I'm not even sure that anyone reads anything I put here ... to be honest, it would be far better if nobody ever knew about this. This is my own, personal, part of the internet. I can say what I'm thinking, I can be totality honest, and I can say it without looking like some whack job with a journal when I die. Only time will tell if this really is my personal Oasis.
Onto the topic at hand though ... I'll begin with a little story. Working with people, is normally where you can find your wife or girlfriend, really good friend, someone to cheat with, etc. These are the people that you inevitably spend the most of your awake hours with. When you've known someone for 2 or 3 years, you start to think that you know them pretty well. So well, that you walk up to them and give them your number, as you're leaving the job, to grab a drink and a bite to eat sometime. Maybe that's where the problem comes from, there's a perception that you "know someone", but many people are very different in work than they are out of work. Let's take my example, we'll call her "Anne Marie". I knew Anne Marie pretty well from work, I thought so, well enough to ask her to come out with friends and hang out on Friday evenings (even some Saturday evenings) for drinks and dinner. Three months of this back and forth occurs, until one day Anne Marie meets a bunch of my friends, who are quite smitten with her and hoping that we are dating. All fuck breaks loose from there, and Anne Marie becomes pretty hostile and quite shitty as a person. Ultimately, this "whatever it really was" with Anne Marie falls into a place where her running away is her best option, since she "never showed me that she was interested."
But ... is that really the truth or maybe that she's not used to guys that actually notice things?
This is where "seeing things" comes into play. In retrospect, I should've just asked in the beginning, but I was too scared to be rejected right off the hop, and never get to hang out with Anne Marie at all. It's also not like Anne Marie was so attractive or so popular that I should've never thought that she could be interested in me. Anne Marie is actually right in the section of girls that I think could be interested in me. She's cute, but not attractive, she's smart, but not overly intellectual ... literally, if I described someone that I could be with for a very long time, Anne Marie would be that girl. Still, part of me knew there was never a chance that she would be interested anyway, but that's the part of me that I've been trying to suppress ... it's time to give things a try, time to be optimistic going in, and time to not have regrets in the end for not going after someone I would want to date. Being an introvert, and being able to notice surroundings becomes a very good trait to have and a very bad trait to have, all at the same time. I noticed things like body language, tones in her voice, what we talked about, how she interacted with people, when she wanted to 'hang out', and even the use of exclamations points in texts. I noticed a lot. Sure, there were definitely signs that pointed to the fact that Anne Marie wasn't interested in me ... after almost every time we hung out, she would barely acknowledge that I existed and get on her phone (which would occur after about 3-4 hours of talking where neither of us looked at our phones). Her body language would change, when she would start interacting with other people. She almost never hugged me when we left places, but then again that's a bit hard to do when you don't acknowledge that someone exists. Even one night, when I asked "why aren't we dating?" but just got back a response of "sorry" and nothing more ... which looking back now would've been a great time to brings this up (the whole bit about not being interested and all). With all these signs that Anne Marie wasn't interested in me, there were just as many (or more) signs that she could've been interested. We talked about sex lives (definitely out of my comfort zone for a friend), we talked about life goals, we talked about bucket lists, we talked about families, we talked about work, the question of "do you find her attractive?" came up one night, and even helped each other through some life decisions. Granted, all of that could've just been accomplished as friends ... had this "not interested at all" mantra been brought up in the beginning. Anne Marie's body language was almost always toward me, even when I tried to be pointed at the bar, we laughed and joked about a lot, and there was always a subtle touch at some point throughout the night. A hand on an arm or a lower back, or a caressing type of gesture ... just enough to think "maybe?" An invitation to come to her house, and spend time alone with her and her dog. We went out to a sporting event, just the two of us, spending some really good time together (which is also something that I've never done with a single friend). I even had people, that didn't really know either of us, tell me how great we were "together" ... along with others that knew us both and thought we'd be really good together.
At this point, reading through this and even written this all down again, I wonder how I place any real significance on gestures or actions that could be part of anyone else's day to day life. Maybe this is just Anne Marie's personality, maybe she puts no significance on how she portrays herself, maybe she just doesn't value a close relationship. Maybe, just maybe, I put significance on actions that I wanted to "see". Maybe, just maybe, I thought that being open, honest, and vulnerable was the way to show Anne Marie that I was interested in her. Maybe, just maybe, I thought that I found someone who liked me for who I am and I liked her for who she is.
Ultimately, Anne Marie is gone. She's too stubborn to ever go back on the "take care" text that was sent. She's also too stubborn to realize what she's really missing out on. Amazingly enough, I don't feel any regret that she's gone. I don't feel like I lost someone that could've been a really good friend. I don't feel like I lost anything, to be honest. I actually feel relieved that Anne Marie is gone. I'm relieved that I don't need to sensor myself around someone, who's so hyper sensitive that someone's "interested in them" when she's obviously not interested in me, that she can get really shitty as a person. I'm relieved that I can go back to just being alone, without a care of what people think, and I've already moved on (probably once I get this all out of my system). I have no regrets on how this happened ... I was fully honest and fully open throughout this whole period of time. It just didn't work out. Oh well.
PS: After thinking about this for a full day, and being removed from a couple days ... with the distraction of work and soccer ... I'm more mad now than anything. I'm mad that I don't get to hang out with Anne Marie anymore. I became accustomed to having someone to hang out with, and talk, and grab a drink or three, and just be social. I have saved a shit load of money though, not doing anything.
