New to these emotions. Long but I think it is interesting.

[Dazdnconfuzed]

I will start this story from the top and it is a long one but a rather interesting one.

 

About nine months ago I ended up taking a job I did not want due to a another opportunity (Major one) that fell through. In this company, orientation is 2 weeks long plus another two weeks in training. In the group I was in there was a girl named Mel and this story/inquiry is about her.

 

I did not really find her attractive at all in the physical sense and really paid no mind to anyone in the training class as I did not even want to be there and was hating life and going through the motions. I wasnt being rude but never really cared or was eager to start any conversation.

 

After some time I began to know everyones name and at least try to make the best of my situation. This is a big company so normally the group you met is usually the comfort zone and who you hung out with and went to lunch with. Me and this girl sat pretty much side by side and I saw her as rather immature and highly opinionated but didnt care enough to treat her as if I was passing judgement, I just let it be.

 

I had my license taken away from me in this state due to my lets just say, heavy foot so I was usually driven to and from work by my wife which is now pretty much my ex, we were going through a divorce at the time. I add this because we had catering available at the office but at the time was new and flakey so I had no real way to get lunch. So me and the group started hanging out all the time and she always made sure that I had lunch which I thought was nice but at the same time a bit too caring for my tastes as I was so detached from giving a crap about life for the moment.

 

Fast foward two weeks (Talking here and there) we finally leave the orientation room and head for the sales training room where we all sit like lab rats in a 2x2 psuedo-cube and make sales calls until we get a few deals under our belt. I leave the training room in a week (due to experience) and get to the floor. Mind you we are still pretty much having lunch every day and now at times alone.

 

I see her as an interesting diversion at this point since everyone else was in their own bubble and we didnt mind BS'ing with one another. I find out she is dating a 40 year old and she is 23, I was like wow but I hear this happens and didnt really care that much. She also had a daughter at 16, I thought of a woman making some poor decisions in life but later I find out that this was pretty much a whole in one type of thing where it was her first time and she got pregnant. She baby's father is hardly ever around.

 

She tells me about him and how she feel head over heals for him and how she broke many rules that she sets for herself but even after a year seeing him she still loves him and he doesnt pay her much attention, infact for the first 6 months of the relationship he didnt even want to give her the title of a bf/gf until she started speaking to other men (she is smart lol) and then he gave her the title. She was constantly depressed and/or fighting with him this whole time. He is also a divorced dad that doesnt spend time with his kid because the exwife of his will not let him have visitation rights until he gets some psych test. I do not know why he needs this as I do not know much about him but again, I do not care much I let her vent before I get back to the grind.

 

I figure now that I am in my own cube I will stop seeing her, quite the opposite, she starts to spend every break with me and every lunch with me, to a point where people where calling her my stalker and I made her to clarify that she is no such thing and she is a good friend and to mind their own business. She use to bake cookies and always made sure I got 3 of them lol. When I was not at my cube and she came, she wrote me a note making sure I knew same was there but writing me a sticky note, I thought that was cute.

 

We started to get friendly-er.

 

Now let me pause and give this side information. There are two gentlemen, one that was in our training class and another guy that sat near me on the floor that both were trying many different ways to get into her pants], they thought she was easy I am guessing as she was very friendly and most people in our group had her number including the guy at the floor. At first I was like wow she is very friendly and she was the type that didnt really give a damn about what other people thought. This is why I never looked into what I thought was special treatment. (later to find out it was.)

 

During this time they see me and her hanging out all the time while they kept in asking her to hang out and she never did, they started talking alot of crap about her to me all the time saying how they could have her anytime they wanted and blah blah blah. I did not much care, I did let her know in our conversations a few times to be careful at being too friendly as this can make her seem like this too men even though she is not. She did not care, I told her that this is her first time at a corporate environment, especially with 20 somethings and things can go really wrong really fast. She again didnt care but took my advice into consideration.

 

We started keeping email dialogs back and forth and I started seeing something different, she would end the emails with this " /sidebar - I love you." and at first I am thinking their she goes again with being loose with heavy words. So I go wth, let me become flirtatious as well, I am dangerous with my silver tongue. The fun starts.

 

We start talking and talking and talking all the time. I at one point asked her for her number so we can text, my idea behind that was to avoid using corporate emails at this point, not a sneaky way to get her number. She gave it to me and added "I am taking a risk by giving you my number because i dont want my bf to get mad" so I told her my reasoning behind it but added that I went ahead and deleted the number and apologized. As it did seem rather aggressive. She gave it to me again in another email and said you wanted it so you can have it but also told me how respectable it was, I was like ok great. I really didnt have any angles as I didnt much care to get into her pants, infact I really didnt care about getting into anyones pants, even when I am interested - I need mental stimulation not physical.

