Failure to blossom

 I had a coworker who started working at my job at the beginning of the year. He seemed nice enough, and he seemed competent at his work - an asset, not a liability. Our team was small, and if you could bring more knowledge than your hired position required, you were extra valuable.

I got to know him more and more during a test. We were testing a ventilator, and it was fairly simple to operate, but with pandemic rules, making sure we had enough people scheduled to run tests could be a challenge. He wasn't officially part of our test team, but he was required to be on our site every day, so he recorded data and monitored any faults that popped up.

We bonded over things we had in common. His car was an updated version of a car I had for 13 years. The body was even the same vivid pearlescent metallic light blue. His parents were white and black, but the reverse of mine - his mother was black and his father was white, and he made sure to point out that when they had married, interracial marriage was still illegal in 20 states.We were both former military, and both of us seemed to develop a mutual appreciation for each other as time went on.

As we became more familiar with each other, gifts would appear on my desk. San Pellegrino sparkling seltzer, in matte metallic cans, in varying flavors. Izze soda cans. This progressed to bowls of fruit - cherries and grapes and berries, when they were in season. I would snap photos and brag to friends. Look at what C brought me!

When I later shared the photos of these offerings with my sister, she commented that something in me was compelled to document this. Maybe because, after two decades with someone who didn't do this for me (and in fact, it felt like he often took more than what was fair), I needed evidence that there were men who were thoughtful, and generous, and knew how to rinse and prepare bowls of fruit for other people. I know, basic shit, but the bar can go very low if you forget what that looks like.

We continued like this, with offerings. He sometimes brought in larger fruit, which he would cut up and share with the entire team. I thought this was especially gracious, a version of breaking bread. C brought pineapple, watermelon and cantaloupe. He loved cherries, and a few times if I found some at a good price, I'd bring them in, and leave them in the break room refrigerator, for everyone, but really, for C.

I liked seeing his car parked at the test site when I would pull up to the gate. I liked the days when we would do outdoor work. I didn't like when we would take a break and he would send me inside. I didn't really like the nickname he'd come up with, "Lady G." I didn't like when he acted like I was doing anyone a favor, doing that kind of work. It was part of my job, and I had accepted the position knowing there would be manual labor, with sweat and dirt involved. As long as I wore the right clothes and could shower at the end of the day, what was the big deal? I was getting a very nice salary for a break from sitting behind the desk. I didn't like feeling singled out because I was the only woman out there.

C found a new job in August. I was disappointed for our team, because we needed him, but also happy that his commute would be much better, and that he'd gotten a raise. Before he left, he said he wanted to talk to me, but in person. If you're an overthinker, you already know it's terrible when someone reveals that they want to talk, but you have to wait, and they give no indication about what will be discussed. So your mind develops a hundred imaginary scenarios while you wait for the real one.

We talked on a Monday. "I wanted to stay in touch after I leave. I have cookouts, and I'd like to invite you over for those. And your husband, of course," he added, ensuring that I knew there was no disrespect. I was separated, but I wasn't sure if he knew that. He would joke and flirt, like the time when he saw me I cleaning the front door of the large trailer building, where we worked. "I wish you weren't married!" He'd said. 

I treated him to lunch at a local Caribbean place as a farewell. I drove, and we joked a little, sitting across the table from each other. Away from work, I shared that I was separated from my husband. Well, he said, smiling, "Then you and the girls are invited to the cookout." I laughed.

I received a barrage of parting gifts as he made his way out of the building for the last time. Silver dollars, a metal tool to prevent having to touch icky, germy things when you're out in public. Hand soap and hand sanitizer from Bath and Body works. He even gave me a handicap placard for my car, which expired in 2029, and that I knew I would never use (I gave it back, and sensed he felt hurt or rejected that I could refuse such a valuable gift. I will not take a parking spot someone else might actually need). I left a small gift bag with my favorite things from Trader Joe's. I hope you like them, I'd said. "Whatever you like, I like," he replied. It seems like a sweet thing to say, but it felt completely off.

After he left, we went out a few times. I wasn't attracted, but thought he was nice enough, and maybe there would be a slow build to something warmer. If not, the friendship would be good, too, not in a consolation prize way, but because I didn't seem to have luck with male friends. C certainly seemed open to it.

The first time we went out, I chose a restaurant at what felt like a middle meeting point. Coal fire pizza. We sat outside, under the harsh lighting of the the strip mall walkway, and ate and talked. He wanted to walk around afterwards, so we drove to a nearby outdoor shopping area, which had a nice path around a small manmade lake. That became our place. We went there two more times, to walk after dinner. The other times we went out, I met him closer to the city, and finally, for lunch near his new job, on Veterans Day.

