I fall in love too easily...
After 300 articles, it's not hard to gather that I have a habit for having crushes on guys that usually lead nowhere. Well, actually, my crushes generally end up with the two of us becoming good friends, but nothing more. What makes me the buddy girl? After many years of experience, I know that its more due to my own reticence than a disinterest from them. I have a bad habit of just letting crushes die instead of proactively showing how much I care.
When I first started writing on JU, I was in love with a guy who has now grown into a man. He's marrying a really nice girl, and I am sincerely happy for the two of them. I'm invited to their September wedding, and have already arranged the time off to go. Nothing went wrong between the two of us. We still share a love of books, pool games, and beer and bourbon. We never had a falling out, but we did go different ways, after awhile. I took a nightshift job that was really the end of a time where we were hanging out together on a weekly basis, and he met someone new.
I never came out and told him that I had a crush on him, because by the time I got to know him, it was over. He didn't disappoint me in any way, but the more I knew him, the more I realized that we weren't really suited for each other romantically. He still slings an arm around me while we stand around in a crowded pub, and we both talk non-stop for hours if we haven't seen each other for more than a month. And it was during one of those nights were we bumped into each other at a favourite haunt when he told me he proposed to his then-girlfriend. I was delighted when he told me how surprised that he was when he asked her to marry him. He was never anti-marriage, but he was never all gung-ho for it either. It was a wonderful evening, and since then, I've had several opportunities to learn why he was so happy. His wife-to-be is spectacular and suits him to a T. She and I get along well, and while I don't think I'd ever tell her I was once all starry-eyed about him, she's the kind of girl who would think it was a great thing, and be proud of him for it.
I fell for another guy at work, and we are buddies, too. We were best friends for awhile, but things have calmed down. We don't see much of each anymore because of our busy work schedules, but when we hang out, I am reminded what attracted me to him in the first place. However, that crush has slowly burnt out, and I once again find myself in a similar position. Sort of.
This crush may not be so one-sided.
I enquired after him one night, to a friend who works in a bar. It was a casual aside that may have gotten back to him, because now, it seems that he's everywhere that I am. It's not so bad at all. We have friends in common, we always have, but now it seems that he stops by to talk to them when they're with me, where he would have once just waved and passed by. He works in the same building as I do, but his team is generally holed up in a different area than where the consultants sit. (CSR's have the main flooring areas, techs have their own large room.) But now, I look up sometimes and he's nearby, sometimes just looking out the window where I sit, and he smiles quickly at me once I've noticed him, then leaves.
It's different that I see him as a man, when I generally fall for guys. Any woman knows the difference, and I find myself able to call myself that now, when before, I was just a girl. I'm determined not to run away this time, determined to meet every smile, and glance. Something's got to change, and I'm willing to make an effort.