Changes

This past week has been rather eventful, a little stressful, but quite exciting. I had the interview midweek and immediately afterwards I wasn’t sure how it had gone. Some questions I felt I answered well, others I thought I could have answered more fully, and for a few I wasn’t sure my answers were very articulate.

They said they wanted to make a quick decision and would let me know one way or the other later that day, or the next. I received a call right at the end of the working day. I fully expected it to be a “thank you for coming to the interview, we decided someone else was more suitable” type call.

It wasn’t. They offered me the job, and asked me to decide whether to accept by the following day. I think I was probably in shock for the rest of the evening, and was slightly panicked about the extra responsibility the job entails.

I had already arranged to meet E and A and another friend for a drink and when I told them the news they were hugely excited for me and told me that I absolutely had to accept and that I can definitely do the job. They’re right on both counts: I can do the job, extra responsibility and all, and I would kick myself if I rejected the offer and found myself still stuck in my current job and going nowhere in a year’s time.

I’m now negotiating my notice period and will need to find somewhere to live in the new city. The next couple of months are going to be very busy and probably quite stressful, but I am fine with that because the flipside is that some of the change I need is coming sooner than I ever expected.

As for Chatty Guy, there is nothing much to say. He’s been his usual self and I’ve been too preoccupied with interview thoughts to try any flirting. He joined a few of us for drinks Friday night, which was fun, but it did just feel like drinks with friends. I’m really not sure there is anything there, from his side anyway. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to keep blogging about him, especially if it’s the same “I tried flirting, nothing happened” scenarios each time. I suspect it might just send me into over-analysis mode, which is the last thing I want or need.

Complete novice

I’m not sure if my giving I’m-interested-in-you signs to Chatty Guy is going that well. I sent a global email about Secret Santa presents to a few people during the week, and he replied (the only one to do so) in a slightly cheeky way asking if I could get his gift for him. A few emails then went back and forth between us, friendly and jokey, but not really flirty.

Then the other evening I was checking a couple of messages on a social networking site and noticed that he was logged in too. I spent a while wondering whether to make some sort of contact, and finally plucked up the courage to start a chat with him. I then spent an anxious couple of minutes staring at the screen waiting for him to reply, and thinking that maybe I’d scared him off. He did reply though and we chatted for a bit. Again, nothing particularly flirty, but I guess at least I managed to initiate the chat, he didn’t ignore me and it did last for longer than one message each.

I feel like such a novice at all of this. Other women seem to be naturally able to flirt with men they like or to somehow let them know they’re interested, while I’m spending ages trying to work out what I should do and how I should act, and then attempting to put that into practice.

Should it just come naturally? Should I just know how to show a guy I’m interested? Will I get better at it with experience? Or are all those experienced flirty women actually working very hard to do and say the right things and underneath it all feeling exactly the same as me?

I’ve actually searched the internet for tips on how to show someone I like them, but there is a part of me that feels that doing things such as deliberately amending your body language because a website suggested it is a little false. Although obviously not doing such things hasn’t got me anywhere so far, so maybe I need to give it a go.

On a completely different note I had a notification from the social networking site which was amusing in a perverse kind of way. An old schoolfriend of mine, who I haven’t seen for at least 16 years, answered a question about me in a quiz.

The question was “Do you think [my full name] is still a virgin?”

Her answer was no.

If only.

Things on my mind

A few things have happened so far this week, some good, some not so, which have left me a little pre-occupied.

The good is that I have an interview for a job I applied for a couple of weeks ago! It’s the same sort of job as my current one, but is effectively a promotion, which means that while it wouldn’t be too much out of my comfort zone, it would be more challenging and give me more responsibility. It’s also in a different town, so all in all it would be at least some of the change I’ve been wanting.

As I think I said before it’s not my dream job, and I’m not sure how much I really want it, but it is a job I could do and would probably be happy doing and I will try to prepare well for the interview. If nothing else it will be good interview practice and will give me an idea of how my interview technique is, as it’s been a while since I had one. It was also a boost to my confidence to know that my skills and experience are good enough to get me an interview. I am quite nervous already (that feeling started as soon as I read the email), but hope that will subside.

The not so good is a couple of things. My friend T is not doing too well at the moment. It seems the older guy from her work who she hoped she might start a relationship with has been treating her badly, and she is feeling quite depressed. I would love to be able to do something to make her feel better, but at the moment all I can really do is be there for her as and when she needs me.

The other not so good is a family problem which I don’t want to go into too much detail about. I hope it will work itself out, but at the moment I’m a little pessimistic.

I have seen Chatty Guy a couple of times. He was his usual talkative, teasing self, but did mention an attractive woman he briefly spoke to on his way home from the Christmas dinner. If he was interested in me in any way surely he wouldn’t be telling me about finding other women attractive? I haven’t managed to try any interested-in-him signs yet. Actually I’m not too sure what I can do in front of my colleagues. Maybe I’ll try a little emailing?