 

We now start talking more and we text from time to time, small texts like "hey lunch @ 1", stuff like this. One day I send her an email after we get this cute little friendship that I would like to possibly go ahead and open up to her and she to me, we are both closed off individuals, both scorpios, and both had a very painful upbringing. With that said with both our severe trust issues I decided maybe it was time after a decade of being numb and dead to try to express some real emotion rather then to be a coward and hide being anger, sarcasism and an insane humor that just has people gravitate towards me. She respond by how much she loves that and wants to talk more about it.

 

Sidebar story - She gets her friend into the company, telling me how cool she is and introduces her to me. At one point I am sitting in the cafeteria and her friend comes to sit with me. Then Mel comes in and immediately gets red in the face and leaves. I was like oh damn, I was thinking maybe she was mad that I was taking her friend away from her or something of this nature so I made sure to wait for her and let her know. The last thing I wanted to do was get inbetween two good frriends. She told me it was fine and she thought we had a lunch date or something. I told her in these words "If you ever see me somewhere and you are not sitting beside me, you are late" she melts. I do not know what made me say that as it was completely spontaneous. And then later I send her an email saying that "the only person I want to have any kind of date with is her, althought I think that is a one way street, lol" and she responds with "Not as much as a one way street as you think" and my heart starts pounding.

 

Back to the story - Later that night after I tell her that I would like to open up to her and she to me, she sends me a text out of the blue telling me how honored she was that I would choose her and how happy she was, I was like wow ok. Touched to say the least but I do not show much emotion. One day she brought me lunch while i was on the phone and I put the person on hold, ran into the cafeteria to thank her and she just said in a perfectly soft tone with her deep blue eyes "I just love doing things for you". I melted on the inside but was able to remain stoic and smiled before i went back.

 

During this whole time these two other guys are talking soo much smack, even resorting to coming by my desk whenever she is around and hanging around. We were annoyed by always remained composed. But they were starting to get to me with their words because at this point I am starting to get some sort of feelings for her that I havnt had for a very very long time and I was getting scared. At this point I feel vunerable and scared to death, and over the weekend I start to break out into a sweat - "Oh man what have I done!" type of conversations with myself. I always am alone by choice and push people away, I keep my friends list extremely tight and small and I never let anyone into my mind. Now their words are in my mind all weekend until my survivor mode (The coward mode) sets in and takes control. Monday rolls by and she sends me an email saying why am I being so distant, I respond with "What are you talking about", nothing else gets exchanged, we see each other in passing a few times but I remained silent. At some point I break and send her an email that I need to speak to her. She comes by and I say the STUPIDEST thing ever which was a lie to protect myself - "Mel, everything I said on Friday about opening up and some other things was a mistake, I was a bit drunk frrom happy hour and was under the influence and I take it all back, sorry" (Oh man was i holding back the tears of fury)

 

Now from everything I heard from these two gentlemen, the reaction I expected was "Ok, whatever douche, peace". Not the one I got. She repeated the phrase "Under the influence, YOU were under the influence" and ran back to the training room shaking her head. At that particular instance, looking at her face get red and her eyes, watery... I knew I had just been had real bad by these two wonderful men. I cannot blame them as it was my actions and cowardice that set this in motion but they played on my weakness of getting hurt well. I could not have anyone "Play or toy with me." I ran after her and she said "Leave me alone" and slammed her chair into the desk. Now mind you, this room was full of people sitting about a foot away from each other and everyone looked at her as she ran out and then at me. I was like oh snap... then i yelled, she ate something bad and had to run to the bathroom, i was bringing her imodium as I left the room...

 

It was an overwhelming feeling for me. As if I didnt even know what happened, why did those things come out of my mouth, why did I have to speak without giving myself time to think rationally. I decided to leave it alone for a few and sent her a text later that night saying I am sorry and she said "Oh you are probably just drunk" and I said i was not and left it at that for that night. Next day she stopped by my desk saying she is going to the kitchen to talk to her friend and I asked, would you like me to tag and she said no, i will talk to you later. After 15 or so minutes her friend comes running out saying "What did you do/say?" and I told her what happened and she said that Mel is extremely frustrated, all she wants to do is come and sit by you and talk to you. Now in my head I am like ok fine lets talk about what happened, why it happened and hopefully forget it happened. After days of trying to email her and hardly getting any replies I was like forget this, if you want to act like a child fine lets terminate the friendship. I apparently did not see what my emails where doing to her emotionally and one of the little creeps was also feeding her alot of crap and she just snapped in her cube. Her manager finally wanted to put an end to this and spoke to her as to whats up. A few minutres later I get approached my my manager and hers and taken into an office and we spoke, now we are all friends so all they said was there is to be NO communication between you and her at work. I was like ok great, I havent spoken to her since I told her that if this is how she wanted to act that I want no part of being in any friendship with her.

