Blame it on Diego

I have this friend at work, Diego—I've mentioned him before. He's only one of two people in the office who actually knows about he blog (the other is TR). Of the two, he's the only one who's read it. When I first mentioned to him, he scrunched up his face and looked unhappy. "Oh no, not a blog. You shouldn't waste your time with that."

"I'm not!"

"But if you really want to write…what's the point?"

"But I'm really writing, consistently, for the first time in my life. And people even read it!"

"I don't know." Diego said.

"Well, you don't have to read it."

"Oh no, I'm going to read it!"

Of course he had to read it.

In fact, he read a whole a whole bunch that weekend and sent an email telling me how much he liked it and that he was wrong about it being a waste of time. What a relief! But, now, when the blog comes up in conversation, he's back to poo-pooing it. What can you do?

Diego doesn't read the blog anymore, so I have to tell him verbally what's going on with me. Today, we walked over to CVS and I told him about Frank calling me and emailing me about sailing. I said, "I think it's just about sailing."

Diego rolled his eyes.

"No?" I said.

"No!"

"Really?"

"Really." Diego seemed about to lose patience with me. "Why didn't you suggest that you do something?"

"It seemed like it was just about sailing." I ended with an upturn in pitch that made me realize that I doubted this all along.

"I hate people like you." Diego said.

Le sigh.

"I want you to email him and ask him to do something. Just say, if there's no sailing, maybe we can do something else."

"Really? I don't know." I said.

"You want to date him, don't you?"

Well, that's the thing, I hadn't thought it was an option. "I don't know. I don't know him. He's so young. He's really cute."

"So? Do you just want to date losers?"

"No. Wait, are you saying I date losers? I do not!"

Diego gave me a skeptical look. "He's not a loser, is he? And he's cute."

When I got back to my desk, I sent an email, "Hey--if there's no sailing this weekend, you want to do something else?"

I felt the most outrageous nerves before and after sending the message. I had those deep-pit of the stomach butterflies and I could hardly sit still. I was certain that I would prefer him to not respond at all. Or just reject me. With feelings like that, I really have to wonder if I'm available for dating at all. If you'd asked me what I was thinking, I would say that my mind was a blank. But my subconscious sure went into overdrive.

Frank responded within a minute. I didn't want to open the message. What if he said yes? Instead, he said, "There is sailing this weekend - I had a game and it was just cancelled so I can go sailing..."

Whoa. That made me feel dumb. I wrote back saying that was great and asking for the day and time. He sent a hasty reply that a bunch of people were going and he'd get back to me with the details. I left it there and I'll wait to hear from him.

I feel fine and I don't think I blew anything. But, if things are weird and awkward and Frank doesn't get back to me and I never go sailing, I blame Diego, 100%.

And, in the midst of all that nuttiness, I forgot to eat my lunch. I don't think I'll ever learn. Super sigh.

Grateful for: Diego.

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