Teenage Wristband

I gave notice on Monday. My last day is August 31st, and instead of enjoying that carefree "I don't give a shit anymore"-ism, well, let's put it this way, Ryan Adam's cover of "Wonderwall" is still on repeat.

I've known Cute File Clerk for about a year now. Yes, she's only twenty-two. But she's incredibly well read (she was reading J.D. Salinger's "Franny and Zoe" when I first started talking to her). She's responsible (she called from her vacation in Cancun to get her time sheets done). She's funny and sweet and adorable. She can also be incredibly raunchy--when we talked about a Certain Someone, she would ask me questions that would make a sailor turn pale and steady himself against the wall. We would talk each day for anywhere between half an hour to a couple of hours.

The event that turned my thoughts from lazy observations of how cute she was to my heart melting whenever I saw her has to do with that South Park icon you see in the corner. We were working late one evening, and I had shown her a link to the South Park icon webpage as well as the icon I did of myself. CFC asked me to make her a South Park version of herself. When I did and printed it out, she shyly smiled and she asked me to sign it. I asked her if she was serious, and she stated that she was. After I signed it, she taped that printout to her cubicle so that it faced her whenever she went to do her filing. She still has the icon in her cubicle.

I know, that isn't exactly a Baz Luhrmann/Moulin Rouge type scene. And if it doesn't blow your socks off, I don't particularly care. It was her kindness that she asked for my signature, and that she ended up placing the printout where she could look at it everyday that got to me. I started thinking about the times I would have to call into the office while she was at reception, and when I said "Hey, this is Marty," she would reply "Hey, this is E*******" and giggle. I started thinking about our conversations. Or how the one time we went out for lunch in a group, she would try to crash into me while pretending to be drunk, or hang back to talk with me as we walked back to the office.

I did not act upon my feelings.

Instead, I joked with her, told her about Financial Advisor and my various non-adventures, and all in all acted the same way I did before. In the meantime, Newbie Clerk started working and became part of the Scooby Gang at work. And I began to notice that there were not as many shy smiles to me in the past two months, and that there was a change in behavior--extra eye contact, an extra flirtation--between CFC and NC.

So I made my second mistake (the first one being not quitting Gateway Gig when I realized I was just stagnating) and asked NC if he was seeing CFC because I didn't want to be a cockblocker. It came up last week because I had been mulling over quitting and told this to NC. NC said that he was seeing her, but would tell me if things changed. Hindsight being 20/20, I should've just told CFC that I was leaving and asked her out for drinks.

I'm an intense guy, which in this case meant my next action was intensely stupid as well. I then talked to CFC, and admitted how I felt. She grinned that shy grin, then covered her mouth with her hands like a Japanese schoolgirl and said, "No one has ever told me that before." We then ended up talking again for an hour and a half after work. She was telling me how sweet I was, and her eyes began tearing when I told her how I felt again. I admitted that I was jealous of NC, and CFC said I didn't have to be because NC and CFC were just hanging out with his friends, and that in fact I knew more than she did about how NC felt. I told her I might have to move up my timetable for giving notice, and she got really quiet and said "I don't want you to leave because of me." We had to stop talking because other folks were staying late and were starting to mill about the hallway.

The weekend passed, and I was hardly able to talk to CFC this week. CFC was incredibly busy, though the OCD chump that I am, I began to wonder whether CFC was blowing me off. I asked her if we were going to be able to talk before I left, and she said "We'll see." So I told her, "If this is your polite way of letting me know you don't want to talk about this, then I undestand and I'll drop it." She said, "No, I'm just hella busy. NC and I have been talking, and I definitely need to talk to you. We definitely need to talk."

I left CFC alone today, and went home early to prevent myself from doing more OCD things. That I saw CFC talking to NC this week, including this morning, doesn't give me much hope about what she could possibly say to me.

I have this vision of next Wednesday afternoon. As I leave, I'll say, "So, I'm leaving." And she'll say, "Bye." I'll say, "That's it?" And she'll say, "Yeah." And off I'll walk and that'll be the end of a years worth of shy smiles and conversation. Eventually, that printout with my signature will be thrown into the trash.

Look, I know I really got this FUBAR'd. I know I made a mistake by talking to NC, because when it's only about the women. Regardless of all the machismo shit guys say, when it comes to real relationships, women have the final say whether to initiate them or not. I made a mistake by not simply asking CFC out when I left, because all those deep feelings mean nothing if there's no potential at all for reciprocation. You throw all that intensity out there, the best you can hope for are some platitudes. I also am pissed that the one time that I followed the "Don't shit wear you eat" rule, fate fucks me over.

Some of my friends say that my vision is overly pessimistic--that I simply don't have enough information to know whether Wednesday will have me giddy, or downing a bottle of scotch by myself in a dark, hot room. After all, if I really meant nothing to her, she wouldn't say that she needed to talk to me. That doesn't guarantee that she'll say she wants to see me--she could care enough about me to feel that she owes me an answer, even if that answer is thanks but no thanks. But right now the only person with enough information is CFC.

However Wednesday turns out, my life after September 1st will necessarily have to be more stripped down, with less players and less drama. Beginning September, expect Angry Yellow--Unplugged.