care to explain?

i was a great party last night. it really was. it also made me very confused. yep, this is another rendering of my father versus my best friend: am i too forward or not enough? and finding a balance seems ever more complicated.

it all started with him flirting with me. or so it seemed to me, anyway. i mean, we were three girls, and he chose to talk to me. from the very first moment, i mean. which i didn't expect, as he knew both of them a lot better than he knew me. my friend was trying to ask him something relatively important, but he was really blowing her off. everything was directed at me. even an invitation to come to his house and listen to real funk. which i really didn't mind, seeing as i do like him - i just hadn't seen him in about 8 months, and he'd had a girlfriend then. i didn't ask about his current status, though. maybe i should have, as this could possibly explain some things.

anyway, a little later, he'd asked me to hold onto his drink while he went to get something or other. just after that, my friends decided that we'd spent enough time at the bar and wanted to go dancing. i said i'd wait for him, cos with 1000+ people in 3 rooms, it was going to be a bit tricky to find us. when he got back, i briefly explained the situation. he looked at me and asked me if i'd waited around just for him. uh,... yes. that was nice, he said, and kissed me on the cheek. i didn't quite know what to do, so i just took his hand and pulled him in the direction of the relevant spot on the dancefloor. that said, the only people who kiss me on the cheek are very good friends, so i basically interpreted this as a gesture of real interest. in my head, my father was saying 'don't rush things' and my best friend's 'just kiss him, for god's sake!'

fast forward some more and i decided to leave. we said our goodbyes ever so slowly: after the usual, albeit very slow airkissing that we use in Geneva, he first wished me a good night's sleep and a safe drive home, after which he reached out for my hand as i was leaving to ask if i'd retrieved my handbag (didn't have one), after which our fingers ever so slowly parted. my father ('take it slow') and best friend ('have you actually shown him you're interested??') were still fighting in my head, at high speed. what seemed incredibly easy and carefree a little earlier suddenly seemed incredibly risky. so i did the safest thing i could while still taking a risk (this is where both my father and my best friend say something like 'you did what?!?') and got the weirdest response of all - one that seemed a medium kind of answer to my question. he didn't completely blow me off, i think. maybe. mostly based on all of the above. either that or i'm deluding myself. or he's still with his girlfriend. arghhh....!!! someone give me a freaking manual for how guys work! please!