Falling for someone you can't have

[LadyBarbossa]

Kind of a spin-off of this thread (http://customerssuck.com/board/showthread.php?t=63237).

I have continued to work with this person, and while I do my best not to allow the 'warm fuzzies' to dominate me when I'm around him, I have come to care about him as at least a friend. I know he's a sweet person at heart, but he's done incredibly dumb things. I also know that he goes home on the weekends and drinks himself into numb oblivion, and I hate it. I hate how unhappy I know he really is, I hate that he chomps at the bit for the weekend to get here just so he can put away 30 beers between Friday night and Monday morning. I hate that I thought I found a nice person and he turned out to be a train wreck.

He still makes me laugh with his incessant teasing. I hate that I care about him so much when I know I can't fix him, when I know he's not even interested in a long-term relationship, his issues and baggage aside. I went out of my way today to tactfully avoid him without being rude, and we ran into each other even more than usual.

He made an offhand, joking comment that he might just go back to selling drugs if the store lays him off after remodel. I hope to God he's joking, since he seems too scared of going to prison to even talk much about drugs, but I wouldn't put it past him, either. He's going to wreck up his life even more and there's nothing I can do about it.

[Hobbs]

First off, thanks for the sig.

Secondly, I thought the OP would be a lot different from the title, but anywho...I know what it's like to pursue a love you can't have. It sucks, for sure but...the love I found in the process, I wouldn't trade for all the tea in China.

I had a coworker like that too. We'd joke and flirt all the time. Then I hit a brick wall when a coworker informed me she was married...and had kids. Still, sometimes I miss hanging out with her and joking around, y'know?

[guywithashovel]

I have been in this general type of situation many times before, though I've never been in your exact situation. In any sense, it really does suck. It's almost like seeing something in a store window that you know would make your life great in some way, but knowing that you'll never have enough money for it. Most single gals are out of my league, so yeah, I know what it feels like.

I don't mean to lament too much, though. I actually do enjoy being single, though I still hold out hope that there may be someone out there who fits me. In the mean time, I can take solace in the fact that there are two groups of women who like me:

1. Spoken-for women (i.e. ones married or in relationships)

2. Women old enough to be my mother.

For some strange reason, females in both of those groups just love me.

[HYHYBT]

None of them were drunks or had any problems of that kind, but I understand the title very well: everyone I've *ever* fallen for has been straight :(

Most annoying.

[jackfaire]

*nods* It also sucks when you could have had them but you missed your window.

On the lighter side of this I just found out that the actor who portrays one of my favorite characters (yes I know they are different people) is gay.

Please allow me my moment of gay

SQUUEEEEEEEEEEEE

Thank you that is all.

[Red Panda]

I don't get why you can't have him? If you actually care about him then the fact that he committed a crime wouldn't matter nor the fact that he enjoys drinking. Drugs and alcohol are victimless. If anything being with him might make him less bored so he drinks less.

[LadyBarbossa]

I don't think I can have him because if I enter a relationship, I'd like for it to be long term. He's been badly burned by his ex-wife (whom he regularly fantasizes about running over with his truck) and says the only way he'll do marriage again is if he wakes up from being drunk or high and finds the ring on his hand.

I have considered the fact that his drug arrest was a big mistake that he's made, but as Jester and others mentioned in my CS thread, would I really want to get involved with someone who has so recently had these issues? He's also posted status updates online about how he wishes he could 'run away to some place where no one knows him'.

Yes, I care about him. I absolutely want to help him. I realize that people can change. I'm often complimented on what a compassionate person I am, what a good attitude I have, etc. He treats me just a *little* bit differently than he does the rest of our little circle of friends, and I think he knows that we're from two entirely different walks of life, but he still hangs around me a lot, and talks to me like an actual person instead of treading eggshells lest he offend the innocent little religious girl. Just by watching his body language and the way he says certain things, I can tell he's a very lonely, unhappy person when it boils down to just him. Again, I'd love to help him, if only as a friend, but I can't deny I have strong feelings for him and I know that "I can change him!" are four very dangerous words.

