On the dance floor Damien took me by the shoulders, pulled me closer and then rubbed his body up against mine. I jumped back and pretended to hit him through the face. “Very funny,” I said, but he was not dissuaded. He grabbed me around the waist, hooked his leg through mine and grinded his crotch against my thigh. I pushed him away. “What the hell are you doing?” I asked. When he stumbled back and laughed I realised how drunk he was. I took him by the hand. “Come on, let’s get you
some air.”

Outside we sat down on a ledge. “I wish we were in love,” he said as he lit a cigarette. “Why?” I asked. “Because it would be so much easier. You’re one of my best friends and one of the few people I really trust.”
This was true. Last year, Damien had discovered that his erstwhile best friend had been sleeping with his girlfriend. Since then he had cut them both out of his life and I’d been promoted in his estimation.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” he asked, cuddling up to me on the ledge. “I know. I love you, too.” “There’s just one problem,” he said, holding his head in his hands. “I really want to fuck you.”
I took his drink, drained the glass and slowly shook my head. “It’s because we’re friends, I’m female, and at this moment you’re drunk and lonely,” I replied. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s not just about sex, I’ve always liked you. Sometimes I think I am in love with you.”
Truth be told, I had no idea that Damien had ever had any sexual attraction to me at all. We’d gone out, flirted with other people and even slept in the same bed on more than one occasion. He’d once – rather insultingly – told me he could never fancy a red head. I had stopped thinking of him, at least in relation to me as a sexual being, years ago.
“I had no idea. You never said anything.” He shrugged his shoulders and threw his cigarette on the ground. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think you’d care.”
As we sat in silence I wondered why Damien had told me this now, much too late, long after any initial attraction I’d felt for him had been blunted by years of friendship. At another time, in another place, perhaps our relationship could have gone in a different direction, but the moment had passed.
I wondered about Damien’s ex-girlfriend and Declan. Had Diana, tired of Damien’s non-committal attitude to their relationship, turned to Declan for solace or simply revenge? Or had they been hiding their mutual desire for a while?
As groups of men and women wandered in and out, smoking and laughing and flirting, I wondered about them too, about all the hidden desires linking people. The man – with his arm around a girl – was he secretly hankering after her sister? How about the married couple, just beyond us, telling their friends about their honeymoon? Were either of them disappointed now that they were joined together by church or state, and nursing an unspoken desire for a different life or a different person?
Look at the body language of any two people and you can almost always tell who desires who and if the feeling is mutual. But what of those who keep their desires under wraps? Those whose longings would wreak havoc on the lives of their families or friends? We keep these secreted away, barely even acknowledged to ourselves, let alone others.
Psychologists tell us we want what we cannot have – that’s human nature. But they also suggest that we want what we see around us every day – that’s human nature too. These twin wellsprings of desire are both complementary and contradictory.
We crave what is beyond our reach, but not too far beyond it. Rock stars, pop stars, porn stars, models and television presenters – we may admire them, even fantasize about them, but, except in the case of the very young or the truly obsessed fan, this desire is tempered by the knowledge that we are unlikely ever to meet them, let alone be their lover.
As we grow older, we fixate less upon fantasy creatures and more upon those around us. But this desire is of a different nature – it could be acted upon, if only she or he were to notice us. Sometimes they do, but once we have what we want, many of us start casting our eye around for the next suitable object upon which to fixate.
Common sense tells us that men are more likely to do this – to crave sex with multiple partners, have affairs, and consider the sexual suitability of every woman that happens to stray within their orbit. Research bears this out as well, but both men and women stray beyond the bounds of relationships set up by societal convention.
The psychologist David M. Buss believes that jealousy is an evolutionary response to the threat of infidelity. But as many scientists have noted, there are solid genetic advantages to straying in the first place. While a man is motivated to spread his seed as far and as wide as possible, women are prompted to mate with more than one partner to ensure genetic diversity in her children, thus giving them the best chance of survival. Sex itself, with all its pleasure and confusion is all designed, at least in part, simply to ensure the continuation of humanity.
Modern medicine means that most of us make it adulthood, and with contraception we can chose – for the most part – when we have children. Our desires however, haven’t caught up with progress, nor it has to be said, with societal niceties. Unfortunately, if the psychologists are right, many of us then want those who are most denied to us – a brother’s wife, the married man down the street, our boss or lecturer, a friend’s lover or a friend.
It would be useful if we never wanted those we should not, or cannot, have, but we do. Mostly these desires are temporary, a passing fancy – but sometimes they become an all-consuming passion. And if and when we act, unfortunately, we tend to find that, as Pliny the Younger put it: an object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
Saddest of all are the desires we keep hidden, not because we are trying to spare the feelings of those we love, but because we are too afraid to act upon them. Why do we do this? It could be shyness, a lack of self-confidence, or a belief in the other’s indifference – I’ve been guilty of all of these on more than one occasion. And I wonder if, like Damien, the object of my attraction might have felt the same – if only we had not both hesitated and let the moment slip away.
With Damien I think it was for the best. I know him well enough to know that our friendship would never have evolved if we had had a sexual relationship. But mostly, I doubt that passivity is a wise course of action.
Disappointment in love, and sex, will always be with us.
Never finding out – that’s a whole lot worse.