 

That part of the story is done.

 

Her and her team finally enter the sales floor, and the way they rearranged the floor was that I sat right next to the girls bathroom and she now sat directly parallel to me with my close friend Jack in the next cube. I was a bit angry that all this happened because me and Jack are always hanging out at this point and she has to go to the bathroom and pass right by me but I wasnt angry enough to say anything I was more like whatever, there is another bathroom a few feet away and she would use that one so not to pass me. This actually never happened, for the next few months we were playing what I call "Eye Ping Pong" where she would pass by me and stare, then if I would look she would look away. My friend Jack was becoming good friends with her and he use to leak all types of what is going on with her.

 

Now here is my deal - Why did I feel so guilty, then upset, then remorseful during these past couple of months? I never ever cared about these things and usually erase people from my mind so quickly its as if they never existed, she is the exact same way. But I never got her out of my mind, not for a day. I was both perplexed and worried about what is going on in my head as I did not understand it.

 

Jack started telling me that hanging out with her and hanging out with me in his opinion was identical and the only difference between us was gender. I laughed that off. I use to get her M&M's sometimes when she was down and on her birthday I stayed at work late until no one was around, bought some and wrote Happy Birthday on them and left it under some papers on her desk. I was again shocked at myself for thinking to do such things as I am more of the Borg type.

 

So me and Jack talk about things all the time and we are now hanging out nearly every night and weekend and eventually get to a point where I open up to him and tell him, he is shocked as I nearly teared at how much I miss this person and he also tells me how much me and her need to be together. He also noticed how much I have changed, I lost 80 lbs, not from depression at all but from a strict diet and strength training, he is telling me how healthy and alive I look. I am also a Jew boy from NYC and I actually started going to Church with Jack. These changes are not normal for a hard ass darwinist but something had to give. I noticed that since that day of seeing her face and run away, it was time to change everything about myself that I did not like. He said it was his mission to get us together and I told him to leave it alone but he said that this is something he must do, he also added that she asked him at one point if I was divorced yet.

 

Then we spoke some more and told me that her and her bf were doing very good and I was happy for her as this guy she was seeing constantly made her depressed and sleep in tears. But I said I wasnt worried about that because all I wanted to do was get my apology accepted and maybe become friends at some point.

 

He started incorporating me into his conversations with her at the time without my knowledge. We also use to send group emails with slected people about funny things and he secretly added her to the group and as I hit reply all, she was on it. She use to laugh at them all the time and tell Jack "OMG did you see what he sent" as he put it with a glow in her eyes.

 

One day I had this very vivid dream and decided to tell Jack about it, at the same time he started to get teary and I was like he man whats wrong? He said Mel had the most identical dream last night she was telling me. Jack likes to decipher dreams. He told her this and about my dream and then he started telling her EVERYTHING! Completely leaving me naked about my inner most thoughts. She actually started revealing herself as well and the things I heard had me an floored. Here are the things she said:

 

- I kept his texts from a long time ago and I look at then.

- He use to talk to this girl Jessica and I was so enraged with jealousy that I had to leave my desk when I would here them giggling.

- I was mad when he sat by the bathroom and I voiced it to my friend but never used the other bathroom as I for some reason always wanted to see him.

- I am so sorry for everything that happened and didnt happen"

 

Jack was telling me all this at our break and I couldnt believe it as I thought she was wishing my death. On the way back to our desks she throws a hand written letter to Jack and he hands it to me. It said the following (In short):

 

"I very much regret the distance that has been created between us, I still feel this strong connection between us and I am confused as to what I can do at this point since we can not talk at work, I would like to hear what you thing we can do. I guess I write all of this to let you know that I think of you still"

 

I write back in the same media and format that we can talk outside of work and then i wrote this "In my entire life roaming around the sun for trillions of miles, I have never knew the meaning of sorry as I know it now, ink and paper cannot contain what I have to say, give me a call whenever you would like."

