People Hate Me

I swear they do. This is indeed just a rant, but I can't believe what a crazy horrible week this has been.

People laugh at me. Well--they smile. But they smile when they think I'm not looking at them but when they are looking at me. Their smiles are not nice ones. They are malicious and sadistic. I'm not kidding. I've seen this happen several times now. Either that or I am verily mad.

I offer three recent cases as examples.

Case #1
Today, I was walking by this co-worker's office. He saw me pass by, thought I wouldn't look back, and then I saw him smile--that smile. It was in reaction to me. I saw it on his face. His registering me, thinking, and then smiling.

About a month ago he came into my office twice in a row during the early mornings. Many people at the office come in later--like at 9am. A few of us get there rather rather early--8:30 at the latest. Hmm... that doesn't seem right. They get there later--like 10am.

Anyway, when no one was there, he came and knocked on my door. I told him I hadn't spoken to the co-worker for whom I thought he was searching. He said, Oh uhm, I wasn't looking for her. I actually wanted to talk to you.

Oh?, I said, to distracted by my work to hide my surprise. Yea, he said.
What's up?

To make a long schpiel short: a few weeks ago I had asked him where his family was from. It got him started thinking abou this ancestry. He realized he didn't know much, and was intrigued by the fact that I knew a lot about my own.

He whipped out a pen and pad, looked down at it, and asked: Do you have any tips on how I can figure out where I came from?

I tried so hard to just not bust out laughing. Fuck--I hope he didn't see that reaction in me. Uhm, I told him, just talk to people in your family. Bring it up often and randomly and cross check with various members at different times about the same points. Investigate discrepancies as they usually lead to some interesting resolutions. Finally, be patient. This shit takes a while. People's memory is not immediate.

He told me some experiences that recently troubled him about his national identity. People have mistaken the origin of his last name. I tried to express some interest and pity. But I didn't have much to give. He's really young. He finished school like 3 years early. I didn't expect him to know much. I also don't think I could give someone my understanding of family and my interest behind it. I didn't know how to be fake about this one. I didn't know what to feed him other than reality. I didn't have bullshit on me. I should have had though.

Eventually, we ended the conversation.

The following morning, he knocks again. I said the same thing. I don't know where that coworker is. Oh, he says again, I actually wanted to talk to you. WTF?

What's up?

The short version: the guy is at least 150lbs overweight. He says he wasn't fat until he was 7 when his family put him on some meds. He ballooned and never went back to normal. He noticed that I seem to always workout. He noticed that I seem to eat a lot of the mysterious food I bring with me everyday and that I am not overweight. He carefully avoided any compliments and actually mentioned a friend of his who was buffer and skinnier than me. Fucken funny. The terms were those very ones too... haha!

So he was wondering if I could put together a workout plan for him. Again, he brought out a pen and pad, and looked down at it. Holy shit. What the hell was going on?

I threw out some basic questions. He eats crap and supposedly not much of it. He's obsessed with not spending too much on anything including food. His monthly food budget is a third of mine. He's afraid he might have heatlh problems.

I said we should workout together sometime and shot him an e-mail. As for my food--I'm in the processing of copyrighting it. I wasn't going to give out what it was. He seemd rather annoyed by that. I couldn't be anything more than just blunt.

I said my morning was insanely busy and that I had to do some stuff before the boss got in. I politley dismissed him.

He got my e-mail. We worked out. I finished early clearly as he was not going to be able to do anything I did. Everybody at the gym stared at us. It was awful. I never realized how full of muscle heads the gym is until he was there. He just stuck out like a sore thumb.

One time this guy and I had a real conversation. Turns out he comes from an insanely religious and academic family. He's unbelievably socially inept and knows it. He doesn't know how to get around it though. He's incredibly insecure. I would be too. He's brilliant but the fat thing seems to overwhelm almost everything. He doesn't have attitude to make up for it. He looks like a large depressed guy who just does his work. He's not attractive and exerts no sexual energy that I could detect.

