Problematic

The problem with a crush is that it is one-sided.  The benefit of a crush is that it is one-sided.  On the first hand you are isolated and alone with your feelings.  On the second hand you don’t have to deal with anyone else and their feelings. 

Perspective can be such a bitch.

What does it mean when you actively try to avoid the people you’re attracted to?  I’ll tell you.  It means that you are insecure.  You have no confidence in yourself as a person of value.  Even you find your personality grating.  Oh, and your face is breaking out. 

Today I turned down lunch with the guy at work that I’m cultivating a crush on.  I had meetings.  And people were late.  And the things I’d tried to do were under-done because I was so overwhelmed with everything else that I’ve been utterly unable to focus on the things that matter.  Like special educational presentations that I sponsored.  Like my plans to fix the problems that keep my department (which is essentially me) in a constant state of crisis.  Like going out to lunch with the guy I have a crush on.

I spend my professional days (and they are the vast majority of my waking hours) running from crisis to crisis.  I joke about how this or that other incident gave me hives and how it made me allergic to my life.  It isn’t some incident.  It is the current situation.  I have hives now.  Still.  Because the only thing that has changed is my mood.  My stress is the same.  My workload is still overwhelming.  My performance is sub-par.  Sub-par for me at least.  And I’m so tired.  Itchy and tired.

And a little drunk. 

I’m lonely too.  I still don’t see my friends at the gym.  I’m lucky if I get 10 or 15 minutes of personal conversation a week.  And I don’t have time to really build on any friendships at work.  I’m in constant crisis mode.  So every discussion focuses around what needs to be done – which is fine, but it means that I come home with a lump in my throat and the feeling of absolute isolation. 

I’ve been trying to give dog extra attention.  Yesterday I gave up and sat on the floor with her for almost 20 minutes while she tried to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.  She is a great dog.  But, she is a dog.

Today my boss tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention and I jumped like I’d just been touched with a taser.  Even my good friends do not touch me.  And I don’t touch them.  Touching is so amazingly powerful and so confusing.  It is interesting, what happens to people when they go without touch for a long time.  It becomes obvious that this isn’t some sort of learning or social conditioning – the craving for the touch of another person is biological – it is a need, just like food and air and water. 

We did not evolve to be solitary creatures.  We are meant to live in tribes.  Families.  Tight knit groups that, regardless of whatever drama they produce, are capable of fulfilling each-others needs. 

I had contemplated inviting a friend who is in a transitional period to come live with me.  I thought it would be good – to have someone else around.  I’ve been alone for over a decade now.  Company might help make me a little less neurotic.  But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if it was a good idea.  I even shopped it to people I trust, and I could see what I was doing – offering help to others because it gave me an excuse to not focus on my own deficiencies. 

Like I need an excuse. 

I didn’t make the offer.  We each have to learn our own lessons.  I will offer my help if any of my friends ever end up in a situation where they have nothing else.  But here and now, what this friend has to face might just be what this friend needs to face, and who am I to get in the way of that?

I’m still lonely.  And the more lonely I get the more I try to avoid people.  I don’t want anyone to see me like this.  Yet this is how I am.  And only being around other people will make it better.  It is a vicious circle, and breaking it takes more courage than I have.  That or someone else’s influence. 

I’m so tired.  I work so hard at being positive and forward thinking and optimistic.  I know it doesn’t seem like it here, but I do.  Nobody who sees me at work or at the gym would every suspect the truth, because I hide it well.  But it is exhausting – keeping up both the mask and the walls.  It means I have to hide.

So I hide.  I turn down lunches.  I take the long way around to the printer.  I don’t go to the gym when I know he’ll be there.  Do not make eye contact.  Do not smile.  Do not joke.  And whatever you do, do not be real. 

Never be real.

I like my crushes.  It gets my heart beating just a little bit faster, my blood becomes just a little bit more fluid.  But I hate my self-doubt.  I hate that I do not have any control over my life.  I hate that I’m a geek and a dork and completely uncomfortable with being female.  I hate that I’ve gotten accustomed to lonely.

And I don’t know what to do about that.  Because the next crisis is just around the corner, and who knows when I’ll get to actually talk about it.