Dating : Your Actual Mouth, the One on Your Face

You always eat lunch in your office, with the door open, which I take as an invitation for me to watch you. Recently, you got a call and must have realized you were late for something. You threw down your sandwich and scrambled to gather a pen and a notepad. You grabbed your water bottle and shook it, finding, apparently, that it was empty. You got up with no grace at all and left with the water bottle. As you went by I saw there was mayo or something on your face.

I guess I was worried about you. You were in such a rush, and you clearly had no idea about the mayo. Also, my horoscope had told me that I should be willing to take risks that day. Approaching you in the kitchen, you were hunched in front of our fancy new water machine, pressing the button that refilled the bottle. Hunching — poor you, I thought, with your terrible posture.

“Excuse me,” I said.

You turned toward me, no sign of recognition. Had you ever noticed me before, I wondered?

“Sorry, um — there’s stuff on your mouth.”

You looked down at the steel mouth of the bottle under the steady stream of water.

“No,” I said, impossible to suppress a smile, you were so funny in your misunderstanding. “Your actual mouth. The one on your face.”

It came out inappropriately casual, I knew right away. I talk to you so much in my head that talking to you in real life seemed perfectly natural, but from your perspective, I was just a stranger. I was horrified.

But then something amazing happened. You laughed.

“Thank you,” you said. Swiped across your mouth with the side of your hand. “That would have been embarrassing.”

God, the tension was so heavy. It was so real at that moment, the sound of water hitting water — you were still filling up the bottle; the damn thing was gigantic, I thought it would never be full — me looking at you and you looking at me for once. Finally I mumbled “no problem” and fled back to my desk. The whole rest of the day I was dazed. Part of me had never been sure if I wanted you for real. Maybe I was just bored, maybe I was just lonely.

But I did. I do.

The whole night was gone in a rush of plans and aspirations: Should I actually pursue knowing you? Was it possible to get what I wanted? What, precisely, did I want? No conclusions were made but plenty of hypotheticals were drawn out for consideration. And I considered them for a long time.

So what do I make of the latest development?

I always listen when you’re talking to the woman on my left. Yesterday, you said to her that this was your last week.

Your last week.

I know the betrayal I feel is misplaced. But how long, my Capricorn, have you been planning this? Since before our meeting in the kitchen? I can’t help but feel crushed when I think of myself next Monday, just a few days away, when I look into your office after checking the weather and none of your things, new or old, will be there.

Maybe I’ll just quit.

But that fantasy doesn’t occupy me like you did. Instead I imagine that you’re leaving because of me. All you had to do was speak to me — once — and you couldn’t take it, you had to go. For your own self-preservation. That’s the only thing that makes me feel better.