039;t have told you so much about myself. The one thing I am certain of is that I don&amp;#039;t want to lose you as my confidante.&amp;quot;  I was tempted to say that confidante and girlfriend were not mutually exclusive terms, but since I wasn&amp;#039;t sure how I was feeling, I held back. Despite how incredibly awkward I&amp;#039;m sure this all sounds, in actuality, it was a relief to get things out on the table. After we finished our meal, we kissed again--in the way of the French, that time. It was downright HOT. Then I biked off. * * *  The next afternoon, he came over, and we did a little more necking and a little more awkwardly-discussing-what-was-going-on. My conclusion was: &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s just take things slow and have fun. Because kissing is nice, isn&amp;#039;t it?&amp;quot; He agreed that it was.  Anyway, that is more or less where we left it, and more or less where we&amp;#039;re at right now: in a state of pleasant ambiguity. My prediction is that we will end up friends forever, and boyfriend-girlfriend never.  But lovelies, if you&amp;#039;d like to place your bets, please do.  xxx * * *  Edwinna: you are allowed to say &amp;quot;i told you so&amp;quot; whenever you want, and to leave repeat comments daily, if you so desire. Yumm: Ugh! Nothing worse than feeling completed insulted by the set-up. I&amp;#039;ve been there, sister. Celia: What happened to the formerly-not-so-hot hottie? Paris, Ellen, Jenny: I&amp;#039;m glad you guys are so in favor of Senor Jepperboom. I&amp;#039;m going to tell him he has fans in the blogsophere. I love to hear from you guys. xxx "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a3535/ask-for-first-kiss-friend-or-boyfriend/>