A few years ago, I became fast friends with a now former coworker. I will call him Jack. I developed a crush on Jack almost instantly, but I was in a long-term relationship with someone else, and I do not cheat, so I did not act on my feelings.
My feelings toward Jack snuck up on me; at first I thought that he was different, but it wasn't the type of description one would associate with someone who was strange. To me he was intriguing. After some time passed, and I got to know him, I would think of him or be around him and feel the feelings one feels when they are at home or experiencing joy; he was it. He was who I was dreaming of in a man; he took a definite interest in his appearance, he was close with his siblings, he was goofy and liked to go on adventures in the outdoors, and he liked to read about topics that mattered -- politics, philosophy, and biographies that pondered the topic of life through the eyes of said biographee.
Jack was in his last year of high school, when we met, and once he graduated, he was planning on enlisting in the Navy. Because of this we only hung out a few times outside of work with one of those times involving exclusively hanging out, but it wasn't in secret; my former boyfriend and I went to a coworker's house for a party, and my boyfriend did not want to stick around until the end, but Jack happened to be there, so Jack drove me home instead. The other time we hung out, his brother, his two younger sisters, he, and I all hung out for a couple of days, when he would eventually come back to visit on his break from the military.
During Jack's military leave, he kept in contact with me periodically for almost a year, and during that time he let me know that he was planning on contacting a woman who he had been in love with since high school, so that he could let her know how much he loved her. Even though I was pretty optimistic she would reciprocate his feelings, I was nervous about this woman, because she appeared to have a lot of ambitions in life, from what I had heard from Jack, and even though I respected his feelings for her, I was thinking about my feelings and what would happen if she and him did end up together. When he had finished writing a letter to send to her, he let me read it before it was sent off, so that I could let him know whether or not it sounded good from a female's perspective. I let him know it sounded great and that I was hopeful things would work out great, because he was a great man -- regardless of how I really felt.
I am going to note that I do believe of the concept in "cock blocking" -- but for women. I will call it "hoo ha blocking." I will admit that I was guilty of this with Jack, but I can assure readers that this was "hoo ha blocking" performed with Jack's honor in mind; I was saving his soul from pain by removing any thoughts of getting together with my former acquaintance/fair-weather friend. I don't remember what I said back to her after she expressed how she thought that he was pretty handsome, but I know that I dismissed the idea outright when he inquired about her. I told him that she was the kind of person who I would only speak to perhaps once or twice a year for shopping trips out of town or catching up but could otherwise be a high maintenance person personality-wise; she wasn't enjoyed by a lot of people at my work, when she worked where Jack and I worked together, and she didn't have a lot of room for sympathy when it came to certain situations; when I would later on try to get a job at a job she would move to, I would eventually call her after the interview that didn't turn out so well to talk it over (even though she had already discovered that I wouldn't be getting the job), and she would end up being terribly disappointed in me to the point where she changed her tone of voice when she did say something, because she ended up being almost near speechless. I almost would have counted her as a socio-path, because she had a strange way with dealing with other people (as if they were pawns for her at moment's notice) and didn't have hardly any close relationships at all. No. In Jack's honor I averted him from potential disaster.
However, I did not hear back from Jack, and he had told me he would let me know either way what happened with the letter he had sent the woman. I tried to contact him a couple of times letting him know I was there for him if he wanted to talk to someone, but I received no response back, so I asked his best friend, Daniel, what was going on, and Daniel knew! Daniel told me the letter to the woman had not gone well. I was angry and confused why Jack did not confide in me about this as well. He had leaned on me for advice, and suddenly he wasn't reaching out to me anymore. I emailed him letting him know, with my frustration not included, that I was sorry for him. I also complimented to him that he was a great man, because I had sure feelings that he was beyond devastated and wouldn't be worse off with someone paying him good thoughts at least once during his grieving process.
I then left Jack alone for some time, and a month or two later, he emailed me to let me know that I didn't deserve to be treated this way, that it probably wasn't me but him instead, and that I just needed to give it time. I emailed him to let him know of my feelings and how we both learned something in this mis-communication, but I thought I would show no hard feelings by telling him to let Daniel and I know what he wanted to have sent overseas in his care packages.
