Secretly Crushed

NOTE: In case this is the first post you're reading on this blog (haha no one is reading this!!), this post is part of my Brookie Project, where I am allowing myself to read Rookie Magazine without the guilt that I had because I'm way older than the intended audience like I did when it was first introduced to the world in late 2011. I will read and respond to Rookie's themes month by month, because I think editor Tavi Gevinson did an excellent job at making the themes specific enough to capture a particular mood but broad enough to include the stories, journeys and work of a diverse group of teenage girls around the world. The weird thing, now that I am reading these past issues 10+ years later than they were published, is that most of these themes relate to my life not only as it was ten or fifteen years ago, but NOW, as I'm in my thirties. This project will let me step back in time, talk about today, and plan for the future. Today's post was inspired by Rookie, Issue 2: Secrets.

I've kept a lot of secrets in my life. A LOT. Some of these secrets have an element of potential embarrassment for me so I will hold them inside for now, but I am sure that time will make these secrets seem silly. Some of these secrets could have been revealed years ago and I would have survived because truthfully nobody really cares. 

A lot of these secrets are about crushes. Admitting I have a crush on someone has never been easy for me. I still hold that middle school mentality, even at my advanced age of 27, that people will be cruel and merciless about it once they find out and GASP MAYBE THEY WILL TELL THAT PERSON AND I WILL DIE.

The last major, intense crush I have felt was only known by a handful of people and I only told them because I couldn't hide it from them. He was a co-worker. I tended to cycle through crushes through a lot of my co-workers, mainly because of proximity. However, working with them made them go away as quickly as they came because I would notice their annoying habits, their caveman-like social views, or their conflict resolution styles. But this one, man, I tell you...he was different. The thing I noticed at first was that he always seemed to have a smile on his face when greeting me. The moments that he didn't, his face was filled with concentration and great intensity. In our limited interactions, he always seemed to take what I said seriously. He was handsome, in an almost very traditional way. He reminded me of Prince Eric. I initially tried to not like him, but as weeks went by and we started to talk more, I fell hard. 

I felt like he was perfect for me in so many ways. He was in college and I felt like I could have conversations about "deep stuff" (ugh, yes, I know), unlike some of the people there I worked with. As someone who had just finished college, I appreciated that. If he wasn't genuinely interested in what I had to say, he was great at pretending he was. I hadn't experienced that with many people, much less a dude. From the moment I discovered I liked him, I always tried to put myself around him while working. I would try to place myself near him in meetings so we'd have an excuse to talk. When we did talk, I would dwell on that conversation for all of the bus ride home, wondering what I could have done and said better.

I hated working retail in many ways, so our interactions were actually the only thing to look forward to. Those conversations, as brief as they were, held me together in so many ways. 

I kept my feelings a secret because, as I said, I'm basically 12 when it comes to admitting that I feel a certain type of way towards somebody, but also because he was a co-worker with a slightly higher position of power of me there. I also kept it to myself because I knew other girls there liked him too, because of course they did. I remember how I was counting money at the registers and my co-worker who was counting with me literally got on the floor and hid from him behind the counter because she saw him turn a corner towards us. She said it was because she thought she looked like crap. Truthfully, we all did after a long ass day at work, but I knew how she felt. I would see how other girls there flirted with him - and how he would flirt back! - and I would think I had no chance.

In the three or so years I worked with him, I would get to know him better. I would light up inside whenever I found out we were on the schedule together. If I knew ahead of time we would be working together, I would make sure I got extra ready, even if our interactions would be fleeting since we were in different departments. I would curl my hair, wear cuter clothes, make sure I had lipstick on. I absolutely could not look anything less than perfect. 

I remember one night, we both had a closing shift. Most of the lights turned off in the store generally about a half an hour after our doors closed. He always had a button down dress shirt on during work hours, but once the store closed that day, he took it off, revealing a tight, white undershirt. He had Levi's on that day, and he went to my area to wheel a z-rack out. He pushed the rack in front of me and I wanted to cry as he walked away, in the slight darkness. He was perfection. I wanted nothing more in that moment but to follow him around the store and stare at him.  

***

There was a price to keeping this crush a secret. By never saying a word about how much I liked him and how much of my heart was reserved for this thing that wasn't even a thing, I may have obtained useful information that would have ended my obsession with him much, much, earlier.

One of my co-workers, who I also would get to know a lot over the three years I was there, liked him AND relayed this message to him. Another co-worker (and her best friend) served as the middle-woman. Apparently, she found out Prince Eric was single and suggested that he and my other co-worker would look cute together. Her friend told me this and then I drunkenly admitted to the both of them that I thought he was cute as well. I wondered if I had made a mistake. I didn't want them to hate me. I wasn't worried so much about the humiliation of HIM finding out, but I did worry about them using this knowledge against me. In my head, even in my 20s, the world was still like Mean Girls. I did not want this to be a Regina/Cady/Aaron situation. I also did not want to break girl code, but HE WAS SO HOT. I really liked these girls and I saw them as friends and I valued their company immensely, but if there was ever a time where I had to choose, I would totally choose HIM. I felt like a shitty person for recognizing that in myself. 

It was through conversing about these ladies about him that I found out that he was very devout in his faith and very serious about going to church. I didn't care about that as much as I should have and I didn't really press them for more details, because I thought it would give away my sense of interest in him. If SHE cared about it, and I didn't, didn't I have the upper hand here? I wasn't anti-religious, and at the time, I had never been kissed nor had I never so much as held anyone's hand in a romantic way*. Wouldn't that be an attractive trait to someone who is presumably somewhat conservative? 

Let's just throw out all of my feminist beliefs and ideals for a crush, for the sake of what I want. 

I realized the extent of his faith when I overheard a conversation about gay rights that he had with a co-worker. His answer definitely reflected the beliefs of most Catholics. I vaguely considered myself Catholic but my parents never forced me to go to church or do the necessary initiation rituals other than being baptized and I kind of don't know what my relation is to Catholicism as of now. I only know that I don't really feel aligned with a lot of traditional Catholic beliefs, especially regarding social issues, so I was disheartened when I heard his true thoughts. I mistakenly thought his apparent close, friendly relationships with some of our gay co-workers meant he somehow wouldn't feel this way. I was crushed, but in a far different way.

I remember going home, analyzing what I heard on the bus ride home. I had spent days, weeks, months obsessing over him. I would write in my diary at night, detailing every interaction. I tried to invite myself to co-worker hangouts I knew he'd possibly be at. I screamed inside when he left his position, temporarily, making up plans to dramatically quit because I could not possibly bear to work without him. Sometimes, at night, I planned in my head how I would confess my feelings for him. Whenever I needed to distract myself, I'd start fantasizing about the perfect situation, the perfect time, the perfect moment that I kind of knew would never come. 

Now for sure I knew it would never come. We would never share the same, underlying fundamental beliefs, no matter how much we had in common.

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder. If I had just been honest from the start, if I didn't have any hang-ups about anyone knowing how I felt, would I have prevented this heartbreak? Would he have broken my heart earlier by rejecting me, allowing me to move on much more quickly? Would I have lived through the embarrassment of admitting that I liked him? 

I thought keeping my feelings secret would protect my heart, but it instead allowed me to live in this fantasy land where this guy was a prince, when in truth, he could have never been. 

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*we'll talk about this at some point. Not anytime soon though.