Sort of, kind of, maybe...

As I said in my last post I haven’t admitted it to anyone, not even really to myself, that there’s someone I think I might sort of like. I think Ecrivain’s comment about how not acknowledging something makes it easier to deal with was spot on.

In this situation I think that I’ve been trying to ignore what I might be feeling, because then I can just carry on treating him as a friendly colleague, and I don't have to worry about dealing with the myriad of stresses that go with liking someone, such as hiding my feelings for fear of making a fool out of myself. I'm not sure quite how it works, because after all the feelings are still there even if you ignore them, but it does seem to, to a certain extent at least.

Anyway, the guy in question is G, the one from work who regularly wanders into my office to chat (and I think I’ll nickname him Chatty Guy as it seems more suitable to his personality than just G). He’s worked within my department for a couple of years, but it’s only really since earlier this year that he’s been visiting my office to chat. I’ve always thought he was a fairly good looking guy, and the more he’s chatted to me, the more I’ve thought I quite like his personality too. There’s no spectacular fireworks going on, but we chat and joke and get on (I don’t really expect or want fireworks anyway. None of my friends who are in happy relationships have had that so I don’t feel it’s at all essential).

When I first starting realising the possibility that I might like him a couple of months ago, I confess I did spent a short amount of time thinking about whether he might be interested in me and came up with a mental list of reasons to think he is and reasons to think he isn’t.

The reasons to think he is were:

- He visits my office regularly to chat to me, and specifically me
- He often stays for so long that even though I like talking to him I start thinking he should go in case my colleagues think he’s taking up too much of my time
- He jokes around with me and teases me a fair bit. A lot actually.

The reasons to think he’s not were:

- He tends to talk about himself and things he’s up to, rather than asking about me and my life (I have read that some men talk at length about themselves if they’re nervous speaking to a woman but the pessimist in me doesn’t really believe that)
- He jokes around with a lot of people, and teases his female friends on a social networking site
- He’s turned down invites from me to go out for a drink/meal with me and a couple of other colleagues (although he has come along to a couple of group things which I'd forgotten all about when I said I'd never seen him outside work). If he was interested wouldn’t he take every opportunity to spend time with me?
- He mentions that other women are “hot” to me and to other men in front of me
- He hasn’t asked me out...

On balance I concluded he wasn’t interested and stuck to not admitting how I thought I might feel. It seemed to work and I’ve carried on chatting to him since in a friendly way, without feeling any stress and without engaging in any over analysis of his behaviour.

It was the department’s Christmas dinner the other evening. He was there and nothing happened to change what I’d already decided. I had hoped that I would get chance to chat to him, outside of the office, and that I might be able to gauge whether I’d reached the right conclusion, but the opportunity never arose. There were some group conversations, but I didn’t get to speak to him one on one.

He did carry on with the teasing. And I did get hold of his mobile phone number, given to me by one of our other colleagues so I could check his whereabouts. The evening itself was quite pleasant but I did wake up the following morning feeling just a little disappointed.

I’m not entirely sure what, if anything, to do next. I could just carry on ignoring how I might feel so I don’t have to deal with it, especially as I don’t think there’s any chance with him. I could admit it properly to myself and attempt to give him some of my far too subtle I’m-interested-in-you signs (which probably need to be a little less subtle) and see if I get any back. Or I could mention it to my friend E, as she knows both of us and might be able to give an objective opinion on his interest or lack of it.

A (very) short dating history, part 2

The second (and last) date I went on was thankfully much less eventful than the one with Stalker Guy. He was another one from the dating agency. I can’t actually remember who contacted who, but we agreed to meet in a large town nearby, during the day. I travelled by train and met him at the railway station. I wasn’t taking any chances that we might end up alone together, or that he might find out where I lived.

We recognised each other at the station then made our way to the centre of town. We stopped for a while in a coffee shop, and then walked in the sun for a while. We talked and there weren’t too many awkward silences, but I felt no spark and wasn’t particularly feeling that I wanted to get to know him better.

And one thing he talked about made me feel even more that he wasn’t for me. He mentioned that he enjoyed playing computer games, which I have no problem with. I admit I’m a bit of a Luddite when it comes to modern technology, and I’ve never actually owned a games console, but I have friends who do and I find it fun to spend the odd hour or two playing on a Wii or Playstation with them.

Trouble is this guy wasn’t talking about sociable, fun evenings with friends. He was talking about sitting at home for days on end, alone, playing one particular game for most of his waking hours. It sounded as if he spent most of his days off from work in that way.