[blas87]

Red Panda, I thought the way you are thinking right now when I first started dating my boyfriend. I knew what I was getting into with him, and I never tried to play the "with him to save him" routine, but there was some naivety in me to think that being with a really good girl would tame him a bit and get him to realize that he had been living the wrong life and there was so much more out there than drinking and drugs and always being in jail.

That was only somewhat true. I can't get him to quit fantasizing about his old life and all of his friends that he used to always get in trouble with. I can't stop him from wanting to always go back home and be with them and risk getting in trouble again and getting so drunk with them that something bad always happens (not always legal, just that someone ALWAYS ends up missing or lost or someone hospitalized or something important gets lost or stolen).

Maybe some people would agree with my bf's sentiments that I have destroyed his social life and taken him away from his friends, but I think he ruined his own life by doing what he used to do and continues to want to do. In fact, his own damn motto is "Zach* does what Zach wants!" and obviously he never lets anyone ever talk him out of anything. I have told him I'm not happy and don't want him to go, but he doesn't listen. That's hardly controlling at all.

All I wanted was to have a serious relationship and settle down and hoped that he'd want the same. He was badly burned as well by his last gf, and how I have zero chance of ever living with him because he's convinced he'll never get that serious with a girl ever again because we're all so damn "crazy". He has even called me crazy and psychotic, and I've never once followed him anywhere or ever tried to physically stop him from going out somewhere or call him a million times and I have never ever gotten physical with him in that way.

I don't mean to threadjack, but sometimes you can have someone you really do want, but they don't want you the same way or don't feel as deeply about you back.

It hurts and it sucks.

*= Alias to protect the asshole

[crashhelmet]

The best I can recommend is to continue being his friend and do what you can to show him that there is more than getting wasted on the weekends.

Most people like him are self-destructive like that because it blocks their acknowledgment of their own pain and/or depression. It sounds quite possible that it's the same for him.

Give him an ear and a shoulder. Get him to hang out outside of work doing things that will keep him sober, or at least less wasted for now. Help him come out of his shell. Things just might be different then.

CH

[blas87]

That's pretty good advice.

Also understand that if you were to persue things further with him, people with alcohol/drug dependency issues have a horrible habbit of blaming everyone and anyone else for their own problems, and that is not just limited to cops and judges and bosses. It could also be you. They also have a horrible habbit of needing to validate and justify themselves, so they are really good at making excuses. Lots of excuses.

Just know what you're getting into. There is nothing wrong with being a good person and a good friend, but realize the risks.

[Greenday]

I'm having dinner with the person I fell for that I can't have. Except her boyfriend is a loser, she knows it, and she doesn't want to stay with him. So it's just a matter of time. Plus it helps that her best friend agrees that this girl should date me instead of the loser. I hate the waiting game though.

It also doesn't help that she used to date a guy that at the time I considered my best friend. He transferred to another college and doesn't even try to contact me anymore. Doesn't answer texts or anything. His loss.

[blas87]

Greenday, don't even bother "waiting" for this girl. You will be wasting time that could spend on meeting a girl that is interested in YOU and only you.

[Boozy]

Someone I Can't Have = Everyone.

I'm married, and I have to say, it can be a struggle. I adore my husband, and I wouldn't leave him for anything. But even people in strong and loving marriages can have a wandering eye.

I'd advise against creating close friendships with people whom you might become interested in romantically. I have a long list of male friends, but I also have a long list of men whom I purposefully avoid. It's just easier in the long run.

Even if I did become close to someone I was attracted to, I still wouldn't cheat. But I figure, why put myself in that position? Who needs the angst?

[jackfaire]

I'd advise against creating close friendships with people whom you might become interested in romantically.

Well shit I am screwed because my tastes for both friends and romantic partners are the same. If they are a friend 9 times out of 10 I would date them too. I have the same standards for both.

[LadyBarbossa]

Well shit I am screwed because my tastes for both friends and romantic partners are the same. If they are a friend 9 times out of 10 I would date them too. I have the same standards for both.

