There’s a guy who works at an eatery I go to, and I’ve liked him for years. I don’t actually know him. This is a fairly significant gap in our relationship, which otherwise consists of me finding him attractive and occasionally noticing him looking at me.
The attraction is strong on my side. Strong enough that catching him staring a few times has felt like evidence of something mutual. Not conclusive evidence, obviously. Nobody has convened a hearing. But enough to keep me wondering.
What makes this feel especially ridiculous is that he’s the only person I’ve been physically attracted to in almost ten years. My capacity for a crush apparently operates on the schedule of a major infrastructure project. When somebody finally catches my attention, I notice.
Then I start wondering whether he notices anything unusual at all. Maybe he finds lots of women attractive. Maybe whatever I’m feeling is, for him, the sort of thing that happens several times between clocking in and going home.
I know that’s an assumption. I don’t know his dating life, his preferences, or what he’s thinking when he looks over. I barely know anything about him beyond where he works. Somehow, I’ve still managed to develop a theory about the relative significance of our possible attraction.
That’s the part I keep getting stuck on: because this is so rare for me, it feels important. If attraction comes easily to him, I worry the same moment could mean very little. My extraordinary event might be his perfectly ordinary Tuesday.
But I’m making that comparison without knowing whether the other half of it is true. All I actually have is a crush, a few caught glances, and a place where I regularly eat.
So am I picking up on something mutual and talking myself out of it? Or have I taken several looks across an eatery and assigned them a wildly ambitious job description?
