it's 12:14 am, on June 14, 2005 - flesh wound.
~
I'm getting up in little more than five hours, to work on a presentation with a deadline of oh, say, wednesday at eight am, so of course it's time to be getting all introspective and sad.
So the story goes like this.
--I was going to tell a cutesy kind of "girl meets boy" version of how Kyle and I broke up, and then I was attracted to this other man, etc. etc., a la OZ season three, but why don't I save you all the trouble and tell you the long story. in the interest of putting down my patheticness as a matter of record. we wouldn't want my brain to file for unlawful prosecution or something because of a vague statement. you hear that, subconscious? documentation is the key.
anyway.
So I work with this man, he's roughly fifteen years older than I am. Maybe more like eighteen. Let's call him Paul. Now, Paul, he is attractive. I mean, really attractive. maybe to look at a picture, people might not see it, but I look at him and actually feel vaguely weak in the knees, heart beating faster, sometimes. And it's not just because I like his smile. I like his hands, his. anyway.
So, perhaps I am absolutely obvious in my affections, whatever. maybe he knows. Having him know I have a schoolgirl crush on him isn't the worst thing in the world, because he is also a relatively nice man who wouldn't, you know, laugh at me while he was drunk or something. Him knowing I'm desperately attracted to him - I mean, that's not that bad. And he is slightly flirty with me, not so much that one could really take any signals from him, but he is nice, and he is interested enough in my presence that I think he finds me amusing enough, anyway. he's a bit of an enigma, I can't figure him out.
station break to intrude: god save me from enigmatic people.
So. He was dating this woman, I suppose. I think they've actually known each other for years, but I guess they got together last year, maybe. I don't know. Despite rampant hormones, we're not actually that close. I knew this, vaguely, though no one told-me told me. people let things slip about them before, and I knew they were close, not just casual. But last week, I walk in and someone lets it slip that they're actually engaged.
Don't worry, internet, this isn't another one of those cry for help, I'm thirty and I'm not married, won't someone love me, journal posts. For one thing, I'm twenty three.
Seriously, I was stunned, but not heartbroken or anything. I wasn't in love with him, or even vaguely thought I had a chance to get him to take me out for a drink. For one thing, he's nearly twice my age, and for another, obviously something wasn't there and hasn't been, because I've been working with him for a year. another, we work together. Another, I don't, in matter of fact, know him all that well. I know the difference between a crush and real affection.
What I can't figure out is why this is making me so sad. I'm not sad because now suddenly he's off-limits, because god, come on. he was off-limits, a pipe-dream, before. I keep thinking it might have something to do with the fact that I am this earth-shatteringly attracted to so few people in my life, and to find that I actually like the same person, is nigh impossible, that to find out - I don't know.
I think maybe this has just put into perspective how isolated I've become, and from choice. Paul is the only person I've been really attracted to since Kyle and I broke up a year ago. And on Friday, the day someone let slip that Paul had a fiancee, he'd been drinking beer, and came over to my desk and said, "don't look so sad, there are other fish in the sea."
it kind of came out of nowhere, so I don't know if he was joking. he's the kind of person to be very straight-faced while joking to you. but, maybe not. maybe it meant what it sounds like.
it's a bit pathetic, really, to have the object of your attraction attempt to cheer you up at four thirty on a Friday afternoon. it's been promoting all sorts of strange behaviour in me - I emailed Bryant, all the while thinking about the jealousy I've felt for people over the years that I don't have a right to feel, and I keep trying to figure out what difference knowing Paul is engaged makes to my life. none, that I can see - we weren't going to suddenly start dating even before this, even if he weren't. maybe it's just that it took away the possibility that something might happen.
oh god, I'm thirty and I'm not married yet. won't somebody love me?
~
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