By the Skin of My Teeth

At what point does one person's responsibility end and anothers begin?

This friend of mine - we'll call him Jack. The guy who is the boyfriend of an amazing friend of mine, we'll call her P. Tonight has been going out night with cast members and all in all it has been a very fun night. However, the summary sent to Farley about half an hour ago was as follows:

"Never been told more times in an evening that I'm hot, cute and gorgeous. I think it's safe to say the crush is not one-sided. Did behave admirably though."

Probably needless to say that P was not with us. Jack was. And apparently, subtlety not so much a strong point. Not least because Mr B was there this evening, laughing loudly in the audience and grovelling quietly in the pub afterwards. When Jack figured that a) he was there and b) who he was; it sort of began. The talk about how he must be off his head to not realise how lucky he was to have me... how (he didn't want to be funny) I was just... awesome. How he'd jump at the chance to be with me in Mr B's position. And so on.

He commented on my outfit ("I have to say that that dress, with those boots... oh my god..."), my hair, my dancing ("you have to teach me to do that sexy dancing...") and many other things. I tried to stick closely with the old faithful - "You're so kind - thank you."

The thing is, it would be too easy to respond to this in an immediate way, and in doing so, fuck over my friend. Even the merest hint of interest on my part would be encouraging behaviour which is already very close to, if not crossing the line on his part. Better to stick with the polite responses and reminders of P; for example after hearing tales of various (highly unattractive) internet date offers that I have received lately, he sent me a text repeating a message I receive occasionally; "Fancy some casual fun?" Funny? Yes. Kick him and threaten to show his girlfriend out of context? Definitely.

My problem is not my behaviour. Or even his really, as by this point I know I am safe in the knowledge that while my mini-crush on this chap is certainly there but by no means putting me in danger of doing anything inappropriate.

My problem is whether to address this or not. I still stand by my original "One week" mantra, where hopefully after the Saturday party things will naturally die off with the lesser time we spend in each other's company. But bearing in mind his request to stage manage on the next show I'm in, this might not be an option.

I am proud of my goodness so far. But gah.