The hope, brutal though it can be in the end, at least lets me sleep at night.
So, after making that last post, I had lunch with another co-worker (Pecos). We eat lunch together most days, and she's the only person at work who knows about my crush on Perfect Tommy. She's apparently talked to him a bit more than I have -- which I need to question her about further, actually -- but she said that Tommy said he does actually have friends in D.C. he stays with when he goes out in the evenings. She also said that he made reference to not going to a thing one weekend because he said he "didn't have anyone to go with."
So he's quite possibly single after all. This doesn't mean I was also necessarily wrong about him not being into me, but now I have no idea whether I was accurately interpreting anything else last night.
I've got to figure out some way to find out without completely sabotaging our working relationship if he's not. So I have a few strategic approaches I've worked out.
1) Ask him to lunch. This seems like the safest, but also requires the most nerve on my part.
2) Tell him I'm trying to arrange a Friday night happy hour with the group, then when the others (hopefully) aren't able to go because it's a Friday night (he said he was available this Friday when we were planning for last night, so it's possible he usually is), tell him everybody else can't come but does he still want to? This exact play worked on me with Chief way back when.
3) Get Pecos to try to find out if he's interested.
4) Post a notice on the "missed connections" on Craigslist.
None of these sound super grown-up, but I think the grown-up thing to do would be to marinate miserably in my feelings and not do anything, for fear of screwing up my career. A grown-up would put her career ahead of the remote possibility that a cute boy likes her. On the other hand, a grown-up would also already be married by now, so fuck that.
So he's quite possibly single after all. This doesn't mean I was also necessarily wrong about him not being into me, but now I have no idea whether I was accurately interpreting anything else last night.
I've got to figure out some way to find out without completely sabotaging our working relationship if he's not. So I have a few strategic approaches I've worked out.
1) Ask him to lunch. This seems like the safest, but also requires the most nerve on my part.
2) Tell him I'm trying to arrange a Friday night happy hour with the group, then when the others (hopefully) aren't able to go because it's a Friday night (he said he was available this Friday when we were planning for last night, so it's possible he usually is), tell him everybody else can't come but does he still want to? This exact play worked on me with Chief way back when.
3) Get Pecos to try to find out if he's interested.
4) Post a notice on the "missed connections" on Craigslist.
None of these sound super grown-up, but I think the grown-up thing to do would be to marinate miserably in my feelings and not do anything, for fear of screwing up my career. A grown-up would put her career ahead of the remote possibility that a cute boy likes her. On the other hand, a grown-up would also already be married by now, so fuck that.