sad

I have a confession to make: I have a huge and incapacitatingly awful crush on one of my colleagues. He first crossed my consciousness way back when I started here in 2001: in amongst a bunch of the usual settling in stuff I found myself having a conversation with this particular guy and finding it difficult to think straight (pardon the pun) or form complete sentences, or even breathe. Standing accross from this engaging friendly bloke with his warm grin and aircraft carrier shoulders I found myself physically stunned: as if he were emitting some kind of strong magnetic field and screwing up all my instruments...

In the usual course of things he and I never cross paths, let alone have any context for talking - that conversation was a short one off thing entirely to do with my being new to the place, but it burned itself into my memory with a sodium flare intensity that still leaves me just a little dazed every time I think of it. I doubt I made any kind of impression on him at all, and as I said he and I are rarely in the same building and never really have any occasion to talk... all in all the chances are that he has no idea who I am.

Anyway, just now, for (as far as I know) the first time since I started here, he came into the library. Not to borrow anything, or ask anything, oh no! the Gods aren't kind enough to give any kind of an opening like that: he just came in to sit somewhere quiet for a while and get on with something or other. If it had been anyone else I probably wouldn't even have registered their presence, and there wasn't any kind of interaction - he wasn't even in my line of sight for more than a few seconds - not even any way I could have engineered a casual "hello", or offered a smile, no, he was just sitting in the same room totally unconscious of this inexplicably powerful disruptive effect he was having... He's left now, I'm closing up ready to leave for the day and my insides feel like they've been turned inside out... it's awful in the archaic sense of the word in that (as an experience) it inspires awe. I couldn't say if it feels good or bad, just that it feels: as if every single fibre of me has been set vibrating slightly, and each at a different pitch.

Rationally I know It's all kinda pathetic: I mean I'll be 26 in a couple of weeks - this kind of thing is not supposed to happen past adolescence, is it? That said part of me can't help wondering if there's something I'm supposed to do about it... I mean if all goes well I won't be working here much longer and I don't want to leave regretting anything, but then again what could I do? Walk up to the guy some time and say "hey there, how's things? you almost certainly have no idea who I am, or that I even exist, but your very presence in a room scrambles my soul" It's hardly acceptable socialised behaviour now is it? Nope. I think I just have to take a deep breath, lock up, and go home.