Let's call the past two weeks a lesson in expectation management.
Two lunches (both his initiatives) one joined by colleagues, one on a park bench on our own. A handful of after-work, work-related events (consisting of but not limited to) a farewell happy hour, a softball game, and a birthday gathering. Almost nightly gchat sessions, usually ending with my call for bedtime. Nary a longish phone call (one of those when you can tell the face of the person on the other line mirrors your own with its silly grin). One iPhone photo email of Velveeta cheese in the refrigerator section (long story) from him; one (jokingly!) snippy email in response to his lack of response to an offering of homemade banana bread from me.
I'm disappointed, but I completely understand where he's coming from. The hopeless romantic in me needs the overtures, but the pragmatist knows to give him his space. Fortunately for both of us, the latter has won out. I don't make excuses to visit him at his building; I don't send him a barrage of texts; I don't hang on him in front of people. But when I give him a piece of homemade banana bread at work on the sly, and he says nothing for more than 24 hours, it stings a bit. So what if it was slightly underdone?
He responded, and it was characteristically sweet. Still, I can't help but want to regress.
Wasn't it so much easier when a checked box meant certainty?
2 comments:
Oh girl... while nothing is ever "easy" it shouldn't be so hard, either.
I used to think it shouldn't be so hard.. but the human heart is so fagile and so complex. Hang in there.
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