At the
time, Sweetie was working an hour and a half from home, on a good traffic day.
It was a sacrifice she’d made so we could move to our new city, a sacrifice
which my mother reminded me semi-daily was my fault and mine to correct. Sweetie and I usually talked on the phone
during her long commute, but the guilt and all of the dinners alone, combined
with my insufficiently examined white lady issues, added up to a toxic soup of
guilt and loneliness.
While
I was feeling this emptiness and longing to connect, Lady Work Crush developed
a deep connection with the Mean Boss Girl, and they started to call each other
sisters. Of course I would never want to begrudge anyone friend- or sister-love,
but their bond made me feel even more alone, especially since their friendship included
the detailed reiterating of SVU plots and I had to ask them to tone it down, to
their great annoyance.
We
had a long series of snow days that February, during which my AmeriCorps hours
got hopelessly behind and during which I wrote a love poem about Lady Work
Crush. I mentioned it in passing and she said that she would love to read it. I
hemmed and hawed and then sent it via facebook. I cringe every time I think
about that decision, how it made things uncomfortable for her and unsafe for
me.
The next
day at work, I saw contempt flash across Mean Boss Girl’s face as she took a
call from LWC. There was another meeting. LWC said I’d been “taking it out on”
the kids because I was upset that she didn’t like me back. I didn’t think that
was accurate but it still gives me so much shame just to type it. She stated
and reiterated that she prefers men in a way that still looks a little bit like
protesting too much.
I
said that I understood and accepted her rejection, but that I also felt like I
wasn’t being treated fairly, that this wouldn’t have had to be a meeting if I
were a man. I said I thought they were making me into the bad guy in a way that
made me feel unsafe and unwelcome at work. I’m not sure if that was true or if
I was just embarrassed and hurt and trying to diffuse the shame and rejection
like I always do. Probably it was both.
LWC
was LIVID at the end of this conversation, and that work night ended with her
getting in her car, turning up the radio all the way, and speeding in the
direction of my closeted male coworker and myself. I don’t want to be too
dramatic, she only KIND OF aimed the car at us.
There
was a meeting with the boss’s boss the next day, wherein I was asked to sign a
paper saying that I wouldn’t make any more advances on LWC. Now that I’m
thinking about it, I only made one advance and accepted her “no,” so it seems
crazy that there was a paper. I said again that this wouldn’t be happening if I
were a man, but I signed it. I also told the bosses that this was a homophobic
workplace and I didn’t quite understand how to fit in there anymore.