Sorted out

I had dinner with Chrissy this evening, which was very nice, but, more than that, was important.  I hadn’t really realized how important it was until I was sitting there with her and finding that I didn’t know what I wanted to say but I had to say something, and perhaps the best thing would be to be completely honest and just hope for the best, which was what I ended up doing.

The thing about this whole business that was so odd is that usually, in fact always before, when I don’t get a role I want and it goes instead to someone I like, I’m disappointed and jealous for a day or two and then I’m just happy for them.  Chrissy didn’t even wind up with the role and I haven’t been ruled out for it — so why am I still upset a week later?  She and I were talking through the whole mess and trying to work it all out, and I started thinking about why I wanted the role so badly, and realized once again that it had almost nothing to do with the show and almost everything just to do with Robbie.  And I said that, and her eyes widened and she said, “Wait — do you like him??”  And I said yes, and we both went, ah, there’s the missing piece of information.  And she laughed, and I laughed, and she said, OK, now this all makes so much more sense, and I said yes, it really does.  And somehow just telling her that Robbie is the issue here and not the show cleared the air so much.

Because I always wanted to use this show as a chance to get closer to him, and hopefully not in a completely platonic way.  So the fact that she was offered the slot that would give me that opportunity — suddenly it made sense why it had been a comfort that she has a boyfriend.  Robbie was not casting himself a girlfriend, he was casting a show.  But because I had ulterior motives…  What happens between Robbie and me should be just between the two of us, and somehow, in my mind, Chrissy had gotten mixed up in it.  And once I’d cleared that out, the whole thing felt so much better.

I always knew the problem was that I hadn’t dealt with Chrissy the same way as I had with Robbie with this.  What happens on the casting board is kept completely separate from what happens between us as people, and that has enabled us to go on interacting as people.  But I never established that rule for myself with Chrissy…and never recognized that the same thing in fact applies between her and Robbie.  When it comes to it, Chrissy and Robbie have no relationship.  She was my competition for a role in a student-directed show.  She was never my competition for Robbie’s attention.

Of course, how to get Robbie’s attention is still the mystery it always has been.  Maybe I should let myself feel a little more in control of the situation.  Part of what makes this particular one awkward is the fact that he is quite high-status in the department.  So I don’t feel that I have the right to approach him.  On the other hand…I’m sort of a bit high-status in the department too, or getting there.  And in most people’s minds, Robbie comes as part of a pair.  For me, Paul is so overshadowed by Robbie that I often forget about him entirely.

I get to go to ballet tomorrow.  What could make me happier?

–Stephanie

PS Time for more horoscope silliness: “Here’s the good news: You’ll be so focused on one particular person for the next month that nothing else will seem to matter much. The bad news? There isn’t any — they’ll be feeling the same way.”  That’s today.  Who knows, really, but it still made me happy to hear.