I Called You Because I Wanted To, From The Balcony, I Heard In Your Voice How You Knew But Wouldn't Believe

--"Goodbye Baby", Whispertown 2000

The last time I saw her was at dinner today.

However, the first time I saw her was in 2001 and I was confident she never even saw me. In fact, I was so confident of this fact that I never even bothered to introduce myself for almost a week even though she sat barely twenty feet from me. I couldn't talk her--not to her face, at least. A barrier of being more than I was separated me from her. She was, as they say, out of my league. I suppose one could say, more precisely, I wouldn't talk to her. While it was true that I probably was far beneath her in many aspects (still true), it is not true that she harbored any particular desire not to speak to me. It's just hard to talk to someone when he's doing his darndest never to speak to her. Sure, we exchanged the everyday pleasantries that any co-worker exchanges with another co-worker, but I never had what I would call a decent meaningful conversation with her that whole week.

My loss.

Because when she finally did catch me off-guard and attempt to speak on subject aside from how boring work was or the latest water cooler gossip, I found she was even more replete with charismatic qualities than I had originally imagined. She was a joy to speak with--funny, intelligent, and witty. She actually made work all that much more bearable. I told her all the usual anecdotes, repeated all the usual jokes, and spewed my guts out about all the young ladies about who I seemed to fall in and out of fancy with. Yet all I really wanted to tell her was "I'm fond of you." That's how I thought back in those days. I didn't like her; I certainly didn't love her. But I was fairly sure I had a growing fondness for her. Conversation after conversation, talk after talk, though, I never mentioned word one of this.

Such was my unbearable fate for the better part of two years. I was uncommitted to anyone else during this time. We had even discussed my lackluster performance in the dating market, in fact. I think I did well in disguising the fact that there was only really one individual I would have considered seeing in the office and that was her. In her voice, I convinced myself, was no desire to verbalize my fanciful notion of the two of us getting together. There I had to sit as she discussed this current boyfriend or that cute guy while the whole time I wanted to scream at her that I thought she was great and that, possibly, we might be great together.

When it came time for me to leave for greener pastures, I considered finally announcing to her that I'd always liked her and that the two of us should keep in touch. But I didn't. I never let that hot potato hit the ground. I couldn't believe that my leaving would change anything about my chances with her. I left my number and e-mail with her like I did with all the other co-workers I wanted to stay in touch with. No special message was inscribed on it. No future plans to do anything were left. If memory serves me, I don't think I really singled her out to say good-bye to either. I just left my old job with a general good-bye to my old department. I wanted to be gone from that place. I wanted to move onto the next stage in my life. But, yeah, there was a small part of me that was sure that I would never see her or speak to her again.

I didn't even bother to ask for her number when I left--that's how confident she would have never given it to me.

She never called me nor wrote me while I was at my new job. She had no reason to. We were just acquaintances and acquaintances never last longer than the circumstances that make the two people acquaintances last. Usually.

The connection between us should have been severed. There was no reason our paths should have ever crossed again. I've come to realize that most people are not like me. They don't get as sentimental as I do. They don't have the forlorn and wistful sensibility that I've somehow cultivated. They stop caring, stop thinking about their past as soon as an appropriate amount of time has subsided. That's the way the world usually functions. There are no second chances and you have simply must live with the regret of a choice not taken.

Sometimes, however, a bit of serendipity creeps in and a guy gets to reminiscing about people and things that were truly unique and special in his life. Sometimes he gets to writing about crushes and how more often than not he could just get off his ass and make something happen. He had been referring to a young lady at his current job, but that had inevitably led to the comparison to the aforementioned woman because she was always the greatest discovery this guy ever made among co-workers.

Meanwhile, this girl has led an entire life without thinking about her former job. She too has moved onto greener pastures. She's done so much with her life and met so many other interesting people that it would be too much of her to ask that she even has the mental capacity to remember some guy who never even had the balls to ask her out. Why should she reserve a place in her memory for something that didn't end anywhere substantial. We were always tethered by a piece of string and, I thought, the string had been broken long ago. But sometimes a piece of string is enough to keep the connection. And sometimes the person you ended up talking with day after day, even if it was only for five minutes here and there, really ends up sticking in your mind. And sometimes two years separation is enough for a lot of certainties to transform. Maybe he isn't as scared of her as he once was. And maybe she had a skulking suspicion all along and finally decided to put the issue to rest.

And sometimes the girl in question chances upon this innocuous piece of writing and decides to ask him, in e-mail no less, if all he said about her was true.

And that's when he writes back with the simple message:

"I'm kind of still fond of you."

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers