The problem with starting a new job is that new colleagues want to know all about you. We’re an office of women (bar the uber-boss and a couple of roving reporters) and, well, discussions on education and previous employment can only stretch so far before the conversations turns to significant others.
Current and past.
Which is cool I guess – stories and sharing are fun – but then people expect me to share right back at them. I’m not a fan of the randomly sharing in person as, irrational blogging of intimate secrets to complete strangers aside, I like to build up a friendship with someone first.
But I realised lately that a lot of my anecdotes contain the Cute Canadian.
[THEM] When/where was your last holiday Cas?
[ME] Oh back in April, to Toronto/Brampton/Kingston to see J.
[THEM] You’re other half lives in another country?!
[ME] No, he’s no longer my other half.
[THEM] But still, how did you meet?!
[ME] We were on the same post-grad course.
[THEM] Ah… Then why did he go to, Canada, was it?
[ME] He couldn’t find a good enough job, his visa ran out, he had to go back.
[THEM] … (it’s clear they want more of the story)
[ME] We tried the distance thing for several months but by the end of May it was over.
[THEM] It must have been awful!
[ME] It was moderately horrendous, yes, but not as bad as it could have been. We’ve both still got our health, sanity, and were at least reasonably amicable. Put it this way, I wasn’t at the stage where I downed three bottles of rose and ended up setting fire to his belongings.
[THEM] You poor, poor thing! Then, they do always say distance is hard…
[ME] (when I get my hands on that mythical ‘they’, I swear I’m gonna have words) yes, distance is crappy but I have seen first hand how it can work. He was my Cute Canadian, and I had a blast and don’t regret a thing, but it wasn’t to be. I expect even without the distance it wouldn’t have worked.
[THEM] You’re so brave…
[ME] (I’m sorry, I’m meant to be breaking down at this point?) Yeah…
Silence falls on the office.
[THEM] So have you ever been on the London Eye?
[ME] Um, yes in fact, several times. It’s very beautiful if you go at dusk – the sunset can be very romantic (oh bollocks! I think to myself. I didn’t mean to let that slip…)
[THEM] Romantic?! At sunset!? That’s a brilliant idea Cas!
[ME] Not mine actually, my ex’s… *sigh* Yes, the Canadian one.
Again, silence. I tell myself to keep schtum. Then we start talking about the various men in our lives and those that have and haven’t cooked. I mention that the only time J ever cooked, I ended up in hospital (almost certainly unrelated).
Damn it! Every bloody anecdote they seem to hear out of me at work comes wiggling it’s way back to my past. I don’t want to be one of those women who is only capable of defining herself through her man (or previous men). That’s not me.
It’s just than in an office of slightly more mature women, I’m an oddity – footloose and fancy free with my own take on life. It seems to fascinate them.
I’m just waiting for the time to come when I can tell them about the two before that I met through the internet… *snigger* How many points do I get if I can get my manager to fall off her chair?
I had a temp job two summers ago at a small department within a large multinational company. It was an Island of Lost Women in a sea of corporate macho blokeyness. The ladies jumped at me with a vengeance, trying to pick my brain.
“Oh, it must be fun living in the city centre, oh, you must have an exciting life being a metropolitan bachelor…” and so they kept cooing. This unsollicited faux-fascination alienated me so much that I froze and simply shut down, but not before making up the wildest stories I just knew they wanted to hear.
When I left they told me I never really had fit in, had I? I had been a bit of “an oddity” too.
I’m so sorry, but I think you’re screwed no matter what. You’re going to have to keep feeding them the things they want to hear. And never, ever leave 😉
I never got the manager to do a ROTFL, if you can, you get bonus points just for being such a trooper!
You could always be like J. Peterman when he bought Cosmos Kramer’s stories in Seinfeld. Put the request up on eLance and get people bidding.
50 points, 20 if you only manage to make her spill her coffee/tea
you could tell them about all the internet guys you’ve got flirting with you 😆
Nils – never leave? ARG! The thought of being here forever is just so depressing. I love the job at the moment and the people are sweethearts, but I know I’m going to get itchy feet in a year or so. Which is why it is a perfect job – the contract is only till July 08 😀
Anthony – I’ve never watched Seinfeld so I’m sorry I don’t quite get the reference :S But welcome to Bright Meadow 🙂
Thinking about it, I think I have the ‘make her spill her tea/coffee’ story – my ex-boyfriend getting engaged to my brother’s ex-girlfriend. That always gets a shock 😀 The fall off the chair story though… That’s the holy grail.
And I’m not sure I could explain why assorted men across the internet are flirting with me. That’s possibly leaning more towards “ok, your just weird and are fired” than ‘fall off chair’. It was hard enough to explain why a guy sent me four packs of rice in the post!
Why did he…?
Because he’d read a previous post about how I couldn’t find any American Long Grain rice in Southampton.
Aww, thats really nice!
Did I mention how I can’t find any Nintendo DS’es in Southampton. *innocent*
S’not going to work is it? 🙂
Worth a try – you never know who’s reading the blog!