 

She responded "One of my tragic flaws is that I tend to run when I get hurt and I am so sorry for doing that, text or call me when you are available, I cannot guarantee I am always available to talk but I look forward to hear from you.

 

So I text her a couple of nights later, I work another job at night so I wasnt playing games I just wanted to give her my full attention. I texted her letting her know that I would be free in two hours and she said she is having a bad day but to text her when I am ready and we will see. So I texted her and she said she will call me in 15 minutes. When she called we started saying our hello's and she sounded different, like a giddy high school girl on 3 red bulls, she was at walmart getting something for her daughter and mother for the new years since they were leaving for a few days so I thought this was gonna be a 10 minute call. She ended up roaming around walmart for exactly 2 hours. We talked about what happened and then after that started talking as if nothing ever happened, instant connection again. When we were about to end the convo I jokingly asked, so you still love me, and she paused for a second and with a quite and gently voice said "Yes, I love you." I was like wow that didnt sound jokingly.

 

After that point the texts started, good morning, good night, good midday and I made her that I kept the balance of text initiation. She has a great work ethic during the ending of a session and never leaves her desk. My and Jack go out to lunch and I decided so go get her lunch and have him deliver it to her as she skips lunch sometimes and ends up with a headache. I have never done this for anyone in my life. She was so happy the whole day Jack was telling me, she texted me that night while staying at work late and asked her if she would like for me to keep her company on the phone while she was working and she replied with "You bringing me lunch and keeping me company now made my day." So we started talking and I asked her out and she was thrilled and said yes that sounds awesome.

 

Side story - Jack was telling me that since I came back into the picture she told him that her current bf has been looking dumber and she hasnt been happy with him ever. Too many ups and downs and the 20 year age gap and all this stuff. I am saying to myself firstly i know that was never gonna work but she loves him at least from what I can remember but I also remember that they broke up like 3 times and even when they were going out they say each other once every week or two. But still it is not my place to say anything.

 

She calls me one night and tells me how she has to talk to her current BF about the status of their relationship and that she couldnt talk on the phone with me tonigth because she has a feeling it was gonna detonate, so I was very PC about it and I said alright, good luck and if you need me i will be here. She texts me later that night and tells me how horrendous it was and if it wasnt for how angry she was that she wouldnt of ever thought she had a man, I told her that if she needs anyone to talk to that again, I am here. She then went silent for a day. And then texts me that it is so hard to pass by me everyday because she just wishes she can be next to me. We start texting again.

 

I finally set a solid date to go out and she agrees. One day she tells Jack that she feels soo guilty because in order to go out with me she has to lie to her current bf and that she has alot of feelings for both of us and doesnt want to hurt either of us. I get wind of this conversation much later and always wondered why she would always go silent when I asked her what she wanted to do when we went out. I thought it was gonna be just friends getting to catch up on alot of stuff in our lives even though some undefined feelings where there nothing could happen as we have our friendship to rekindle first. So I called her on it and told her that I did not ever want her to lie for me and if that is what she had to do to see me then we must not go, We can just talk here and there and sometime in the future we can go. She said No, I really want to go but I do not know what to do, I told her its ok we will do it eventually when circumstances permit and she said "I have an idea, what if Jack comes with? That way it looks less like an actual date." I said that is fine, but then I am like "Do you think I would try anything, do you not trust me?" she said no I have a ton of respect for you and I know you would be a perfect gentleman. So I then said jokingly, well, are you gonna try anything... Silence ensued. I quickly changed the subject and I asked her some deep questions and asked her for the net few minutes she has to be candid and honest with no defenses up and it went like this:

 

Do you have feelings for me? Yes I do.

Did you see us together? Yes

Do you ever feel such a strong connection like this before? (Pause) No, actually no I have never.

Do you see a future with your current bf (They never broke up) Yes I do.

Mel, the most important thing for me and my only angle of this whole thing was/is to be your friend, and i repeated that with a firmer voice asking her to hear and feel my words.

Now, what is it that you would like from me? (Long pause) I want you to be my friend.

 

Wonderful, that is actually first and foremost what I wanted. I took some of the edge off after that, she said at the end, I love you and I said I love you too, at this point I have believed all the I love you's have been platonic.

 

I call Jack and ask him if he was down to go out and he said absolutely. I text her letting her know and she was happy and then I said pick a date and I will make the arrangements. I heard nothing about it for a week. She called me one day after work and we were laughing about some co-worker and I said I have a burning question, what ever happened with going out (It was her plan) and she said yea I was gonna talk to you about that, how does Friday sound? I said not this one but next and it was done. The very next day she actually broke up with her current bf and told me about it and was emotionally exhausted.

