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Questioning the universe again.

Now it's the end of another weekend. I've finally recovered from another hangover and I'm about to go to sleep soon to begin the first day of another week at work.

I really suffered emotionally last week. All because of Teddy. There was almost no second where he was not on my mind. And as much as I don't want to believe it, I'm certain that I almost never crossed his mind this week. Like I said in my last post, the signs are all there that yet again, I am falling for a guy that does not like me like that. It made my stomach hurt all week. Everything I put in my mouth made me gassy and I thought I was giving myself an ulcer. It wasn't cute. I think part of it was that I just could not wait to see him again. I imagined how great it would be. I imagined hugging him and kissing him. I imagined some other stuff that I don't care to admit in text right now. I say these things but I was not in a good place.

Finally, Friday came around and I was hoping that he'd message me to ask if I was going to happy hour, just like he did two weeks ago. I definitely wanted to but I decided against it. I was really trying not to make the same mistakes I made with Old Crush. It helped that I was taking my "peer", this new-hire that I have been assisting at work, to her first happy hour. We hit it off pretty well and I could tell she would get along with me and my friends. Our coworker, Matt, who I had never seen at a happy hour, was coming as well. Me and Mel (the new-hire) were plotting because I had an inkling that he may have a thing for her. That kept my mind a little busy until I saw Teddy walk into happy hour.

He didn't see me for a while, at least I don't think he did. I remember feeling a bunch of emotions as I peered at him from the corner of my eye and I can't tell you how many of those emotions were just a result of me shivering from the cold (yes, it was abnormally cold in Florida that day). I think I was mostly just anxious, especially whenever I saw him talk to some random cute girl that was not me. I found a moment to go up to him when he was at the bar. We greeted each other and I told him that the bar inside would go by a lot quicker so he followed me inside where we chit-chatted for only a little while before I was interrupted twice. First, by my guyfriend (the one who assaulted my friend) and this other girl we know, and then by my co-workers who sort of overtook the conversation. I felt bad that we were talking about things that he didn't really understand so I mentioned all of us going outside to see a friend of ours, Zoe, and he said he would just leave. I spent the rest of the night hanging out with the coworkers.

So I was actually sort-of fine before I started writing this but the more I recount, the more upset I feel.

I have this feeling that he's into Zoe, or she's at least my competition. I hate feeling that I am not number one on his list (and maybe not even number two or three or ten) when he's the only person on my list. There's more little things that upset me about that Friday but I won't touch upon all of them. The biggest thing was that I was hoping all week that I'd get to see him at this big going-away party on Saturday. I had so many expectations for that Saturday night but it was all yanked from me when I found out that he wasn't even going because he was going to Orlando to see his dad.

Obviously, that was out of his control but there were just so many things he did that night that made me realize that I needed to stop.

Oh, funnily enough, my male co-worker thought Teddy was my boyfriend when he first met him. When I told him that he was not but I was interested in him, the co-worker believed that Teddy may have a thing for me. I felt that if he truly did, he wouldn't have walked away at the first opportunity to leave. But the co-worker said that it may have been because he, a guy, was there. I personally think he thinks anyone with a dick that talks to me has a thing for me. But I'll talk about him eventually. Hearing things like this makes me wonder if maybe I am justified in falling for Teddy. Maybe I didn't just see things that weren't there. I just think it's funny that it seems that everyone sees it for me and Teddy, except him and there's nothing I can do about it.

I'll just say that on the way back home after the night, I was crushed. I was prepared to go right under blankets and cry. But I should have expected this, right? Whenever I am happy and excited about anything, my expectations are never met, especially when it comes to men. If I clean my apartment for someone, no one will step foot into that apartment besides me. If I hype up a party, I know it'll be lame. If I shave in preparation for someone caressing my legs, no such thing would come close to happening. How do I navigate life knowing that I can never revel in my excite? How do you control how you feel? Liking Teddy and thinking of him felt so good, even though my mind was telling me that this was not going to end the way I want it to. How do you tell your heart to listen to your mind?

I'm happy to say that I didn't cry about him. Maybe it was because I was just too tired that Friday night. The next day, Saturday, ended up being so busy although I was somehow out of the house before 8AM. I didn't have Teddy on my mind as much but I think it was because I hoping to see a few men at the party that night. One of the guys is someone I made out with at the back of the bus during a company-sponsored trip to Orlando. He was tall, half-European, half-Puerto Rican, and maybe out-of-my-league on a sober day but I was willing to shoot my shot again because he was fine.

The other guy is someone I had met out at a bar downtown. We were in the bathroom line together and he said I looked familiar and asked if I worked at Harris. I actually thought he looked familiar too but couldn't figure out how. Of course, we did work for the same company. He had gauges, glasses, and a bit of a lisp but I thought he was really cute. I didn't expect that I'd see him again any time soon as it was a random night out in Melbourne for me. It was the weekend after New Years, everyone was still with their families for winter break, and I was only out with my one guyfriend. It was not a usual night and we didn't run in the same circles so I felt that the chance of me seeing him again was nilch. But actually, I ended up seeing him again about a week or two after at a first-of-the-year house party and he had been locked down by another girl there. I initially thought it was fate bringing us together until I saw the girl wrap her arms around him and shove her tongue down his throat a few times. Apparently, she had a boyfriend of eight years in Brazil though and he was going to cut her off soon. I actually found this out from another girl who also took interest in him but he later revealed the same thing to me at another house party (a going-away party for someone we barely knew) a week or so later.

