(Warning: Long! Brevity is not my forte, sorry.)
It all started innocently enough…
The barista hands me my regular cup of coffee and I walk towards my normal section. There’s a lady sitting on a couch and she smiles at me. I barely notice it out of the corner of my eye, but even in that fleeting moment I can see that she’s rather pretty. My eyes reflexively shy away and I pretend not to have seen her. Still, I nonchalantly walk over and take the table next to her. I tell myself it’s only because the table’s near an outlet, which I need to sustain my Dope addiction, but secretly I know it’s because I find her attractive.
I take a seat, doing a pushup-tumble-stumble dance near her to get the laptop plugged in first, and then proceed to check my email and such. It’s not a minute later when she goes “They’re popular, aren’t they?”
“What are?” I look over. Forget pretty; she’s gorgeous.
“Those little netbook things.”
“Sure,” I say. Darn. By now I’ve learned that people genuinely find the small laptop interesting, meaning it’s typically not a conversation starter but rather the conversation itself. Too bad. “They’re not terribly fast, but they’re great for school. Fits great in a backpack along with all the books. Saves my back, if nothing else.” I figure that’d be the end of our chat…
But it isn’t. One thing leads to another, and before long we’re talking about her family, her artwork, her history… we’re both having a good time and laugh a lot. She tells me how her brothers used to tie her up to a tree and tease her. I make a joke about those darned masochists. She chuckles. “Actually…” And before ya know it, the conversation gets more intense and soon we’re talking about odd sex acts. She reveals that she’s bi and it gets more explicit from there.
At one point, she… uh… even follows me to the bathroom. I had forgotten to lock the door, she opens it and goes “Oops” and closes the door again. Ok, fine, just an accident; I don’t think much of it. And by that I mean… I wish it, sure, but I’m not stupid enough to actually think it 
I’m… enthralled. Yeah, that’s the word.
And then I find out she’s with somebody. They’re about to marry.
Heh. Figures. Oh well.
Then I find out they’ve been mostly non-monogamous. Huh. Interesting…
…Only to be informed that they’ve been trying to be for the past few months in preparation for the marriage. Ok, fine. Fair enough. That’s that, right? Three hours after we began, the cafe is about to close, so we say goodbye and part ways. On the drive back, I agonize over our encounter. Did I miss something? Or was she just trying to be friendly? My gut feeling tells me… she had fun… but is that it? I suspect something vaguely odd about her situation, but not enough to put a concrete thought to it. Whatever. I figure I’ll never see her again and put her out of my mind.
Of course, the mind doesn’t always cooperate with the heart.
The next night, I somehow find myself back in the exact same cafe, even though it’s 20 minutes further than the one I usually go to. She’s not there this time, and I sigh half with disappointment, half with relief. I take a seat and start reading.
Another girl sits down next to me and smiles; I smile back, but not in that way. I’m still thinking about… let’s call her Jane, shall we? I start reading, but I can’t concentrate. I put down the book time and time again and try to fall asleep. The atmosphere, the music, the environment… it all reminds me… GAH. I shift around in the couch and eventually pass out.
I wake up and, damn it, she’s right there in front of me. Talking to girl #2. Turns out they’re friends. I acknowledge Jane, but don’t want to appear too interested so I go back to “reading”, all the while hoping that girl #2 will leave soon… and miraculously, she reads my mind: “I have to go. Gotta work tomorrow morning!” Whoa. This is too good to be true. I don’t even say anything and Jane begins to chat it up.
Long story short, we have another night full of shared stories of fun and misadventures; turns out we have a few things in common and – dare I say it – we just seem to click. I’ve never met anyone like her and with every passing minute, I find myself enjoying her company more and more. My suspicions from last night also solidify a bit… if only a bit… but enough to venture a guess: It seems like she’s not entirely satisfied with her marriage; she denies it verbally, but something in her tone suggests that my gut might’ve hit a nerve. Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking… my hit rate is only about 50%, if even that.
And then comes the second bathroom incident. I’m in there changing my contacts with the door open – yeah, I left it open deliberately – and this time she comes in half a minute later, ostensibly to change her kid’s diaper. She stands in the doorway and half-poutingly goes, “Heh, I always seem to follow you into the bathroom.” I play it off as another accident – which, to be fair, it might very well be – and she changes the diaper while I watch and we continue chatting.
Anyway, by the end of the night, I’m left with even more questions than before, but at least I’m sure of one thing: She’s at least enjoying our conversations. She shows me her myspace and also some paintings she’s done, supposedly a pretty rare thing to see. Who knows. I tell her she’s photogenic; she says she’s just a plain girl; I tell her no way. She says, “Well… thank you” in a way that suggests she understood.
Closing time.
Now I’m really agonizing. When it comes to relationships, I have a rule: Never endanger an existing one. The hurt caused to the third person is never worth it.
And by the fourth day, I realize I can’t stop thinking about her. Rule or no rule, I can hardly control myself by this point. I’m at the same cafe again, and this time, I don’t even sit near her, but she eventually walks over and pulls up a chair just to chat. She finds me interesting, and needless to say, by this point I’m very interested.
Bah. Agony. Guilt. Morality. All about to overridden. I can’t think straight.
When she leaves, I summon up my very last bit of willpower so I can go tell her, “I can’t see you anymore. I’m falling for you and I refuse to mess with your current relationship.” But just when I’m about to, she runs into another friend and kills the moment. She reads me – she’s pretty good at doing that – and asks what I wanted to say, but I say I’ll tell her next time.
Uncertainty, uncertainty, uncertainty, and a very certain degree of guilt. Damn it, why does this always happen?
So I turn to you, the collective hivemind of the Dope, for sagely advice yet again. What to do? How do I break it off while preserving the possibility for a future friendship – she is a very cool person, just generally speaking? Or am I just kidding myself, fully knowing that if we ever reconnect the same thing will happen again? Should I even tell her the real reason, or just stop showing up there at the same time? There are plenty of other cafes… and other women.
But…
They’re not her.
:smack:
What to do?!
