Hey Jealousy

I’m really hoping he’s being genuine because I can already tell he isn’t the kind of guy a girl gets a simple crush on. He’s the kind of guy you fall hard for, and the thought of that terrifies me. I don’t really want to fall hard for anyone at all, especially someone who’s only making an effort because he thinks I’m easy. I also don’t want to fall for someone who has already branded himself hopeless. But I’m curious. So curious.

Colleen Hoover
Hopeless

It was Christmas Eve, almost exactly a year after the night I first felt that lightning bolt of attraction to my Work Bestie when he called me out of the blue. Almost as suddenly as we’d stopped being in each other’s lives, we were back. He’d call for no particular reason, and we’d talk like we used to. 

I talked to him parked in my car with groceries melting behind me. He talked to me on speakerphone while staying up late working on a project for class. One night, I sat at the base of a playground slide and laid back so I could see stars while we talked. I got so lost in that moment that years later, I found myself going by that park and thinking of the night we’d hung out there. Then, halfway through my private reminiscence, I remembered that he’d never been to that park. It was just a phone call. I remember it like he was lying beside me when we talked.  It seemed like we talked about everything in the upcoming months, but still, he didn’t tell me he was single.

Long ago, when I thought I would never want anything more than friendship, I explained to the Work Bestie that he had no genitals. In my defense, he had been flirting with me; this seemed like my best protection at the time. I mean, maybe he did have genitalia, maybe he didn’t, it’s just a thing I do in my head. Not that genitals have ever been particularly attractive to me, but it’s symbolic. It keeps me within my own boundaries to assume that all people in relationships are built like Ken or Barbie underneath their clothes. Sex and romance are intertwined for me, and taking one off the table helps to remind me that the other is not an option. This is how I told him that I don’t consider him a threat, though in retrospect, blurting out a bizarre panicked version of, “you don’t scare me,” might be a solid sign that someone scares me.

After legally separating from my ex-husband, my daughter and I shared a bedroom at my friend’s house. This arrangement gave me enough security in my custody of the kids to finally move out after years of being broken up under the same roof. It did not give me much privacy, though. Often, I would go out to my car parked in front of the house to take calls so as not to disrupt anyone else in the crowded house.

It was one of those nights, talking on the phone in my parked car, when the Work Bestie told me he had a penis. It was the perfect inside joke to tell me he was single. He had me laughing until tears rolled down my cheeks. I wanted to be salty with him for going so long without telling me, but he’s impossible to stay upset with. I didn’t need to know the details, such as they were, but he was single. He wasn’t making any moves, it was so much better than that. He was talking to me about ALL the things, and we were friends again.

Historically, I’ve been inclined to give my romantic interests plenty of room to show me who they are. I’d rather be disappointed early on than heartbroken later. There’s an insecurity in me regarding the Work Bestie that fosters a jealousy I don’t like in myself.  I’m not usually possessive, but he has been the only exception in so many ways, not all of them good. 

We were somewhere in that friendship revisited when another colleague mentioned his attractiveness as if she might have had intentions in that direction. In response, I set her up with a ridiculously good-looking male friend (pictured at the top of the post, in case you don’t know how ridiculous I’m talking about).

I’m fortunately not attracted to him. I can see he’s beautiful, but there’s no pull. He’s like a brother to me. Also, I knew he liked her. It seemed like benevolent sabotage, setting up two attractive people I wasn’t interested in to keep one of them away from the person I was interested in. As far as I know, their date was pleasant, but not the sort that leads to a second. That wasn’t the part that was important to me, anyway.

I’m unsure how far I would have gone to keep other women from flirting with the Work Bestie. I’m not like this, except for when I am, I guess. Jealousy seems so pointless. If I have to be all petty and suspicious to keep a relationship, is that really a relationship I even want? I wasn’t even rightfully in a position to keep him from seeing other people. I was still on the fence about whether or not I wanted to risk weirding the friendship by doing anything with him myself. Maybe I cared who he dated, maybe I didn’t. I wasn’t sure.

I definitely wasn’t okay with him seeing anybody else at our work, though. His hugs and that campus were the closest thing I had to a sanctuary, to a place where I felt safe and centered and like nothing could hurt me. I really wasn’t sure how I would feel about him dating someone else, but if it weren’t good, I would need our campus to be a place of comfort, not where he was holding someone else’s hand.

I know there’s no form
And no labels to put on
To this thing we keep
And dip into when we need
And I don’t have the right
To ask where you go at night
But the waves hit my head
To think someone’s in your bed
I get a little bit Genghis Khan
I don’t want you to get it on
With nobody else but me

Miike Snow
Genghis Khan