I just couldn’t see myself dating someone who spent his free time doing that. I may not have the most exciting of social lives, and I’m not the extroverted type who has to be out and seeing people every evening, but I do like to get out of the house and talk to other human beings once in a while, maybe go for a drink, have dinner. I did wonder if I was maybe being too quick to judge, and that maybe he would reduce the gaming if he started dating, but it wasn’t as if I’d started out thinking he was wonderful and then been put off by the gaming. It was just something else to add to the cons list.

After a couple of hours we made our way back to the station, with me getting more nervous the nearer we got about whether he might try to kiss me. He didn’t. I breathed a sigh of relief. We said goodbye and vaguely said we’d contact each other, but neither of us did. So, an unsuccessful date, but not horrible, or creepy, or scary.

I had a couple of other phone calls from dating agency men, but had virtually nothing in common with them (I have no idea what they matched us on). For the rest of the year I was sent details of my matches but I just didn’t feel confident enough to contact any of them – I think I’d used up all my confidence stores on the first two. Plus I was so disappointed in the ones I’d met or spoken to so far that I was pretty pessimistic about meeting anyone better.

Since then there have been a couple of guys I’ve been interested in. One, I’ve mentioned a few times already, the other was a previous work colleague (which seems to be the only place I meet men I’m attracted to) and looking back although I found him attractive I don’t think that ultimately I was that into him in other ways.

And currently? There is someone that I think I might sort of like. I haven’t mentioned it to any of my friends, and I haven’t really admitted it to myself yet, because I’m not completely sure of how I feel. Also I’m fairly convinced already that he’s not interested, so I don’t know whether there is much point admitting it...

Signals? What signals?

Okay, so the first thing that I’ve been thinking about recently is how bad I am at reading signals that mean a man might be interested. I just can’t tell when someone might be attracted to me. I hear other women mention that a guy (who hasn’t asked them out) likes them and I don’t have a clue how they know (if anyone out there has the answer please do tell).

My cluelessness in this area has often resulted in me finding myself in one of two situations: the first is that if I like someone I spend many, many hours analysing every little thing he says and does, trying to work out if any of them are “signals” that he likes me.

The second is that if I’m not interested in someone and he says or does something which possibly, tenuously, if the planets were aligned in exactly the right way and there was a blue moon, might be a signal, I tend to worry that he is most definitely interested and start panicking a little about how to ensure he doesn’t get the wrong idea and try something.

The first situation I think I am unlikely to find myself in again after the whole “A” saga. I hope that I’ve learned not to waste that much time and energy on analysing and wondering again. A few weeks or a month or two maybe, to give me time to try to give my own signals and him time to get over any lack of confidence and to get round to asking me out, but a year? Never again, I hope.

The second situation is one which, whenever I find myself in it, makes me feel as if I haven’t progressed much beyond my teens. I have a work colleague who I am in exactly that situation with at the moment. He hasn’t done much at all. He used a social networking site to virtually “smile” at me, in secret, so none of my other friends could see, and he replied to a couple of emails I sent to the whole department about Christmas-related things in a slightly too friendly sort of way, considering we’re not friends (or so it seemed to me).

I’m now worried that he’s interested and that he might try to do something radical like ask me out or something. Of course that leads to the worry that I wouldn’t know how to handle that. How do you turn someone down without hurting their feelings?

I am well aware that I am putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with 105 here, and that I’m jumping to conclusions that aren’t actually there. In all probability he's just being friendly. Really, at my age I should have learnt to be a little more rational, and I certainly should have got past panicking because I suspect someone might like me.

Maybe it’s another just another thing I do because it’s “safe”, similar to liking unavailable men, which Ecrivain talked about in this post. Maybe I don’t see the signals from the men I’m interested in because if I don’t realise they like me it’s not going to go anywhere. And maybe I notice very minor signals (or see signals where there aren’t really any) from men I’m not interested in because even if I think they like me it’s not going to go anywhere.

A surprisingly short post

Work has been a little busy this past week and I’ve just spent a couple of days visiting a friend, which has meant that I haven’t had much chance to write, and I’ve been surprised to find that I’ve missed it.

When I started this I wasn’t sure how it would go, how easy or difficult I would find writing posts, whether I would be able to keep it up or whether I would want to keep it up. I don’t consider myself to be a natural writer: I wrote essays for my degree and in pre-email days I used to write lengthy letters to friends, but I’m not someone who has devoted time to writing for myself, outside of work or study.

This past week though, away from the computer, I have had a few things I’ve been thinking about which I have found myself wanting to write about. I suspect it’s the therapeutic side of things that I’ve missed. I wasn’t entirely convinced that writing a blog could actually provide that (although I hoped it could of course), but I think it does, for me at least.

And I think that I’m finding writing out fears, stories, feelings, facts that hardly anyone else knows, for potentially all the world to read (even if only a handful of people actually do) quite liberating. That may be why a lot of my posts so far have been quite long...

Anyway, time is still short, so the things I've had on my mind will have to wait a couple more days.