Case #2
Next is my office neighbor. Our offices are arranged in such an adjacent way (we basically face each other) that we are essentially office mates. Additionally, turns out she's my neighbor.

She's gorgeous. No doubt about it. Large almond doe eyes with striking lashes and eyebrows to match. She also has a brilliant smile. She's passionate about her work and brilliant.

At first she was very careful around me. I remember the first time she looked at me with what I thought was extra interest. That's when it began.

I wanted her as a friend. That much I knew. So I pursued that much. I was confused about whether I would like her as more than that. While her features were striking and dramatic--her personality didn't match. At least as far as I knew from her office persona.

We went to dinner several times. We carpooled several times.

One of those dinners was an obvious set up on her behalf. She thanked me later for asking her to dinner. I thought that was odd. We're office buddies and neighbors. We're supposed to chill on occasion because otherwise then it would be awkward. I don't know why I think that.

At one dinner I remember we talked about growing up. I mentioned losing my aversion to risk, and she echoed my sentiment.

I was curious as I didn't expect that response. So I asked--what made you change?

She looked away quickly. Her pretty brow furrowed itself in perplexed thought. She quickly looked in a different direction. Again, her brow furled itself. Again, she looked in another direction. My--she was thinking about this one.

Finally, she looked up and broke into a huge smile, and said--Damn you Tino! I can't tell you that--it's personal!

I was a bit shocked, although her head motions had already prepped me for something of the sort.

I gave her a look of innocence.

She kept smiling and then lowered the volume of her voice and said, 'At least not yet.'

That comment was what struck me. And it hit me hard. She expected this to go somewhere. Where I could've inferred but didn't want to.

Was I enjoying the powertrip? Was I enjoying the attention? I wasn't as into her as she seemed to clue to be into me.

Case #3

This case might end up being the x-factor--the missing link to what I think ultimately transpired.

Offices in our building are arranged in suites. They're kinda cool. People face each other and its kind of like you have your own office but you still share the space in a very close way.

My other office-suite mate went to the same college as me although we didn't really know each other. She's Asian although not the same type as Asian boy. I'll call her Asian girl.

Asian girl had a thing for me pretty much the moment we met. I still remember her reaction. She's straight from Asia and very very stoic. In fact, her stoicism was initially why I thought we would get along so well.

Despite her hard demeanor, I remember when we were introduced to each other. Her expression seemed to swell internally. Her eyes grew slightly, and her eyebrows didn't really lift as much as they sort of stretched back. I remember noticing her reaction but not knowing what to make of it. Particularly since her mouth remained constant--and that often times to me is the tale-teller of most such reactions.

We had to work rather closely. I enjoyed working with her because she would always hit the ground running. Rarely would she stop for stupid pleasantries too long. She would immediately and almost only focus on the work.

One time, I think the time I first realized--I caught her slightly off gaurd. She didn't hear or see me coming towards her. She was using a computer station not at her desk. She gets all focused when she's working and so I can why she missed me. But, it didn't last long, and without looking directly at me, she figured who I was.

She looked away from her work, and she sort of swelled. It's hard to explain. It was like the most repressed massive ocean wave. It came and went gradually although perhaps not slowly and whatever it was, I noticed it. I think she suppressed a smile. Then she was back to normal.
Everything was still chill up until now. I had no reason to be other than normal.

The first overt sign of trouble came after that work meeting. When as I was leaving I passed by her by one of the printers. She turned her head towards me and held her glare. I could see her be a little bit uncomfortable but happy. It was wierd since she's always so stoic. I kept walking and smiled back at her. I was leaving. But she held the stare, and then winked at me.

It wasn't an expert wink. It was barely one at all. Nothing about her other than her half muted smile--not her posture, cheeks, or eyebrows-- would have suggested what she was doing. It was a fucken stoic wink!

I didn't respond to it at all. I couldn't have. I wouldn't know how to. I didn't feel anything of the sort in return for her. My hope was that she didn't read that off my face. But, it's totally plausible that she did. I just walked on. Bad move likely in retrospect.

