I have a crush, a hardcore, serious crush on someone. Which, in and of itself is a weird thing for me to admit. I can’t tell you the last time I had a legit crush on someone. I have been trying to decide for a couple of months now if I did in fact have a crush, or something else. This past week proved to me that I do in fact have a crush on said person. The hardest part about being a widow, well among other things, is the loneliness. Sometimes, especially early on, it’s almost crippling. I have found myself more than once over the past year, thinking someone is cute and thinking of maybe potential. I work in a field where I come across people all day long, and the same people every week, sometimes every day. Even though I would always humor the idea, I always knew it was just me grasping at straws. It would generally last a couple of weeks and then be done until it went to someone else lol that sounds bad, but it was always in my head, I can assure you nobody was none the wiser. Some of these people I don’t even talk to! So, you can see my hesitation to think that this wasn’t just grasping at straws.
Him and I work in the same field, but for different companies. We are competitors. I always see him at one store once a week, and generally run in to him at at least one other time during the week. Sometimes, it has happened that we see each other one other time.
Let’s start at the beginning. I used to have a different position, that required me to travel every week. When my husband passed away, I had to come back to a route. Me going back to a route was almost a year ago. I can’t pinpoint now the exact time we started talking to each other, but I can remember after a couple of months him using my name. It always weirds me out when people use my name and I didn’t tell them what it was lol but, I do have to sign in at a couple of stores, so I’m assuming that’s how he learned it. That’s how most do that I didn’t tell them. I do also know that he knows a bit about what I was doing before I came back to a route. This doesn’t really mean anything to me, though I was always curious how the conversation came up, but obviously he had a conversation with another person from my company that he interacts with. It could have been merely just a generic wondering about this new person he was going to have to deal with and the person from my company had a bigger mouth than necessary lol
Over the past months, I like to think we have become friends. Though, we don’t generally talk about things that don’t involve work. Here and there we get a little personal, but generally not. There was a moment quite a few months ago that I was so frustrated with life, both personally and professionally, I was drowning in all my frustration. I can’t even tell you now how the conversation started, other than we started talking about work as we were unloading outside, and I just kept going. I let it all out, both about work and the personal stuff. I am not one to share personal things about myself with these people I come in contact with at work, but all I knew was I was just spouting it all like some kind of verbal vomit and I could not stop. I remember when I got done I was like “oh my god. I am so sorry. Thank you for listening, because I do fell better getting it all out, but I am still so sorry!” He didn’t seem to care, but I was a little mortified.
A few months ago, as girls are tricky, I got his phone number. He had shown me a picture he had taken of a sign on the wine guy’s truck (we have a personal vendetta against him that he has no idea… more on this later) and I had him send it to me so I could show my best friend (who also works for my company) so she could laugh at it also. To be fair, I did really want to send it to her, and she did laugh, but I also saw an opportunity. He immediately saved my number, and actually I thought I had saved his, but I didn’t for a few more weeks. We RARELY ever sent a text. Until we started having problems with said wine guy, and we would have what I called “wine guy watch Thursdays” Basically, whoever got to the store we work at the same time would text the other the status of where the wine guy was in line so the other knew whether to hurry or take your time because you were going to get stuck behind him and have to wait to get checked in anyways. Even still, this wasn’t every week.
And then, we had an incident with another competitor, and this is when our communication through text changed. I am not going to get in to the incident, but it was ridiculous and him and I now refer to this person as douchebag. I even went to bat for him against douchebag and I told him there aren’t many competitors I would do so for. It’s true. If we hadn’t had the established relationship we do now, I might not have, but douchebag was so in the wrong. Now our texts have turned in to douchbag watch, or texts about our interactions with him, or things that make us laugh about him. Still, sometimes we go more than a week without texting. It is still not a regular thing, and still almost always about work.
I found a new favorite product recently, that happens to be made by his company. He knows this, we talked about it. Last Tuesday he sends me a text about where douchebag is and I tell him I’m glad hes already been where I am because I am too grumpy for him today. He sends me a picture of said product and asks if it will help me with my grumpiness because he had to credit one out that morning. Yes, duh! lol he tells me he will look for my truck and bring it to me. I just tell him where I am, that I will be there awhile and my truck is unlocked.
I.COULD.NOT.STOP.SMILING! Like so much so, I kept expecting people to ask me why I was.
That is when I knew it was a crush for sure /sigh
We talked every day last week except for Saturday. Two days was just one text each back and forth, but still. We never text on Saturday, even though we are both working, and he has never text me on Monday because he knows I am off. I’m not working, so I have no reason to.
Here is my dilemma, he is really a genuinely nice person. There are little things here and there that he has done that could be misconstrued as he has interest, when really he is just a nice guy. I’ve had this happen to me before. I am generally a friendly person, and people have taken my friendliness as flirting. I’m having a hard time deciding if he is just being friendly, or if it is interest. I don’t want to be wrong and make things awkward for us, or lose what relationship we have now. I don’t want my widow brain illness to have concocted something that is not there. It’s not like I can be wrong and never see him again. I’m going to try and feel it out a little more over the next couple of weeks.
Stay tuned 🙂
(Also, I am looking forward to going back to work tomorrow and seeing if he text me. Dating is dumb…. lol)
Stacy's Adventures in Dating 