About a Girl Options

[swami]

Let me put this out there first so that those not interested can turn away: This rant is about a girl.

Several weeks ago, I started a new job at The UPS Store. We're probably talking about 7 weeks ago. My main duties are preparing packages for courier shipment throughout the world, faxing documents for people, making photocopies of documents and other items, creating and putting together professional quality projects for clients, and other such fun things. I love the job because a lot of it involves using Photoshop, Illustrator, and generally incorporating my own artistic style, which I do on my own time habitually. In several ways, I'm being paid to do what I do at home for free anyway. The wage isn't great, but the type of job it is makes up for that. My boss is a nice guy. A little effeminate....actually, hella effeminate. In fact, he's on the verge of being scary-effeminate. His iPod is full of Enrique Iglesias, Broadway showtunes, Cher remixes, and The Pointer Sisters. But, he's a nice guy. Helpful, understanding when you mess up something because you're new, etc... There are a couple UPS Store locations in town. I work at two of them, but about 95% of the time I'm at our Euclid location. At any given location, you'll only find two or three people on duty. At Euclid, you'll only ever find two.

Well, half-way through my first shift I got to meet one of my co-workers (who, it turns out, I work almost exclusively with). She walked in. I stopped dead in my tracks. If you wanted something collated right that moment, I couldn't help you. You had to figure that shit out on your own. I was stunned. This was quite honestly the most astonishingly beautiful human being I had laid eyes on. I cursed God for making me wait 24 years before she walked in. Not at all a funny joke. Well, I knew right off the bat that this was going to be a strange next few weeks and that they would culminate in *something*, whatever that may be. Either way, I was ready for it. I've been through enough heartache that I was sure I could handle one more if that's what it came to. More optimistically, I was ready for things to finally go right for me after years of trials and errors. However, as much as it pains me to even mention this, there was an issue of age. Yes, age. A construct of human ambition to keep track of the length of time one has spent alive, which gives absolutely no merit to experience as a measure of one's personality. Never having to deal with this before, I found myself victim to the societal norms and pressures of "the age factor". She was 36. I was 24. This smote me like God. But hey, if Celine Dion can do it, so can I!

I have long despised such parameters. I'm a strong believer in the idea that if you feel a strong sense of attraction for someone, and that someone is competent and able to consciously and sanely reciprocate those feelings, then it's okay. For this reason, I am 100% for gay rights. The way I see it, you cannot experience "love" as defined by textbooks, encyclopediae, and other people. You can only possibly interpret "love" from your own experience. Therefore, if you experience a sensation within yourself that rivals all other sensations you've ever felt, and you believe this to be love, then it is. Now, I'm not jumping the gun here and saying that I've fallen in love with this co-worker. But, I'm on that road. And it appears not to have a speed limit.

Over the past few weeks, we've spoken quite casually with each other, and have revealed perhaps more than "friends" typically reveal. As I understand it, she's nearly identical to me, except she doesn't obsessively collect Live. We have more in common than I was expecting we'd have. Music, philosophy, the arts. Of course, at 7 weeks there is still a lot that has not yet been discussed. For example, we've both conveniently avoided the subject of relationships. Nevertheless, there seems to be no indication that she's currently seeing someone. I know I'm not. We take turns buying each other coffee, which often leads to puppy-love-like scenarios where we jokingly debate the validity of each other's claim as to why it's their turn to buy the coffee. We laugh a lot. I make her laugh. She makes me laugh. Our goodbyes at the end of the day seem like the type of goodbyes you'd expect from two very close people. She has confided in me secrets that she wouldn't normally confide. In short, I'm convinced that there's something there that just needs to be tapped into. My problem is that I've experienced similar (but perhaps not quite as strong) feelings before, and they've backfired. For the life of me, I don't want to fuck this up. And that very fear prevents me from moving forward.

Mainly, my concerns are that although I have my own thoughts about "the age factor" and how it's essentially meaningless, I don't know her take. At this point, I've invested a lot of myself into this venture, and I'm hoping for positive results. But I'm shit-scared of being wrong (once again). When it comes down to it, I'm also in the unfortunate position of having very little experience with down-to-earth girls. I've had a few girlfriends in my day, but they've always presented some unprecedented characteristic flaw that has thrown the whole thing for a loop. Naive as this may sound, I believe that this time it's different, and I want to cover my ground before I plunge headfirst into another disappontment.

Advice? Insight? Criticism?

[swami]

In other words: BE A MAN. Stop coming to irrelevant forums asking for advice. You and only you hold the fate on whether or not you get laid.

You've obviously missed the point...