The next time we were working and I think I caught her off gaurd again. I think she was staring at me. As I looked at her with slight surprise that was about to sour into suspicion (yea, i'm that naive and dumb often), she quickly pointed to my keys on my desk. She said--oh, you shop there, referring to the grocery store discount mini-card on the key ring.

Uh, yea. I mean I hate having these cards--I mean they can track your spending and all.

I should have left it at that. But I didn't.

I can't remember if she said, 'You really think so?' Or if she gave me some suspicious grin.

But perhaps I was fishing for a compliment when I said, "No its true.... One of the clerks one time pulled me out of line to tell me how much I was saving and started quoting my monthly expenditures at the store for like the past 1/2 year".

She giggled, shyly, and said, "She probably just thought you were hot."

I didn't respond, again. I got all shy, and just looked somewhere else and dismissed the comment.

The second time was when we were talking about which parent we looked like. I'm somewhat uneasy about the fact that I look like my mother and not like my father. I tried to say that, but I think I ended up just saying that I looked like my mother.

She got this annoyed look on her face, and sarcastically said, "Well then... your mother must be a very beautiful woman."

Again, I just pretended like it didn't happen.

Eventually, she figured me out.

We were talking about nobel prize winners one day while she, my other suite-mate, and I walked to pick up some lunch.

I mentioned a few tidbits about the awards ceremony.

As per usual office people bull shit, we talked about what it might be like to win something like that. I mentioned an acquintance who was a guest of honor and got to dance with the queen. I said, that must be worth something.

The Asian girl, added, as much as perhaps it would be worth to dance with the prince?

We all got uncomfortable and no one said anything else about it. She got slightly embarassed and looked away.

Another time, I metnioed how she seemed to be really into aroma therapy. She has all these scents in her office. I've seen the spray bottles. I asked about it. She said she really didn't have that many scent bottles around--it was mostly her moisturizers. I said, oh, and sort of looked at one of the bottles. She smiled big, and shoved another one in my face, Do you want some? Are you interested? Is this something you like?

Fuck--it was so wierd. It wasn't necessarily what she was saying, it was the tone. The accusatory and pointed tone.

I just wanted to kill her.

Instead, I indifferently looked at the bottles and said. No, its okay. I was just wondering where all the scents were from. She wasn't bothered and just put the bottle down.

On occasion, she seems very annoyed by me.

At meetings, she gets a kick out of seeing me flounder. She's very insecure about doing well. Not always though. Sometimes she's been normal and nice about just getting shit done.

All was well, until last week. When I noticed that my pretty officemate came in one morning and was very stoic around me. Wierd I thought, usually its just the Asian one that's like that.

I thought maybe it just wasn't her day. Then the fat guy came in, and she cheered right up and went back to her usual self.

Wow, I felt bad. It was me, not her. This continued for the rest of the day.

The three of them scheduled a dinner for the end of the week.

I was invited by the Asian bitch. The pretty one followed up on it later, although seemingly reluctant.

I agreed, tenuously. I love intellectual conversation with them--usually at least. They're all terribly informed and lots of fun in that way. But dinner? This meant actual interaction and hence lots of bullshit because I didn't see myself getting along with them too much on that basis. I mean--pretty girl yes. Asian girl no--she was just never really her self. Big guy---not really either. He errected lots of pretenses that were all very obvious to me. He has an issue about his masculinity and overdoes pretending to be really masculine. Except its too fake. To the point of being funny.

I know--I do it too.

I went. They chatted. There were several awkward silences. I kept getting phone calls. My fag hags were hollering at me.

I stayed. Asian girl and Pretty girl kept giving me all these wierd glares. One in particular caught my attention. We were talking about why Hillary had to stay with Bill in order to become president. I said relationships were important to public image. They gave me this crazy wierd look.

Pretty girl knows I've never really been in a comitted relationship. I assume she told Asian chick.

A couple more glares like that and I was convinced. She told. The other one freaked. She didn't need to be told. She was just ignoring all the signs.

House music. Obsession with fitness. I don't know what else. But the signs were there.

I left first.