We primarily stayed in touch by messaging. He didn't have an iPhone, so the messages I sent were glaring green. His claim was that he didn't like iPhones because he didn't want a phone smarter than he was, but that's a strange thing to say - aren't all of these devices smarter than we are by now? He certainly wasn't choosing an old flip phone to stay in touch. I found some of his claims, even joking, to be weird, or nonsensical, or dare I say it, bold-faced lies. He said he didn't know if someone could have a Top Secret clearance if they'd had a DUI. I said I didn't know. Then he said, "I have a Top Secret clearance and I had a DUI." I said, "So you do know." Whether he was bragging about his clearance, or his DUI, I don't know. I threw that red flag into the pile with the others I'd seen.

We talked on the phone a handful of times. He shared that he had feelings for me, but didn't know what to do with that. I said, "You don't have to do anything." We are so often fooled into thinking we have to act right away, DO something, urgently! Shoot your shot! Now or never! The truth is, you don't. Sometimes it's okay to simmer. Sometimes doing nothing is okay. Sometimes the issue solves itself if you just leave it alone.

He tried to get to know me by asking questions. "Have you ever done this, have you ever done that." I said no often, and felt like an unadventurous sheltered loser. He tried to persuade me to agree to swimming lessons with him. I am not a strong swimmer, but I can swim. I am not comfortable in deep water; I have this need to know that I can drop a leg and touch the bottom with my foot. I mentioned that I wanted to buy a folding kayak, so I could use it at a nearby lake, but also store it at home without it taking up too much space. "My sister has kayaks, I can get one for you." With limited storage and no way to carry a traditional kayak in my car, I refused the offer, and thought, did you listen to me at all?

He was always offering things. A fire pit. A grill. A TV. An inversion table. I suspect men that do this don't feel they have anything real to offer from themselves, so they show off by upping their currency with what material comforts they can provide. My refusals didn't mean he didn't try. Every time we went out, he arrived with offerings. Coins, crystals, shirts, washable playing cards from Dubai, gold plated earrings, to name a few. I would pull things from the gift bag like a magician who didn't know what was coming out of the hat. None of the gifts seemed personal; it seemed he was decluttering and also giving me things he knew were expensive, but it all felt aimless. He gave me a necklace that was too expensive for the level of our limited relationship. I googled, and saw that it was $250. I made the error of saying I liked it in a different color combination and would it be okay if we exchanged it? I braced myself for the lecture that I was ungrateful, or for an angry response, but he was nice about it. We returned one necklace as he ordered the one I liked better.

When we messaged, I noticed a pattern. When it seemed that our conversation was veering towards conflict, he would abruptly tell me good night, and that was the end of that. The first time, I brought up a high school soccer game in which my daughter's team beat the other school 10-0. Not only that, but these goals were scored in the first half. The game ended there, due to lightning. When he responded "That's great!" I tried to explain why it wasn't great, how it was a display of the economic disparity. That the girls on my daughter's team also played soccer for club teams, which cost thousands of dollars a year in dues and travel. In certain schools, you have to be at that level in order to make the varsity team, and at this opposing school, they clearly were not. I shared my annoyance that I was aware of this, but also participating in contributing to the problem.

Instead of acknowledging what I was saying, I was told that I couldn't be the "world's hall monitor." "That's the way of the world, bae" he'd say, which caused me to roll my eyes. The terms of endearment irked me. They were interchangeable, impersonal, and not a thing that someone who *gets* me would use. I'm not a dear, sweetie, or babe.  Another time, I was told to ask him questions because he's an open book. When I failed to ask him about his household in Thailand , he took offense. 

I didn't ask because having an entire household in Thailand seemed like a giant escapist red flag, and I wasn't sure how to get around that without sounding judgmental. But that conversation ended the way the soccer one did, with an abrupt good night. This time, though, he called in the morning to apologize. I accepted it.

The entire time I'd been asking that we move at a snail's pace. He assured me that he didn't want to repel me, or for me to be uncomfortable. I wasn't very interested in him, but he seemed nice enough. He donated blood for children with sickle cell anemia. He took his mother to her chemotherapy appointments. He cooked dinner for his sister and mother almost every Sunday. Aren't these the marks of a good person?

Why is settling for nice enough - a good person - especially as a woman, supposed to be enough? 