 

I left it alone knowing she has many girl friends she can talk to but let her know i was there if she needed a different ear. The weekend ends and I hear nothing from her, odd. So I text her on monday morning and she said how emotionally exhausted she is and tired, then she said breaking up is hard to do. Now in my mind I am like ok, they do this a few times so she will be back with him in no time. No biggie right? So I text her good night later that night and she starts asking me how my day was and stuff and I tell her how it went and then started making location plans for Friday and she responds with "I forgot about a few plans on Friday I cannot make it, what about Saturday?" So I say to myself, wtf? but whatever ok, saturday what time, around 10. I said ok where do you want to go? Any ideas? She then drops this on me:

 

- No. I do not think I can do this Yet!

- I say, talk to me, we do not have to go, you wanted to go but we do not have too.

- Just right now I dont want to deal with it or anything!

- Alright, this does feel kinda rushed, lets keep it to texts and phone calls now and then and when we are both completely ready we will go, have a good night :-)

 

That was the last text I ever got from her.

 

I see her at work and she is always making eye contact, staring when she thinks I cannot see, passing by my cube - we have rearranged the floor plan so she now actually has to go out of her way to pass by me but it is not as frequent.

 

I sent her a text, my final one about 2 1/2 weeks ago saying "I do not want what is going on with you but I know you are going through alot, I am here for you if you need someone to talk too, too laugh with or too cry on. I love you babe. Good night. Didnt expect a response, didnt get one.

 

Since then all it has been is passing eye contact and staring when she thinks I am not looking. Jack works for a different department now so i lost my CIA agent.

 

This is where I need you LS, what is happening, what is going on, what do I do.

[crazylove]

Wow, that was a long one!

I personally think that this girl is just having a hard time after breaking up with her boyfriend. From what you said i think she does still really like you, but maybe just isn't coping well at the moment.

I think you have to wait for her now to get in touch with you, otherwise you may push her away more. Be there for her when she comes back.

I'm confused about whether you want a relationship with this girl or not?

You sound like you really get on well. Just be careful about her being on the rebound if you do enter a relationship. It may be better just to continue as friends for the time being until she's figured out what she wants. Are you sure she hasn't gone back to the boyfriend? Maybe because of her feelings for you she's backed off because her ex is still around? Just a thought.

[Dazdnconfuzed]

Wow, that was a long one!

I personally think that this girl is just having a hard time after breaking up with her boyfriend. From what you said i think she does still really like you, but maybe just isn't coping well at the moment.

I think you have to wait for her now to get in touch with you, otherwise you may push her away more. Be there for her when she comes back.

I'm confused about whether you want a relationship with this girl or not?

You sound like you really get on well. Just be careful about her being on the rebound if you do enter a relationship. It may be better just to continue as friends for the time being until she's figured out what she wants. Are you sure she hasn't gone back to the boyfriend? Maybe because of her feelings for you she's backed off because her ex is still around? Just a thought.

 

I am confused as to if she is having a real hard time, she seems to be just fine at work. When something bothers me I wear it on my sleeve, I am not good at hiding anger or being upset/frustrated. She seems to be giggling with her girlfriends just fine.

She has gained alot of weight recently, all that is worrying me, no she is not pregnant, the whole building would of heard of it by now. I do not know if she is back with him but that wouldnt bother me that much at all.

 

If I am seeking a LTR... I want to solely explore this first with her.

 

Just yestarday I was at the office kitchen making lunch and I noticed someone behind me, I was blocking the fridge so I moved and it was her, she said "We use the same fridge haha" and ran off? Seemed really nervous. This was the first time we exchanged words in the office in 5 months, we are not suppose too.

[Dazdnconfuzed]

What I dont understand the most is why the silent treatment with phone calls and texts. This is what bothered me the most, if you can not talk to me because you cant handle it after your break up, let me know. If you are back with your bf and feel like you are emotionally cheating on him and want it to stop, let me know. If for whatever reason you want me to not talk to you, let me know.

 

Why leave it open?

Why spit out empty words and make a dash like the post above stated?

Why make strong eye contact with me and hold it, why stare at me?

 

I hate it when logic leaves for a smoke break...

 

And the most hardest question of them all is why am I Sad? Hurt? Why am I caring so much...

[Dazdnconfuzed]

One of my friends suggested that she was trying to reach out to me but is afraid to do it in a direct way as she feels guilty and knows she has done something wrong but does not know how to correct it.

 

Do you guys at LS think this is so and if it is, should I send her a message?