I found out a coworker I like had been calling me “wife material” while he was still seeing another woman we work with. Until then, I hadn't even been sure he liked me. Apparently, he could picture a future with me well enough to tell his friends about it. Telling me was the part he hadn't quite managed.
I'm 20, he's 24, and we'd been friends for almost a year before we started getting closer. I have no dating experience, so I didn't have much to compare this with. I became friends with his friend's girlfriend, and the four of us hung out a couple of times outside work. His friend arranged those outings. It felt like he might be helping us get together, but the man I liked wasn't taking much initiative himself.
There were flirty comments, just nothing clear enough for me to know where I stood. Nothing happened between us during those outings. I was left with an almost-relationship that neither of us had actually named.
Then I learned he was seeing our 29-year-old coworker. Around the same time, I also learned he'd been talking about me to his friends for a while. He'd said I was different, and that holding me had felt unlike holding any other girl. Those are intimate things to hear about yourself secondhand. They made the uncertainty feel less like something I'd imagined, without giving me an actual conversation with him.
What unsettled me most was the distinction he'd apparently made between us. He said there were things he did with her that he'd never do with me because I was a “good girl” and he wanted to do things right. I understood that as a distinction between the woman he was having sex with and the woman he considered a possible wife. Being put in the second category didn't feel as reassuring as it sounded.
I don't understand how someone can have sex without feelings. That doesn't mean it can't happen; it means I don't know what it means for him. Maybe he can want something casual with her and something different with me. What I can't work out is why wanting something different has involved so little directness. His friends seem to know more about his feelings for me than I do.
Still, we haven't promised each other anything. We haven't even admitted our feelings to each other, so I can't honestly say he's broken an agreement with me. I keep coming back to that whenever I feel upset. Then I remember that knowing someone owes me no commitment doesn't automatically make this feel good.
He still texts me occasionally and buys me things at work. I don't know whether he knows what I've heard. Those gestures keep the possibility alive, but they don't tell me whether he plans to ask me out, stop seeing her, or leave everything exactly as it is. I'm aware that I've stayed quiet too. Neither of us has made this easy to understand.
I like him enough that I'm still wondering whether we could make something work. But before there's even been a clear beginning, I'm already trying to make sense of another woman's place in his life. For now, the man who supposedly wants to do things right with me has told his friends how he feels, while I’m still receiving the occasional text.
