To the Married Men Who Don’t Wear Rings
Do us single gals a favor and mention your wife in the first, I don’t know, five minutes or less!
I’ve had more crushes than I can count on the married guy in the office. I’m happy to report that it’s to the point now where I assume everyone is married, ring or not, and that’s only after several disappointments of finally realizing the guy I like is married. Having been through all three stages, I’d like to ask you married men who don’t wear rings to set expectations early before we go on our merry way making imaginary plans that we can win your heart and live happily ever after!
The Minor Crush:
I had taken over an in-flight project at work and immediately developed a thing for someone I had never even heard of before. He was on my project team and had the insight to share on the first conference call I led with him on it. He may have said 5 words before I was hooked. That voice. Man, did I fall for that voice! Dude, read me the participant list or tell me what the weather is like today, just don’t stop talking! After several calls, my co-worker led me down to his desk and I finally got to meet him. Not my typical type, but hey, that voice will solve any crisis in my book!
That was when we were in a cubicle environment and he was on a different floor before they moved us to another building with an open floor plan and we were now in the same space. One of my friends told me to walk over to his desk and see if there are any pictures. Let me tell you why that wouldn’t work. First, one man on our team was married, didn’t wear a ring, and had a picture up of only one of his sons. So, it wasn’t a stretch that it would be a wasted trip. Second, with the open floor plan, even though I was there before the sun comes up, a lot of other people were, too, and how weird would it be for me to be walking around an entirely different part of the office I didn’t belong in to stalk this stranger? My other friend said she knew the minute he was on one of my calls because my voice completely changed into that of a giddy teenager when I greeted him!
From our calls, I knew he has two kids. Any time I got him “alone” on a call or in the hallway, I’d ask about his kids and try to find out more. No mention of a wife and I allowed my silly crush and butterflies to continue. I swooned over this man for a good three months before I finally trusted anyone enough to tell me if they knew anything about him. It’s one thing to share my crush with friends, but to ask around would raise eyebrows, and in a corporate environment, you really have to be careful with that type of thing! As timing would have it, the person I trusted told me that he is married. Damn. On to the next!
Don’t get me wrong — I carried that crush with me even after I found out, but it was still fun to think about saying, “Hey, if that marriage thing doesn’t work out, here’s my number!” A girl can dream…
The “I Could Fall for This One!”:
There was a guy I’d seen around campus in passing and we offered each other a friendly hello every time we saw each other, but there was never a conversation. This went on for almost a year. Seemed like a nice enough guy — no ring, great smile, happy to see me, went on with our days. I thought of him as someone I’d like to meet one day to see what he’s all about, but I don’t have time right now. One day I spotted him around the salad bar and struck up a brief conversation with him. We talked about work and how we both said we’d introduce ourselves to one another someday. He told me that every time he had seen me walking outside, he felt guilty for not being motivated to take more walks. I admitted that I was going to talk to him the next time I saw him. He gave me his full name, I gave him my first name, we shook hands with the niceties and parted ways to get lunch. As I was leaving the cafeteria, I heard him calling my name. He said, “I’m an idiot! I completely forgot to ask for your last name!!” I gave it to him, and he walked me down the hallway to the stairwell. He got in front of me so he could open the door for me! It’s no secret that never happens anymore…what, did guys lose interest in looking at women’s butts or something? Men don’t open doors for women anymore — that’s just crazy talk!
Not only did he open the door for me — and let me go first — he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Great meeting you! You have a great day and we’ll talk again soon!” He just sounded so happy and positive and cheerful that it just made me smile. Then he went back to the cafeteria and I went back to my desk and waited very impatiently for him to send me an email or IM. I even texted my best friend and said, “I think I just met someone…”. That was on a Thursday.
Monday morning came around and about the time I started to forget about him (no, it’s not a short attention span, it’s the simple fact that he knows where to find me if he wants to and if he doesn’t find me, then he doesn’t want me, and I’m okay with that because I have other things to think about), I opened my email to find a note from him. Cool.
Keeping it brief, we became damn near inseparable. I told my parents about him and my best friend and he and I chatted all day every day and went on at least one walk together every day. We went to lunch a couple of times. We were together so much that I think people were starting to think we were together even though we kept a very good distance from each other. We didn’t hold hands, we didn’t touch, we didn’t kiss, and we never had any physical interaction of any kind. We did flirt about it, though! He is the perfect gentleman in every sense of the word. And I was really starting to like him!
