Single Girl Dating Diaries: Ingrid at the Office

By Ingrid on September 24th, 2009

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Another mind-clearing day at the data farm. Ahhh. Some people hate their jobs, but I find my job the only aspect of my life I have any control over.  It’s stifling. The walls are beige, the carpet is gray, but the responsibilities are easily dealt with.  There’s something nice about finding a semi-dead-end job that doesn’t make you tear your hair out at night.  you don’t leave frazzled, you don’t take the work home with you.  In some strange ways, work is a paradise for me.

Until this morning.

Why is *HIS* cube suddenly two cubes down from *MY* cube?

I backtrack a few steps and look into the work space.  Sitting on the desk is one box, and on that box, in his own boyishly bad printing are his initials (RMD) in dark blue Sharpie marker.  Instantly my heart starts pounding somewhere near my uvula.  I realize what it looks like that I’m standing in the mini-doorway of his cube, staring at a box of his office possessions.  I hoof it back to my desk and sit down, my face flushed.  I log into my work computer and start a mad whirlwind of IMs across the office gossip stratosphere.

Why is he sitting there all of a sudden? Something to do about Finance and Legal needing to be closer to each other.
When did this happen? When you were out of the office last Friday…
Why two desks up from ME?

WHY, DO YOU LIKE HIM?

Merde.  Stop the IMs and pull back. Insist it’s just professional curiosity.

A few months ago, I had the random occasion to email him even though we are on separate teams for the same corporate behemoth. At that time, he was in the Siberia of the office, far northeast corner.  I contacted him about something innocuous relating to a project a few different teams were collaborating on and must have slipped a very light reference to the Marx Brothers somewhere in the depths of the workspeak and suddenly, presto, “Hello! I must be going…” we had instant rapport.  That email chain became longer and longer, a symphony of sarcasm and back and forth of carefully worded jokes, until 5:30 pm or so when he stopped writing back.

How quickly the fire burns and it is put out!
Yes, I am being THIS dramatic!

This guy is perfect. I’ve never actually LOL-ed while typing the words LOL. I really meant it. Laughter is one hell of an aphrodisiac.

Cynthia in HR pointed him out to me once while we were outside taking a surreptitious smoke break. “That’s him.”  I peered around the concrete column and saw a man in his still-youngish early 40s, softly tousled chestnut brown hair, an easy-going smile, and eyes that crinkled a little at the corners.  Not bad, considering this is a usually dull khaki-pants kind of place.  Suddenly, his laughter filled the courtyard and I felt gushy. I wanted to be the one making him laugh.

“Who’d you think he’s talking to?”
“Hmm. Probably his wife.”

Lurch of the stomach.

“I think they have a baby, a little girl. He’s crazy about her.”

I had to restrain myself from saying back, “Oh, so he’s a DILF!”  Thankfully, I said nothing, because THAT is a dead giveaway.

Back to my cube, remember, now two cubes up from his, a happily married man with a baby girl with a top notch sense of humor and a love of black and white classic screwball comedy classics…who flirted with me.  Wait, did he flirt with me?  Does email flirting even count?  It’s so harmless and doesn’t even require human contact, and yet…it’s the best human contact I’ve had in a while.

I get up to refill my cup and realize that we’ll be sharing not just a coffee station, but a network printer and even a paper shredder.  3 separate chances to see him, 3 death-defying chances to flirt with him, make him stop thinking about his blissful home life.  I make a mental note to start wearing jauntier work outfits, put perfume on, wear lip gloss, stop looking like a dishrag with a day job.

Wait, am I really gonna flirt with this guy? He’s MARRIED.

I won’t answer that – because maybe you wouldn’t like me anymore.