miss you already

About 17 months ago…

Two girlfriends and I were having a few cocktails after work, one of whom has been married for more than a decade — really married, and the other successful, single and not dating. In other words, I was clearly providing the conversation / drama / entertainment.

No one really ever wants to talk about divorce in public. The heartbreak, the pain — it’s all better swept under the rug lest the weepies rear their ugly heads. And so I told them about Max and what happened since I’d last seen him.

“You texted WHAT?,” Cynthia asked. “How could you?!”

“What?,” I asked innocently, “‘Miss you already’ is perfectly innocent. I would say the same thing to a girlfriend or a niece or my own children.”

“He’s not your girlfriend or niece,” Cynthia pressed. “It was suggestive. And he’s a married man!”

“Seriously, it’s not as though I told him I wanted to get naked and rub my body up against him,” I argued.

Cynthia: “No, that would have been being direct.”

Kristine, meanwhile, was doubled over with laughter and merely kept repeating, “Miss you already. Miss you already. That is priceless!”

They asked what happened next, they made me show them photos and then I told them about Max’s wife:

“You told her you had a crush on her husband?!,” they asked incredulously. I generally gravitate toward honesty. I may not always be appropriate or have the best boundaries, but I have my ethics.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “And she was cool, she was fun, and she was as inappropriate as any of us. And she would fit in perfectly sitting right here with us in this empty chair. We would have a grand time!”

Even as we put on our wraps, paid the tab and walked out of the bar, the girls were still laughing and giggling over what would become our inside joke: “miss you already!”

how I became a text maniac

About 18 months ago…

As I boarded my flight home after my trip to Max’s region, I texted him a quick note: “Miss you already!”

I didn’t think much of the casual salutation — it was something I would have said to my children or a girlfriend — just a fun, breezy farewell. By the time I landed, there was a message on my data phone. It was from Max:

“You have no idea. We have a special relationship.”

Wha…? I reeled. Max had feelings for me. Here, in the palm of my hand, was actual confirmation that this gorgeous man reciprocated, in some form, the feelings I had for him. My heart was pounding; butterflies were fluttering in my stomach. I didn’t know what to think. I could barely resist the urge to board a flight back to Max. Of course in reality Max would be home with his wife and daughters…but he felt something for me!

There was so much I wanted to say. I tried to capture what I was feeling, and then edited and edited it down until it fit into the 160 characters of a single text message:

“I do have an idea…several, in fact. I will content myself with the quantum possibility that in some parallel universe we are free to explore them.”

Several hours later, Max texted back. “LOVE the way you put that. Talk soon.”

intuition, interrupted

About 18 months ago…

Let’s get back to the fun stuff!

As spring turned to summer, I had another opportunity to work with Max, my out-of-state office crush. We emailed and occasionally spoke on the phone to communicate. One day after I emailed off a request, I got this reply from Max:

“You should know by now I will do whatever you ask.”

I excitedly waved a co-worker into my cubicle and said, “look at this! I think this cute guy might be flirting with me!” She agreed that he was most definitely flirting. (Perhaps you’ll find it sad that I needed confirmation from another, but this was not the sort of thing that is always self-evident to someone whose primary relationship is spiraling toward Hades.)

And so things got interesting. A fairly attractive man (who was also a newly wed) was offering a little bit more positive attention than was strictly required by his job. Which was nice.

But there was something deeper and more profound going on: I had gotten a vibe around Max, something that made me think he might have some special potential in my life (at least until I heard he was getting married). And now I was getting some feedback suggesting that energy was mutual. My feminine intuition seemed to be functioning properly! After years of being told I was “crazy” every time I verbalized something I was feeling intuitively, I was now getting affirmation of what my sixth sense was telling me. My mojo — I guess they call it jojo for women — was coming back!

And I had an upcoming work trip to Max’s region, so I would see him soon!

fairy tales

About 21 months ago…

My fantasies about Max had taken on a life of their own. Despite knowing he was engaged, I allowed my imagination to reinvent him as a single, available man — and one who was interested in me. I simply closed my eyes and let my mind play scenes of our time together talking, flirting, realizing that there was something special between us that was worth exploring.

All of this escapism only goes to show how nimble the human mind can be.

After all, the facts were:

Max and I lived several hundred miles apart,
he had not expressed any interest in me,
my ex hadn’t moved out of our home — in fact, I hadn’t even asked him to yet — and he was unlikely to bless any plan that involved his children moving across the country, and
let’s not forget that in reality, Max was engaged and would be married any day now.

These dreams were all me, indulging an imagination that wanted to run wild. Perhaps a complete escape from reality was exactly what I needed.

Finally, in my foolish fairy tales, Max asked me to visit him. And then I was stuck: I found myself, even in my fantasies, having to confess that I was not truly available. Even if my marriage had crumbled and was long since over, I had not yet communicated clearly to my ex that I was truly finished trying to overcome our differences nor asked him to move on.

Yet somehow, creating my very own fairy tales was giving me the strength to take those next steps.

the inquiry

About 21 months ago…

I was back in my cubicle at the offul, sticking out late winter in middle America, thinking about Max. I had noticed he was not wearing a ring. How was this possible? Was he a playboy unable to commit? Recently divorced? How old was he, anyway? And why was I suddenly obsessed?

To comprehend the relative importance of this crush, one must understand that it had been months since I had felt wanted or loved, since someone of the opposite sex had shown genuine interest in me, since I’d been touched. Frankly, Max had done none of these things…yet the hope that had sprung up so suddenly inside me reminded me of how badly I needed these things.

So I sent a note to another work friend in Max’s region. I told her how nice it had been to see her, how much I enjoyed meeting her family, asked what the story was with that cute guy Max, and promised to make time for cocktails during my next trip. In journalistic parlance, I buried the lead. And then I waited.

A few days later, I got a reply: The usual pleasantries — and the news that Max was to be married in a few weeks.

You’d think someone with whom I’d spent only a few hours would be easy to forget, but I found myself nursing a powerful work crush — and pondering what type of woman Max was about to marry. I imagined she was twenty-nine, a bottle blond, and had a beach body complete with fake breasts. Surely he deserved someone with more depth and experience, someone real and, well, more like me!