I'm in the same boat. If I can't be someone's friend, than how could I possibly think about getting romantically involved with them? It's the reason I found this guy so damn attractive in the first place. I'd first noticed how easy on the eyes he was when I started the job, we shared a mutual friend, and he started talking to me a lot. He has kids aged 11 and 15, but absolutely never wants anymore, which is another plus for me, as I never plan on pushing out any of my own or becoming some guy's broodmare (I live in the south). I'd already fallen pretty badly for his good qualities before I found out he'd gotten himself probation for trafficking Vicodin and Rohypnol. Then I found out he really wasn't joking when he talked about going home Friday nights and getting trashed. Then I started to notice little things in his body language and facial expressions that give away how unhappy he really is.

I was off today, but in the store for weekly shopping (ugh) and I ran into him along with one of the women who leads store planning, who snapped me up to hang most of the signing during remodel and really likes my work. While I was getting her info in the case I ever needed a good job reference, she glanced sideways at the guy and told me in an undertone that she thinks the store is going to hire him on permanently. I hope so, for his sake, because I'm afraid getting let go will cause him to get a little depressed and I don't want him to drink or drug himself to death.

And then there's all the hell I'd get from my family if I did pursue this guy, even only as a friend. I was raised Baptist and I can't imagine the grief it'd cause if I came home with a first degree felon with alcohol and women issues :rolleyes:

[Boozy]

Well shit I am screwed because my tastes for both friends and romantic partners are the same. If they are a friend 9 times out of 10 I would date them too. I have the same standards for both.

I'm in the same boat. If I can't be someone's friend, than how could I possibly think about getting romantically involved with them?

I think you guys are misunderstanding me.

Of course you should be friends with people you date. But there's a difference between liking your romantic interests as friends and liking your friends romantically.

Jackfaire - Are you seriously saying that you want to sleep with every single one of your friends?

All I'm saying is that if you want to sleep with someone, and can't for whatever reason, don't hang around with them platonically. Move on.

[smileyeagle1021]

None of them were drunks or had any problems of that kind, but I understand the title very well: everyone I've *ever* fallen for has been straight :(

Most annoying.

Oh, how I can relate... I can remember in high school be head over heals over a guy, absolutely most perfect guy I could have hoped for... straight as a fucking arrow (or so I thought, would you believe it, he came out two years after I moved 500 miles away :mad: ) Then in college fell for a mormon guy... oh yeah, straight as an arrow. Then there was ONE gay guy I feel for... oh yeah, he was in a committed relationship. Wasn't until I finally met the guy who is my current boyfriend did I get that combination of someone I was interested in and was gay and was available :D

[Greenday]

Greenday, don't even bother "waiting" for this girl. You will be wasting time that could spend on meeting a girl that is interested in YOU and only you.

That'd be no one at the moment. The only person that could have been interested in me was just telling me last weekend that she found a guy she wants to date at her job. So I'm kinda knocked back to no one right now.

[jackfaire]

Jackfaire - Are you seriously saying that you want to sleep with every single one of your friends?

All I'm saying is that if you want to sleep with someone, and can't for whatever reason, don't hang around with them platonically. Move on.

Just about yes.

But do you mean want as in if it happened that would be cool or want as in I am pining away for it?

[Boozy]

I guess I mean pining for it in such a way that it bothers you or gets in the way of your friendship.

I recognize that a lot of men (and women) are "good to go" with any not-unattractive person they know and like. But that's different than falling for someone.

[Red Panda]

Oh, how I can relate... I can remember in high school be head over heals over a guy, absolutely most perfect guy I could have hoped for... straight as a fucking arrow (or so I thought, would you believe it, he came out two years after I moved 500 miles away :mad: ) Then in college fell for a mormon guy... oh yeah, straight as an arrow. Then there was ONE gay guy I feel for... oh yeah, he was in a committed relationship. Wasn't until I finally met the guy who is my current boyfriend did I get that combination of someone I was interested in and was gay and was available :D


It seems like gay guys fall for straight guys alot which I find strange becasue straight guys and gay guys tend to act differently. If it a physical thing?

