Before he was a superstar actor, Bradley Cooper was...an aspiring Carrie Bradshaw?
On Tuesday, Tommy Rowan, a news writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer, shared a delightful throwback gem on Twitter that illuminated a time before the Coop was a household name and he was merely a horny 18-year-old with a penchant for writing and a desire to get some action from his best gal pal back in May 1993.
In the tweet that both unearthed the 25-year-old article written by then-newspaper intern Cooper and also asked the age-old question once posed during that fateful car ride when Harry met Sally, Rowan shared the thought-provoking piece scribed by the now-actor for the Philadelphia Daily News, entitled, "When Best Friends Cross the Line."
Along with the copy of the essay, Rowan wrote, "Intern Bradley Cooper, age 18, wrote in his first @PhillyDailyNews story: 'Can best friends who are of the opposite sex hook up with each other without destroying their friendship? In my case, yes . . . so far.' Bold."
Bold is exactly what the Silver Linings Playbook actor's essay was.
After his risque lede, the teenager continued, "I know once you take that step over the platonic line everything is supposed to change. Suddenly you start to hate that guy she always told you was hot. But that's not really true in my case. "
And then things got personal for the four-time Oscar nominee—real personal.
"Both my best friend, Deborah Landes and I still talk about other people, although the conversation does get a little more tense," confessed the fledgling writer.
Unlike most people, the soon-to-be star explained, "The reason that we are able to cross that line and obtain that great friendship is that we really don't know how to be anything other than best friends. I realize this when people ask me if we are going out. It sounds to weird to even imagine; however, to an outsider, it probably looks as if we are boyfriend and girlfriend."
From there, Cooper tells a tale filled with twists and turns in which he and his best-good-friend's casual relationship appear to be written in the stars—just so long as there's no commitment involved.
"There has always been an underlying attraction between the two of us; however, it was never confronted until this year," wrote the high school senior.
"Before, we could never fathom the idea of being more than just friends, especially because she was involved in a relationship with a friend of mine. After they broke up, things began to change."
And boy, did they...
Cooper explains that the two then went from "just BFFs" to the thing that matters most in high school: prom dates.
"We never even thought twice about going to the prom with anyone else." Never!
Toward the end of the piece, the intern got wistful, realizing this no-strings-attached love story would soon have to change yet again.
The teen wrote, "Because we are both seniors, I realize that we might as well just enjoy the time we have left before we go to college. Because once college hits our relationship will definitely return to 'best friendship.'"
Bye-bye, Deb! Hello ladies of Villanova University!
He concluded, "It is somewhat easy to say everything is cool now, because we are still in school. The real test will probably come when I have to hear about how much fun she's having at the Shore this summer."
A true test of any relationship has always been if it could withstand a summer at the shore...
A million questions may be racing through your brain: Did Bradley and Deborah remain besties? Do B and D still text today? Did their friendship boat sink while Deb was summering at the Shore? Does Debbie trade beauty secrets with Irina? Can men and women hook up and stay friends?!
Much like Stonehenge, we may never find out the answers to these great mysteries.
But the real question posed here is: Did we all just find out that Bradley Cooper came up with the term "friends with benefits"?