I questioned if he was genuinely good, or more interested in appearing that way. I side-eye anyone who seems to brag about their good deeds a little too much. I know it's tempting to want that pat on the back, but I'm suspicious of those who make sure everyone around them knows of the latest act of kindness. Isn't the value in doing good in the deed itself? Do we need an the applause of an audience to feel our efforts are worthwhile? I never got to ask.

After C left our work place, another coworker asked me to help him clean the fridge. When I did this, I realized much of the food, which were now science experiments on mold and fermentation, were likely C's leftovers - the extra cut up fruit that hadn't been eaten, the potato buns he had purchased months ago, during a lunch time outing to Food Lion, a half dozen baggies that contained two boiled eggs and a small yogurt container. It was as if the things C placed into the refrigerator never came back out, just like those old commercials about roach motels. Part of me wanted to verify that he was the culprit, by asking what he liked to bring in to work for breakfast, or a snack. If he responded,  "Two boiled eggs and a yogurt," then I had my offender. Let's add that possible red flag to the pile, shall we?

The last lunch took place near his office in a town in Virginia where I had previously worked for nearly a decade. I usually took metro and didn't like driving there but it was a federal holiday, I was off of work, and I figured the traffic would be bearable. I texted when I left and told him when I was going to arrive. "Call me when you are five minutes away" he texted. I took that to mean, call him when I was parked, as it was going to take at least five minutes to walk to his building from the parking garage. So, I pulled onto the main drag, snapped a photo and sent it off to him before the light turned green. I pulled into the parking garage, found an acceptable spot, and parked. My phone rang.

He asked where I was, and I said I'd parked in the garage across from his building. "I told you to call before you got here," he said. I sensed some irritation in his voice.

He gave me the nickel tour of his new office and then we ate outside, at a burger place I loved. He ordered almost exactly what I chose, the second time he'd done that. I always got the sense that he was careful to reveal what he genuinely liked, and wanted to play it safe, by going with my choice of restaurant, and even my selection from the menu. I didn't feel entirely comfortable at lunch, but couldn't put my finger on it. I had gifts for him (it now felt obligatory not to show up empty handed), and he gave me the necklace in the color that I had wanted. I thanked him.

He walked me to my car and he told me he'd wanted me to call so he could get me into the parking garage. He offered to cover my parking fee, but when I drove up and inserted the ticket, there was no charge, maybe because of the holiday. I dropped him off in front of his building and headed home.

Things seemed okay. We usually started the days with warm good morning messages, and the day after the lunch started the same way. In the evening he asked if I was busy. And then texted "Guess so." And then later, asked if it was okay to call. Then came the text tirade.

What I gathered was, he didn't like that he felt like he had to ask "permission" to call me. He didn't like that I preferred to message (so much for "Whatever you like, I like"). Unsaid: he had feelings for me, and apparently it was clear that I was not at the same level. He told me I was a "grown fucking woman" and should have been able to talk to him. He closed by saying he had "broken his finger with this..." (I guess texting is strenuous?) and finally, "I think you are special in many ways and know you will blossom."

And there was the root problem with him. He was a 55 year old who talked to me like I was 15, not 46. I tried so often to point out when things he said felt condescending. The issue is being heard when you say it, and not being told "I didn't intend for it to sound that way." Whether one intends it or not, it felt condescending and sexist. I don't hear about men in their 40's blossoming, or being told that by someone not even a decade older than them.

This was the end. He reached out in little ways over the weekend, sending an email about restaurant week (did he actually think this was a possibility, after the things he'd written?), and sending a Facebook message with a video of five ways to apologize in Italian. On Sunday morning, I texted him to let him know I would send back his gifts. By the time Monday morning rolled around, he was asking to talk - even texting was okay. I was done.

I was done "giving him a chance," which so many women are expected to do just because a man spends extra attention on them. I was done ignoring red flags for on the surface "good" qualities. I was done even trying to cobble together a friendship with someone who did not seem to want to know me, a real person who would never live up to the fantasy version in his mind. I boxed up his gifts, and got that package into the mail. I stayed as calm as I could, and businesslike, when I communicated. I asked valid questions (which, as usual, he failed to address), and closed with, "If this is how you treat people you claim to like, then please do better."

You can understand someone's pain and forgive them while also walking away. I was not obligated to give him a chance, or keep trying with someone who had repeatedly proven himself not to be safe, or even able to listen. Safety goes beyond physical - if I feel like I have to censor myself, or tiptoe around someone's feelings, they aren't safe, and I can't really be myself. And as I get older (and yes, this will be a terrible metaphor because of the current pandemic), I refuse to wear a mask so someone else can be comfortable with me.