Joshua peed on me.

No, not literally (I can only imagine the google searches I would get if that was true!). He figuratively peed on me.

Baby Sis and LVL want me to date Joshua just so I can break up with him later. They think we need a real break-up before we can move on. But recently he did a few things that make it clear to me that I do not want to date him. I'm okay just being friends. I know it's possible that I'll change my mind, but for now I'm pretty clear on what I want and what I don't want from him. Friendship, yes; more than that, no. I've made this pretty clear to Joshua. I’ve made this clear to everyone else, too.

So, I was surprised to hear last night that Joshua had staked out his “territory” with me. He peed on me. Like a dog on a tree.

The message was delivered to the new guy in our Bible Study. I think I’ll call this new guy Al (because the Paul Simon song You Can Call Me Al is stuck in my head). Al’s been coming for several months now – probably five or so? – and we’ve spent a growing amount of time talking and hanging out for the last few of those months. It’s platonic, though. Very platonic. Al's like Joshua-light. Or Joshua 2.0. A little different taste (don't be dirty), a newer model for my life, but other than that, they're pretty much the same person. So of course I'm completely at ease with Al, just as I am with Joshua. And since I try to learn from my mistakes, I realized pretty quickly that there is no way I would date – or faux-date – Al.

That doesn’t mean I don’t flirt, though.

Of course I flirt. I mean, seriously. (a) It’s kind of second-nature for me. (b) It’s fun. (c) Al is a helpless flirt so put two of us in a room together, and of course you’re going to end up with ridiculous flirting. (d) If Joshua can intentionally make me jealous by hitting on friends of mine in front of me, hellsyeah I can unintentionally make him jealous by being myself and flirting with random guys. Joshua isn’t usually exposed to this part of me because until Al showed up, he was the only guy in the Bible Study I considered flirtworthy. A few of the guys would get the wrong idea and think it was serious while, with the exception of Joshua, the rest are married to women in the group so I’ve had to consciously dial back the part of me that naturally flirts. As a result, Joshua has rarely seen me flirt with other men. At least not semi-seriously and definitely carefree.

Within a month of meeting Al, Joshua was certain I had a crush. I didn't. I wanted to in a lot of ways - for all the same reasons I keep thinking it would be nice if things worked out with Joshua - but I didn't. Being Joshua 2.0, Al was flirty-flirty with me on a regular basis. He asked me for late-night coffees and we would have hour-long conversations on our life goals, past relationships, and beliefs about love. Joshua knew I was having these discussions with Al, but I never got into details. Al knows Joshua and I have a past, but he doesn't need details. They're friends and hang out together outside of Bible study and I don’t want to make that weird for them. We've never actually hang out all three of us together, although they keep bringing up the idea. They want to go out to fancy dinners and see movies together. It's not that I'm opposed to this new multi-directional friendship (that's what I came up with as an alternative to "friendship"), but I’m not going to force it, or even take the lead on it.

So Al and I had a late-night post-Bible study coffee together last night during which we discussed his latest dating fiasco and I interpreted girl-talk for him. At some point, he mentioned that he and Joshua had discussed the problem and that “Joshua mentioned you two had a thing.” I probed a little and discovered that in the course of their discussion, Joshua had told Al we had had a thing and then dropped it, didn’t say anything further, and when Al pressed him on details, Joshua made it clear through his facial expressions and body language that he wasn’t going to discuss it any further.

I was amused. Joshua was supposed to be lending his sympathetic guy-ear to Al, but he wasn’t helping Al. He was peeing on me. Marking his “territory.” Little does he realize how much I hate being marked.

As I told John Jacob JingleheimerSchmidt, my love life is no more evolved that that of the high school students I teach on Sunday mornings.