[blas87]

Same reason gay girls fall for straight girls, although I've found that there isn't a lot of difference in gay and straight women when it comes to their hobbies and interests, other than who they are attracted to.

[HYHYBT]

It seems like gay guys fall for straight guys alot which I find strange becasue straight guys and gay guys tend to act differently. If it a physical thing?Hard to say, but sheer chance would account for a lot of it: depending on who's doing the estimating, between 90 and 98% of the population is straight. Which means that chance alone would say that if I develop an interest in 50 people then only between one and five of them will even be gay. And I'm nowhere near up to 50.

Of course, *after* finding the gay one, you still have as much chance of their being not interested for other reasons as anyone else.

[Boozy]

It seems like gay guys fall for straight guys alot which I find strange becasue straight guys and gay guys tend to act differently.

In my experience, gay men act the same as straight men.

Television and movie portrayals aside.

[jackfaire]

It seems like gay guys fall for straight guys alot which I find strange becasue straight guys and gay guys tend to act differently. If it a physical thing?

Meh I don't act differently than straight guys.

[Red Panda]

I've always noticed gay men acting gayer then straight men, even if it isn't obviouse. Every guy who I've later found out was gay I had already suspected based on their behaviour .

[smileyeagle1021]

It seems like gay guys fall for straight guys alot which I find strange becasue straight guys and gay guys tend to act differently. If it a physical thing?

As others have mentioned, a lot of it is a numbers game, you are much more likely to find a straight guy than a gay guy. Also, it is yet another area that homosexuals are exactly like heterosexuals... we want what we know we can't have. Straight men fall for married women, lesbians, women who just aren't interesting in them, etc... straight men happen to fall into the largest category of that which we cannot have.

eta- and could you clarify exactly what you consider gay behavior?

[blas87]

It doesn't help when most TV shows/movies portray gay males as over the top flamboyantly gay....hand movements, lisp, etc etc etc.

[Red Panda]

^ Thats how all the ones I know act

[Greenday]

eta- and could you clarify exactly what you consider gay behavior?

Asking me to define gay behavior, besides showing an interest in only men, is something I can't do. But for me, it's basically a 6th sense. Any guy I got to know that turned out to be gay, I just knew he was gay before he confirmed it or someone else did. For instance, I have a gay friend that when he first joined my group, he had never come out to anyone. He especially hung out with one of the really cute girls in my group all of the time. I knew for a fact that she liked him. And yet, something was amiss. While he acted like he liked her, I could tell it was just that, an act. Then it hit me: he was gay! A few months later, he came out to us, no one cared in the slightest, but I was the only one not surprised.

I don't get it. In my experience, every gay guy I've met is just not as masculine as most other guys. Don't get me wrong, I've never met one that acted completely feminine or anything, but they just don't seem to ever fit into the majority of male stereotypes. A hardcore sense of fashion may also be a dead giveaway. Bonus points if he can tell one designer from another.

[Plaidman]

I have gay friends, both male and female. Other then the guys constant need for attention of talking about cocks and cum, (Which they have been MUCH better now then they used too, which is a good thing) ya really couldn't tell they were /gay/ by sterotypical signs. One of them wrestles, full beard, rough-acting at times, loud. He is a bear as he once told me.

Though all of them are a little shocked that if I meet people in person, I've got a 99 percent rate on gaydar, and its better then some of them. (To be fair, that 1 percent did end up being gay, but he commited suicide rather then face the stygma of that due to his family heavy antigay stance).

I'd tell how I do it, but no-one gets it and calls it bullshit and a myth, but it's been pretty fucking accurate.


EDIT: Oh yeah. Me falling for someone I can't have. That happens to me alot. Like, at least ten times a year. Only recently have I gotten more and more courage to feel that I do deserve someone in the future. Strangely enough it was due to alot of people here and at cs, on both sexes. No secret I did have two boyfriends before, but it was kinda more for want of attention and love, even though I did love those two guys in a strange way ><. Stupid twisted Plaidman logic.

