Dan knew what it was that he wanted, more than anything else in the world.
He didn't specifically want "Phil", or so he kept telling himself, rather he wanted intimacy.
And since Phil was the only person he had ever achieved true intimacy with, he associated Phil with this 'intimacy' he desired. Yes, that was it.
See, once he had connected with Phil on a friendship level, it went "uphill" from there. So to say, Phil became his best friend, and then his lover.
In this way, Dan knew himself lucky. Most people develop intimacy after they start dating someone, and many people start off as boyfriends before they even become friends. Let alone best friends. So when the relationship slips up, and the intimacy has to end, the whole relationship usually comes crashing down, leaving a gaping whole as people search for the intimacy they lost.
Dan on the other hand, gets to retain some of that intimacy. Phil still wants to be "best friends". He still gets to talk to Phil, hang out with him, do everything but love him.
But that doesn't stop Dan does it? The one thing Dan CAN'T do with Phil, the one thing that seems like it's the key to intimacy, is the only thing Dan can find himself caring about. Funny how people work like that. Always looking at what's missing.
Or at least what could be added.
Sometimes Dan thinks he'd rather the breakup be total. That this lingering on, the continued friendship they endure only makes it worse. Would Dan find it easier to move on if he never saw Phil again?
If he knew the answer to that, to ease the pain in his heart, he might even consider it.
But Dan doesn't know. It could make everything much worse.
So Yeah. Intimacy is Dan's problem. He needs it. He doesn't find it in his fans, they seem to have this strange way of viewing him that unnerves him when interacting with them. Nor does he find it in the gay people he's met online. All of them seem to be after something besides intimacy. Sex. Drugs. Hanging out. Did I mention sex? And maybe the few who are after intimacy simply aren't….
Compatible. People have to be Compatible, Dan could suppose. They have to have enough similar interests to make a connection, a similar enough way of thinking so that they don't confuse each other and similar enough goals so that they can coincide. And just enough differences to make the other person incredibly interesting.
So that would be Dan's goal. Search for the intimacy he lost. This closeness, this openness, this utter discovery of another person. He needed it. He didn't need it before he found it.
He never thought of it. He never felt this empty, did he?
But now he does. And he has to fix it. Soon. Or else.