I watched the clock slowly tick away, trying to amuse myself with Pinterest and Bejeweled while pretending to work. At two it felt like five, at four, it felt like I’d been sitting in the same position for fourteen hours, despite going on a twenty-block jaunt at lunch. It wasn’t just the dinner and movie plans I had with the boys (dad and brother) after work. It wasn’t even that I didn’t have anything interesting to do. Lord knows I’d had days with much less work and had still managed to get through the day without running around the office like a chimp on crack. No, the reason for today’s mania of twitching was because of something I vowed I wouldn’t let happen. I flat refused to accept it or allow it to exist. It was the sneaking up of having someone crawling under my skin and make a home there, whether I wanted him there or not.

It started as a niggling thing. Noticing that I enjoyed our bantering conversations much more than I should considering we’d never actually med. It took me by surprise that I looked forward to seeing his name pop up on gchat. His cheeky nature left me reeling as he popped in, knocked me over a barrel and ran off to do whatever it was he did offline. Worse, his words often stayed with me even after his digital presence had faded into the matrix (yes, I did just say that). My friends came to know him as my writing buddy since that’s how we “met” or by the moniker I gave him in conversation; reflecting that he doesn’t live in NYC. It was in passing at first, throwing out stories over drinks at happy hour, a mention to fellow gchaters when I had to make the stories he sent me bleed red with editorial comments. But before long, I found myself in that out of body experience when you realize you’re that girl. You know the one. That friend who will not shut up about her boyfriend/hubby/crush/FWB. She finds a way to bring him up in nearly every conversation and every story she tells somehow relates back to him as if she has no life outside of the magnificence of this dude. Yeah…that girl.

I was about to word-vomit another story to Roo involving this guy when I realized what I was doing, how deeply he’d crept into my brain. And I slammed on the brakes. I saw what was happening here. It was bad enough that I’d admitted to him that my interest involved something more than friendship. Now the idea of him was laced into my brain, twirling around my heart, fluttering in my stomach. It was too much. When he told me he’d be MIA for a week, bombarded with finals, I shrugged. Sure, work would be way less entertaining without his distractions, but I’d survive. I had finals of my own to worry about. There was a job I’d interviewed for and was hoping to hear about, the string of plans that would eat up the week. Maybe he’d even lose some of his grip on my maniacal brain. But there it was, Friday at four and I was twitching out of cube, losing my mind from what I could only describe as withdrawal. Good job Cat.

It had never failed before. The longer I’d speak to a guy, the more I got to know him, the more his flaws would start to show. He’d ditch me when he said he’d be around. He’d disappear for days on end without an explanation. He’d say something that made me realize we had nothing in common. This guy? No such luck. Sure, he had disappeared, but I knew why. Because he told me. We had actual shit in common. Including my secret geeky tendencies. And despite his snarky tone and pretensions to jerkdom, the dude is practically incapable of actually being mean. Accidentally stupid? Sure. After all, he’s a guy. But a jackass? Apparently not. I tried to pull the claws out and only managed to dig them deeper into my flesh. So I did the one thing a girl can do in this situation. I went looking for another guy. Because we all know the only way to get a dude out of a girl’s head is to replace him with another.

xoxo

Cat