Girl + Friend = Girlfriend ???

"When the world is against you
and everyone is unkind,
There is one who comes
holds you and says – never mind"

Friends – God’s best gift bestowed upon mankind; Friends – they make your lives memorable. Since time and memorial it’s been said and acknowledged by one and all, friendship is one of the most beautiful relationships a man can enter into. A friend is someone in front of whom you can be yourself without any pretence, one in front of whom you can let your guard down. A friend is one who knows all about you and accepts you just the same.
Every few years, ever since my childhood I have been moving from one city to another courtesy my father’s transferable job. This has been a blessing for me, as it has allowed me to meet lots of people, most of whom later became my friends. So, as you must have presumed by now, I have always had a fairly large circle of friends around me. Still, that one friend who stands out among all, shining like the pole star in a sea of glittering stars, has always eluded me, one they call as the best friend.
But, times change and the time came when I joined this local computer training institute, where I met many amazing people. I don’t know how much of computer skills I adopted, but one thing that I know is that there I met two people who were able to fill this blank space among my friends’ list as the best of my buddies. One of them was a guy and the other a girl (let’s just call them as Mr. X and Miss Y, so as not to hurt any feelings and also to maintain anonymity). We used to enjoy together a lot, just the regular things like movies, restaurants, partying etc. The problem started when we went to a local park and Miss Y invited along a couple of female friends of hers. There as fate had it to be, these girls made me aware of Y’s feelings towards me. I felt a conflict of emotions dwelling up inside me, I was excited and happy to know that someone loved me, and at the same time was shocked for not having been able to gauge my best friend’s feelings. I was asked to describe my feelings towards her, but I was very confused at that time and said I would have to think over the matter. It took a couple of months of continuous prodding from those girls before I gave in and agreed to propose to her. To tell you the truth, even then I was not very sure and was very much confused about what my real emotions were towards her. Being friends, we were very close to each other and I really enjoyed her company, still I was not sure whether it was just friendship or something more than that! Even then, I thought it was really wonderful to know that someone likes me and that too whom I know pretty well. So, the proposal and acceptance phase came and went by without any hindrances from either side. We started going out even more, just the two of us now. Everything was just storybook perfect, except one thing, I still was confused. The feeling was not coming from inside, that special feeling of being in love with someone, that sense of belongingness was not there. I know I was giving it an honest try, but even after so many months I was not having this feeling of love and it was as if everything was just superficial from my side. I was not able to generate the same enthusiasm that was evident in her case. So, after carefully analyzing the situation, I felt that I was not doing justice to my best friend and decided to bring an end to all this once and for all. I felt that it was not correct on my part to keep my feelings from her any longer. I gave some crap reason for the break up and she very gracefully accepted it without putting up any qualms about it. Later, from those same friends of hers who had once told me about her feelings, I came to know that she was in a very deep state of depression because of the recent events. I was really sad to hear this about my friend and was also very angry with myself to have caused so much pain to someone who was so very dear to me. But, I felt that looking at the bigger picture what I did was correct as it would later have caused even more pain to her and it was always better to end with pain than pain without end. We weren’t in contact for a long period of time, but time is the biggest healer and we met later and though it’s not the same as before, but we are now in good terms with each other and since then we have both moved on in our lives.
Still, even now at times, I have these guilt pangs about hurting such a good friend of mine. I can’t understand whether I was wrong to accept her proposal when I wasn’t sure about my feelings towards her but on the basis that she loved me! Should I have told her about my feelings straight away at that time? But then again I was very confused about my feelings, as there is a very thin line between your best friend and your partner. Segregating between the two is like performing a sky walk. Whether my decision to break – up so as not to cause more pain to her (atleast that’s what my intensions were) was correct? How do we segregate our feelings in these kind of situations so as to not to end up loosing your loved ones? Why it sometimes is that a person is himself not sure about his emotions, why is it that there come times when I feel that I have discovered a new side of me. It makes me think whether I know myself as well as I think it to be. I can’t help pondering over classical philosophical questions; who am I? What is my true purpose here? Am I what I think myself to be, or is there a hidden side of me which remains unexplored. I turn to philosophy to quench this thirst of my mind and stumble upon tools like JoHari Window etc. which claim to help one understand how much he knows about himself. But, as they say theory is not always the true reflection of practical world, so, my thirst remains as before, the questions still unanswered and I continue with my journey of finding answers if not for all, then atleast to some of them. These unanswered questions render me restless at times, making me ponder over my decisions and also acting as a caution for my future actions…