I mentioned I’m in the office before the sun comes up. He’s not. I had wished him a pleasant evening via IM because I was leaving for the day. He immediately asked if he could walk me out to my car. Hell, yeah! I was certain he was going to ask me out…finally…after two weeks. It was a beautiful sunny day, too, so lots to be happy about! I don’t remember exactly what he said…something to the effect of, “I just wanted to tell you that I love spending time with you, and I get so nervous around you! I’m really shy and don’t know how to go about this.” Yes, I’ll go out with you!! I’m screaming in my head.
“I’m married.” And this part I do remember: “I still want to hang out with you and so glad we met, and I wanted to make sure you knew that before I really go and fall in with you!” My reaction was calm. “Well, okay, thanks for telling me! That’s not where I thought you were going with that, but I respect you telling me!”
We still spent time together and went on our walks and kept our distance. We’d toss in the occasional “Can’t we pretend you’re not married for 15 minutes?!” And laugh and continue with the real conversation we were having. Of course, as time went on, it naturally fizzled out, but he was never ever looking to cheat, and I stopped looking at him as a love interest. He left the company and I left the company and I’m sure one of us will check on the other someday. Even if he weren’t married, I don’t see him as a good fit for me after all, but I’m sure glad he gave me hope that I do still want a relationship someday. Yes, when you’re single this long, you begin to wonder if you’ll ever want someone in your space again!
The Full-Blown in Love:
I took a job solely because I had an immediate crush on the man I’d be supporting every single day from the second he met me in the lobby for the interview. No ring. No pictures in his office. My role as a portfolio project manager was to help him and his department get organized, prioritize, and help get things done since they had no sense of how to streamline themselves in a completely chaotic environment.
I’ll keep this one brief since it essentially speaks for itself and you already know where I’m going with this.
I gave this job my absolute everything…for him. It was sunshine and roses for a solid six months. After that, I hated that job, I hated that environment, I hated my boss, I hated most of my team, I hated everyone on his team (to be fair, they hated me, too!), I hated that company, I hated being in meetings 90% of every day, and I was miserable at every turn for an entire year. Except for him. Him, I loved.
I did blatantly call him sexy once, which was a semi-accidental slip. Well, I didn’t call him sexy, per se. We were in a meeting and someone mentioned something about some kind of statistic, and he was feverishly working on his computer (with his screen presented) to get the information. It involved going through about thirty different screens and steps at lightning speed, which he did in about a minute. He looked at me and with a huge grin on his face, said, “Did you like that?” And I said, “Yeah, that…was really sexy!” We both laughed.
He and I even share the same birth date! I don’t even have to guess that it was at the six-month mark when things were beginning to get miserable and I wanted to leave, I still stuck around for him. When I was least expecting it, because hey, we were close, right?!?, I heard my wife… And went stone-cold deaf and could feel my face getting red and hot. It took about five or six seconds to recover and as my hearing was finally coming back, I was listening to something about celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary…
That one hurt.
I finally had enough of tormenting myself and left the company when I was ready to not be around him every day. I don’t know if he ever picked up on it. He probably didn’t, men are dumb that way. If he did, it’s completely possible he spent a good amount of time laughing about me because I later realized the entire team was full of passive-aggressive jerks who were threatened by anyone with an actual work ethic and instead of just asking my boss to fire me, they made it difficult and impossible and gradually pushed me out of their circle.
I used to wonder if that job would have gone differently had I not fallen in love with him, but now I know it wouldn’t have made a difference. I pride myself on a job well done and I don’t seek to impress people; my goal is to be helpful.
If you noticed the tone go from a simple silly crush to a very serious love scenario, then I’ve made my point. It’s because of the last one that I’m so lighthearted about the first two described and new crushes I develop going forward and the reality of what it likely will never become. As I’ve said earlier, I now assume that men are married to save myself from the anguish of a full-time fantasy.
It also has taught me to instill new tactics. Like, quite obviously, asking the guy if he’s married or what his wife does for a living. That has saved me a ton of time and I can find out right away.
So, gentlemen, if you have never thought about this before, please be aware now. When you meet a new woman, who isn’t wearing a ring, feel free to say something along the lines of I have a dog and my wife works from home and walks him for me…that would be swell. It’s perfectly okay to shatter our dreams up-front! You know, in case she is interested in you and hasn’t learned to ask.
Thanks for reading! And remember — Smart people read. Smarter people write!
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