Happy Hour

At my job's happy-hour gathering at a sports bar last night, I sat at the far end of the table with my roommate M, one of my co-workers, and her boyfriend. My co-worker, as my boss has observed before, is my complete opposite. She's very girly, very extroverted, very conversational. I have to admit that when I first met her, I was a little off-put by her "ditziness" so to speak, but over time I've grown fond of her exuberance.

I forget what we were talking about, but at some point she told me that she had been trying to figure out if I was dating XY, one of our co-workers. I don't remember my exact reaction, but it was probably some graceless blurting of "HUH?" She said she even asked her supervisor to "get the scoop," and now I'm wondering how far this rumor has traveled up the ladder.

The truth is though, it has crossed my mind about whether or not people have looked at me and XY and assumed we were something. XY and I started work at the same time, so we suffered through the first week of training together and I would say we got along pretty well right from the start. I get the feeling that people at work have started to assume that I know XY the best--when someone asked where XY was this week, my boss answered that he was on vacation, but then looked at me as if I was supposed to confirm this.

There are different ways to fall. Sometimes, you fall quickly and violently--descent into a madness that consumes your every waking moment. Sometimes you fall so slowly and gradually that when you realize what's happened, you're surprised you didn't pick up on it earlier. And sometimes, you catch yourself losing your balance, but you never truly let yourself go.

I like XY, but I don't think I like XY. When people ask the whole "what qualities do you like blah blah" conversation, I'll toss out attributes that I like, with the caveat that I don't put much stock in having criteria because I tend to break my own rules anyway. In XY's case, there are a lot of things I do like about him. He's very polite and easy to joke around with. But when he mentioned he had a girlfriend, I felt absolutely nothing.

In the end, I laughed off my surprise and had to break the news to my co-worker that no, XY and I were not dating, and that XY was already seeing someone. I almost wanted to ask her what made her jump to that conclusion, but by that point I decided I didn't need to know the answer.