[Red Panda]

One of them wrestles, full beard, rough-acting at times, loud. He is a bear as he once told me.


Your example of somebody who isn't a stereotype sounds like a stereotypical bear.

[Hobbs]

Haha, I was gonna say the same thing XD

[jackfaire]

A hardcore sense of fashion may also be a dead giveaway. Bonus points if he can tell one designer from another.

Meh I am lucky if my socks match.

[Plaidman]

Your example of somebody who isn't a stereotype sounds like a stereotypical bear.

That much is true, but many many of my customers, many of my other friends don't get that. They only think gay men as super skinny, super high pitch voice with hand gestures, constant calling people bitch, super fashion sense etc.

Sorry, should have been more specfic.

[LadyBarbossa]

The best I can recommend is to continue being his friend and do what you can to show him that there is more than getting wasted on the weekends.

Most people like him are self-destructive like that because it blocks their acknowledgment of their own pain and/or depression. It sounds quite possible that it's the same for him.

Give him an ear and a shoulder. Get him to hang out outside of work doing things that will keep him sober, or at least less wasted for now. Help him come out of his shell. Things just might be different then.

CH

Arighty, it's been a while, but I'm still dealing with all this mess. Despite being told that all the positions were filled and they probably wouldn't hire him, this guy was given a permanent position shortly after I was and for the most part, seems happy working the produce department. Our schedules are constantly getting flipped and rotated, so we aren't able to break together every day like we did on remodel, but if we're both on break at the same time, we'll hang out and just talk about this, that, and whatever. Since produce is right up front, we see each other from a distance often and shoot little smiles back and forth. I can't walk past him without him popping out of the aisle and following me for a while or stopping me to chat. Sometimes I'll sit on the bench by the time clock on lunch and he'll clock out to go home, but then come and sit down with me for a few minutes instead of racing for the front door like he usually does.

However, he still spends his days off laying around in bed with his friend Bud Light and posting pissed off statuses online about the guy who got him in trouble last winter. I get it Billy (name changed to protect the . . . not so innocent), you screwed up, someone got you in trouble, and you're mad. I'd be upset too. But dwelling on it constantly like this? I mean geez.

Every now and then we'll have the same day off, but he tells me happily that he plans on doing absolutely nothing or staying in bed all day. I haven't exactly gone out of my way to ask him out someplace because in all honesty, I don't want him to think I'm asking him out romantically, because I think it'd spook him at the moment, and I don't want things to be awkward. I really would like to get him out of his bed/funk and show him he can have some fun for a change. But I have no idea how. I mentioned on Sunday I was going downtown to the lake for the annual fireworks, but again, he said he planned on going home and doing nothing.

HOW do I get him out and about without seeming like I'm coming onto him? He's already got at least two female coworkers who regularly hit on him or grab him on his way into the men's room and introduce him to their friends as their 'future husband', and I don't want to turn into one of those.

[Exaspera]

Just a little hint-don't mess with alcoholics. Wait until they reach their own "rock bottoms" and decide to get help. Otherwise, you'll be stuck with lying, cheating egomaniacs who hate themselves. Really, this and drugs are real dealbreakers.

Gee, how do I know all of this? ;)

[blas87]

And also bear in mind that rock bottom isn't always just one DUI or one arrest. I fear my bf isn't going to really think about how bad his problem really is until he either ends up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning or gets in a serious car accident. (He does not drive after drinking anymore, but he's still dumb enough to let a drunk friend drive if I'm not around).

Hell, he has a friend who drove drunk with another friend, the car crashed and exploded, the other friend died, the friend driving got 4 years in prison, he's out now, and he whines and complains about being on parole!

It's a disease. A bad disease.

I read on another site, alcoholics and drug addicts are not capable of having normal, healthy relationships. They care too much for their addiction to care for another person.