Alone Time, Anxiety, And Assumptions

I want to thank user “rav diablo” for stopping by, reading some of my entries, and for noting accordingly. Rather than reply to each note individually, I decided to reply in entry format and see if I can address each of his points in an organized way.  All the notes to which I will be responding were regarding Serena, my relationship with Serena, and our recent trials and tribulations.

Serena and I have an interesting and very different relationship from the relationships that we have with our various other co-workers. We started off as merely two people who just so happened to work in the same office. From there, we became acquaintances who gradually found ourselves spending time working together, as I took on a trainer role to her.  I was tasked with showing her the ropes and getting her acclimated to the job and overall work environment. I wouldn’t learn this until several weeks later and after she and I had been hanging out in said training capacity, but she would reveal to me in plain and simple English that she had a crush on me.  At the time, I was taken aback by this, but after thinking about it for a few days, the signs were there. I was just blind to them. After all, it isn’t as though this sort of thing happened to me every week.  Indeed, I was oblivious for several weeks, before it finally hit me.

I know that I was harping on many of the restrictions that now plague my relationship with Serena.  I am gradually adjusting to these restrictions, but rest assured, that doesn’t mean that I like any of them or that I want them to remain in place.  These are essentially necessary evils and ones that I can’t get rid of just by complaining about them.  They are just there and here we are.

I am very much aware that we all need our time alone. As an introvert, this is very crucial to me and I know that I should be receptive and understanding of that in others. Having said that, my challenge is recognizing that some people have very different perspectives on how text messaging should work. I see text message exchanges as on-going conversations, while some might see them as conversations with an active pause button. I’m still working through that.  It’s not that I become anxious when I don’t hear from Serena. What I tend to do is question why she hasn’t responded and then almost immediately, I convince myself that I’m no longer important to her because how else could I explain why 15 minutes have gone by and she has yet to reply to me.  Logically, I know that people become busy but emotionally, I take it personally and start questioning how she sees me.  More often than not and she is aware of this, I assume that she just doesn’t care anymore.

I know that I can’t always be this way because it’s not fair to her, but also because I’m going to make myself miserable. I don’t see this as being the way that human relationships are and how they work, as much as I need to take a step back, be patient when waiting for her to respond to my text messages, and stop attacking her needlessly because I assume that she suddenly stopped caring for and about me.  That is really petty, I now admit, but that was truly how I felt last week.

Serena and I have been seemingly attached at the proverbial hip since the beginning of May 2023.  We have had many ups and downs, the majority of which I have instigated because of something I perceived about her.  I’m working towards bettering myself, the first step of which is not accusing her of nonsense and assuming the worst when she doesn’t text or even call me.

As I tell her all the time…

I’m trying.