Okay, so I was feeling drained emotionally at the end of the (work) day and therefore lost all inhibition and went for it (the chocolate) full board. Why, you ask, was I feeling this way? Well, for starters, as I mentioned in my last post (if you happened to pave your way through all the rambling), I just found out recently this guy I have been crushin' on really bad is married. Yup, not purely taken, but married, as in off the market, permanently. How's that for a cold dose of reality? At least I had the weekend to soak in that realization. Then of course, came the surrendering to caffeine. Okay, so I overheard him speaking today and caught a very minor glimpse of him, which kind of set off a trail of unexpected emotions. Over it much? The fact that I felt myself shaking made me realize.. not quite. Couple that with the fact that I didn't converse with any of my coworkers today (save for a few minor pleasantries in passing), and my boss pretty much talked to everyone but me, and I was left feeling left out, and like I was in solitary confinement (without of course the benefit of not being surrounded on each side by people who don't care to communicate with me). It makes me sad thinking about it. Every day at work it's the same in that regard. The lack of human contact spurs in depth analysis, as if there were a way to 'think' myself out of this situation and corresponding feelings of rejection.
You see, we have this new office set up where I sit in the far corner of a cubicle division, composed of four separate cubes. I am flanked on either side by two male coworkers. These two guys are friends with one another. They hang out and go places together like Wawa and sometimes walk over to each other's cubes to chat, yet they never initiate conversation with me. No 'hi,' 'bye,' nothing. Hell, I'm lucky if I get a 'God Bless You' when I sneeze. I truly made an effort to reach out to the guy sitting nearest me by retrieving some of his faxes and placing them on his desk for the first week or so in this new office set up, yet he barely acknowledged me in doing so; thus, I gave up on that. I've also said 'goodnight' and 'have a good weekend,' yet the last time I said this, he sounded perturbed, so it's made me stop making an effort in that regard also. The thing is, I enjoy a sense of quiet. However, in this environment, there's something so awkward and uncomfortable about it, because I sit so close to these two people, yet they hardly say a word to me, and of course I internalize it and it sets of a flurry of negative self-deprecating thoughts. It makes me feel like an outcast, like I did something wrong, even though logically, I know I can't be blamed for their keeping mum and choosing to exclude me from their interactions. It doesn't make me feel any less isolated knowing this, though.
Some days it feels like I'm invisible, like I'm a fly on the wall that everyone would prefer to swat away. Today, I tried not to let it get to me by telling myself that my shyness is a positive and if they can't appreciate me for me, it's their loss. With that said, I can't shake this constant feeling of isolation. There is one guy, who doesn't sit close to me, but rather on the other end of the room, who will occasionally initiate conversation with me, and it's like this small beam of light in the darkness that I can't help but admire and savor, while it lasts. It's like he perceives me feeling left out and tries to offer some sense of connection. For that, I feel grateful. As for the people who pass in the hall who might offer what seems on the surface to be a platitude, to me, it means so much more.
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