At this going-away party, we hit it off, or so I heard from that male co-worker I had mentioned before. This co-worker is named Matt, by the way. Matt and his now-girlfriend had been watching us from the sidelines talking to each other. I still wonder why they had been so invested. Matt's girlfriend thought that Gauges (which is what I will start calling him from now on) was really into me and thought it was off-putting when some girl came along and started making out him while we had been talking to each other. I was mortified to know that people had even witnessed that when I had already felt so embarrassed when it initially happened. But Matt and his girlfriend seemed to be on my side here and thought it was gross. Funnily enough, I didn't take offense to the situation at all at the time because I already made up in my mind that Gauges was taken and from our conversation, I didn't get the sense that he liked me in any particular way. Also, I thought it was off-putting that he tried to make it seem that he did not like the girl at all. They were going to Universal the very next day. If you really did not like the situation you were put in, you would not be going to Universal with her. So I got the impression that he was just trying to have his cake and eat it too.

At work, Matt said I should totally go for it. I thought it was a lost cause.

Lucas, the friend that Gauges and I had in common, was having a going-away party after taking leave of absence to travel for a year and I knew Gauges was invited. I had perused his Facebook friend list and knew that he had been friends with make-out girl before, but when I checked out his page a few days before the party, they weren't. He suddenly became an option for me. But like I said, he never showed up.

The party migrated downtown and as we were about to go into Mainstreet Pub, I heard someone call my name. I turn and see Eric and I think I may have exclaimed. I do remember going up to him and hugging him, maybe a little too excitedly. He said that he and his friend were going to grab food but he would meet up with the rest of the group later. Hours passed by and I didn't see him again but the group I was with ended up at Off-The-Tracks and then, everyone began to make their way home.

I mentioned before that I was clouded by desperation. I messaged him on Facebook to ask where he was. It was almost 2AM, and he and his friend were only now making it back to Mainstreet Pub. I left with a few girls as they were trying to make it back to their car but I fully intended on diverging and going to Mainstreet. I can't believe I did that now, but I boldly went up the stairs and met Gauges and his friend all by myself. We chit-chatted a bit but to me, it felt very cordial and restricted. As the conversation went on, I felt my energy drain and things seemed to be merely friendly between us, if even that. Even our departure was very cold. I felt like I had wasted my time, yet again.

I asked his friend to help me buy an Uber because my data had run out and he graciously did. I really did need help with the Uber situation but it gave me the opportunity to continue messaging Eric because I needed the friend's Venmo to pay him back. We talked a little longer and looking back at the messages, it seemed like I kept having to do the heavy-lifting. But before messaging him good night, I told him that we should get a group together to go out, and he seemed really down for that. To be real, I only said it to end things well, but I felt defeated.

This afternoon, after about three naps, I was finally in a better state-of-mind, catching up on episodes of Love Island and fully accepting that I am a fool who needs to do better, when he messaged me his phone number because it would be easier to keep in touch. I paused the episode I was on and shrieked. Obviously, it could be me reading into things again but I was not expecting this at all. Yet again, when I stop caring and thinking about these men is when they start to step up. I will say that at first, I was excited that a guy that I found cute was making some type of a move on me. And then, picturesque scenarios went through my head of me and him together. Like I said, when that starts to happen, it means I have already lost. But envisioning us did not feel as good as it did with Teddy, probably in part to the fact that something about Gauges turned me off the night before.

I actually don't remember the conversation much from that night so I don't know exactly what it was. Maybe, it was his personality, or something he said, or maybe just that there seemed to be no chemistry between us. Maybe it was the way we departed or the Facebook messages between us afterward. Maybe I just really like Teddy. But there's something about him that I don't like.

He also said that he was marriage-minded right now and I told him that I wasn't.

I sent him a text saying that it was me and he only responded "Hey". But I'm not putting in any more effort. I believe that women should shoot their shot but in my case, it just doesn't entirely work for me. I think I've done enough to show Gauges that I could be interested in him, so I'm just going to hope that he texts me if he reciprocates that interest. If he doesn't, he won't keep me up at night.

I am mentioning all this to just show you how crazy the universe is to me. All of this could just be for nothing, but I would have never thought I would be here from the first night that I met him. I could say the same for Matt too.

When I first started at Harris, I'd see Matt around the building and I thought he was cute. He did walk kind of weird and his hair was awkwardly long but he was the least nerdy-looking guy at the office and looked closest to my age. As time past, he acquired a nice haircut, started wearing better clothes, and got muscly. I took notice but that's as far as it went. He talked to me for the first time at some point last year when he mentioned that one of my tires was low. I thanked him for telling me and he just kind of grunted. I wasn't sure if he didn't hear but I couldn't see why he wouldn't. So from then on, I was kind of put off by him because I thought he was weird and rude. Then, we saw each other at the same Halloween party and joked about work and a friendship slowly blossomed after that. Now that I think about it more, I think that he only cared to talk to me after that because I had to be sort-of "cool" if I could get invited to a party like that.

I was actually afraid to see him at work though because my personality when I'm drunk is much different from my personality at the office. Luckily for me, I didn't see him around the office much anyway for some reason. Months later, he told me about the going-away party for the same guy who threw the Halloween party and convinced me to go even though I hadn't been formally invited. That was the party where I was humiliated by Gauges' girl. Then, this past Friday, we just talked and talked and talked about everything. It seemed like we were best friends. It is just crazy to me how far we came from not talking to each other in the hallways almost two years ago and now talking about relationships and eating dinner together. I would have never seen this coming.

It's getting late and I have a personal training appointment tomorrow so I'm gonna end here. I made this post mostly about men, like I usually do. But I really needed to get the Teddy-thing off my chest. I have a few really serious things I still wanted to talk about though so to remind myself, I'm going to make a list:

  • I went on a date with one of my friends' and probably lead her on.
  • I found out that ANOTHER one of my guy-friends has committed sexual assault.
  • I may be getting a security clearance.
  • I think I am getting close to feeling normal with my Old Crush.
  • Love Island isn't bad?

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