Daniel and I initially began communication via Facebook so that we could keep in the loop together on how Jack was doing while in the Navy. Several months had gone by where I had not heard from Jack and was having to turn to Daniel for information. I was under the impression Daniel and I would rendezvous and put a care package together for Jack, and although I felt bad that I had to constantly go to Daniel for information, he didn't inform me of being frustrated, so I was surprised when Daniel stopped being my friend on Facebook. I emailed him telling him that I was confused and frustrated. At this point I was tired of being upset by how I was being treated, so throughout the next month, I eventually got over worrying about what had happened and what I would do to rectify the situation. But right around this time Daniel emailed an apology and said that I should call Jack, because Jack wanted to talk. I was very happy. I was ecstatic actually! I thought that this was what my hard work in trying to forget about the entire problem had paid off for, so I tried calling Jack. I left him a message, but I did not hear back. The next day Daniel messaged that Jack had shipped out early and that, although Daniel would try to communicate to Jack that I wanted letters back but that I shouldn’t hope for anything and that that was probably why Jack had not replied back. I let Daniel know of my address and that the situation was unfortunate. I was hopeful though, since I now knew that Jack and I were finally going to talk again. The next day Daniel messaged to me that I needed to forget about Jack, because neither Daniel or I had heard from Jack in some time; Jack was not going to provide his address for where he would be overseas; and that Jack implied that he wanted to start a new life and leave everyone behind. I told Daniel that I thought it strange that Jack felt the need to tell me that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore when he could have just let silence communicate it instead, because I was just starting to get over things right before Daniel sought me out again, and I told Daniel that I never wanted and wasn’t going to have him be the middle man anymore and was still going to try to contact Jack, because I had things to say that Jack was going to have to hear.
Jack messaged me several days later to let me know that: he didn’t know why I went around him to talk to Daniel; Daniel didn’t have the heart to tell me that he himself did not want me to talk to him anymore; he and I had grown apart with it being the fault of no one; and he would be going overseas soon and would not be worth saving. When I messaged him that I needed to talk to him on the phone to have my peace, because I deserved at least that, he said, “no.”
That’s when I blew up in my last message to him. I let everything that had been building up out in the letter. I cussed and didn’t leave any thoughts out. I told him that I felt: that he blamed me for being rejected from the woman he was in love with and that I didn’t deserve it, because I was there for him and was a good friend; that I thought he was a good man, and that she wasn’t meant for him if she couldn’t see his qualities; that he was being self centered in acting like a martyr (but I did not use the word verbatim) in expecting everyone to just forget about him without considering their feelings; that he could have blown me off a long time ago instead of waiting until the current time; that, because of this specific approach to communicate how we had “grown apart”, I didn’t believe it at all; that I did give him space; that he could have communicated directly somehow and saved us both a lot of time; how UNBELIEVABLY frustrated I was about his approach -- finally communicating (even though it was clear that he probably wasn't wanting to) that he didn’t want to communicate again, when he could have just let time do the trick, considering he just ended up getting my hopes up just at the time when I was beginning to get over the situation; and that I was in love with him.
I did not think about what would happen after I let him know this -- that I was in love with him, because all I knew was that I needed to let him know. And I wasn’t ashamed to feel this way, because life happens, and we can’t control who we fall in love with. Frankly I felt like a person who had passed into some form of psychosis, because I went from swearing like a sailer so-to-speak to admitting my deepest feelings to him all in one letter. I finalized by telling Jack that I hoped he lived a fulfilling life and got his head on his shoulders, when he headed overseas, because I would hate to know later on that his potential in life went to waste. Even though I communicated to Jack that he was basically unbelievable for what he did, I also communicated that I still admired him for who he was, because I thought he was worth having in my life.
I have thought about him from time to time, and I miss him a lot when I think about him, and perhaps this is a lost cause -- me wanting to patch things up. I never told my former boyfriend how I felt about Jack, and I don’t think this was because part of me felt that what I was writing to Jack wouldn't make a difference let alone be read anyway. If the idea of contacting him again doesn't seem like such a bad idea, I wouldn’t know how I would approach him. What could I say or not say? How could I come across carefully without overwhelming him or scaring him off? I am hopeful though. Life is strange, and people continue to surprise me. It has been a couple of years since then, and people change, so I would imagine he has grown up some since having been in the military.
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