| Do you think that's right or do you think there are other possibilities that I haven't thought of? |
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| Written by Anne Onymous | |
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Hi Sam, I am looking for a reality check on a guy who is a combination of colleague, friend, and what I will call - to make sure he doesn't Google and find this - a "pack-up artist". (I'm sure you can work out my really clever secret code there.)
Lol, He’s packed you up! Only joking, I know what you mean!
I can see how flawed he is but he also has a lot of good qualities and I have fallen for him very hard.
I don't want to give many details because I don't want there to be any chance, even a small one, that he could read this and recognize himself.
Don’t want to give too many details, lol. I’m just looking at the length of your message ;-)
So I am going to have to ask you to trust my judgment on a few things here (unless you're willing to let me give you the details privately but not publish them, which I assume you wouldn't be).
About a year and a half ago I started a new job and around the same time "Bill" started working in the same place. Bill is 30 and I am nearly 40, however, I do look ~10 years younger than I am. Bill moved here from Wales to move in with his girlfriend. They had been high school sweethearts and then as adults ran into each other at a funfair in their home town and I guess thought it was fate. At the point Bill joined my workplace they had been together about 5 or 6 months. Bill talked about his girlfriend quite a lot, though not in a pointed way, simply because she was an important part of his life and he was proud of her.
Bill and I got along pretty well, and I found him to be one of the easiest people I've ever had to work with; I never had any problems with him at all despite our being put through some extremely stressful situations.
Something I noticed about Bill was that he had an unusual way of carrying himself socially. He always appeared very poised and in control. After paying attention to this I began to realize that Bill had put a lot of thought into managing his own PR and used definite strategies to create and maintain prestige. This approach has worked, as he is (or appears to be) very successful, and fills the role of a popular and charismatic "Alpha male". Bill is quite frank about playing his career like a game. At one point, our coworker, "Dick", fumed to me, "nobody could really be as smooth as Bill pretends to be!" To me, this is obvious, it's like saying "nobody could bend their knees backwards!" Well, no, they couldn't, so it must be an illusion - this is obvious to me, but I guess Dick was having trouble accepting that fact because of his age (same age as Bill) and his obvious raging jealousy.
I thought jealousy too, when I was reading what you said.
For my part, I figured it would be a good idea to try to watch and learn from Bill as his approach seemed to be working for him.
A few more fun facts about Bill:
- he has not been single since he was a teenager;
- his friends think that he and his gf should get married;
- he has been with his gf for almost two years now;
- he has said that he does not want to get married (to anyone) because of things that happened in his family history;
- when Dick asked him a couple of months ago if he was planning to propose to his gf, Bill said no.
In other words, he has not come to the decision that he wants to get married to his current girlfriend yet. Yes, family history plays it’s part, but if a guy feels a woman is right, he will make that decision.
After 10 months Bill found another job, and in his last week he and I both had to attend the same conference. Again without going into detail, I was extremely surprised when Bill made a pass at me. When I say "a pass" it was more like an Inspector Clouseau-type pratfall, and he was on the phone to his girlfriend during some of it, so I just laughed it off, figuring he wasn't serious. The next day he claimed that he had been too drunk to remember what he'd done the night before (not believable) and that the reason he'd been drinking so much was because he had been under a variety of severe stresses (true) and that he'd received some extremely bad news about a personal matter just before he'd set out for the conference (true, and his story checked out). So I figured that maybe he did fancy me a little bit but making a pass at me was an aberration that didn't signify much.
He couldn’t remember, yet went out of his way to explain himself with a long prepared story. Hmmmm, doesn’t sound particularly logical to me!
However, I now believe that Bill got drunk on purpose so he would have the nerve to make a pass at me.
I’m not sure about that, though he the fact he’d been drinking was a good excuse.
Bill proceeded to treat me oddly throughout the rest of the conference. I won't go into detail about that either but, recently, I've been investigating pack-up artist techniques and I have no doubt in my mind that Bill was using them on me. On the other hand, he also kept mentioning his girlfriend, but not like he usually did - now it was more like he was using her as a human shield. As if I would attack if he didn't keep saying "Back! Back!" like a lion tamer. Also, he would seek out my company and then act annoyed when he got it, as if he didn't want me around, even though he was the one who came to me - I didn't go to him.
Or awkward in the knowledge that he’s encouraging you even though he has a girlfriend.
This was very trying but, after all, Bill was under extreme stress and he'd never acted like this before, so I made allowances.
Bill relaxed somewhat on the way back, when his girlfriend picked him up and we had part of the journey together. I had honestly expected him to walk past and pretend he hadn't seen me, considering how hostile he'd been just a few minutes earlier, but no - there we all sat together. Bill's girlfriend turned out to be very similar to me, in fact, in many ways I could have been talking to a younger version of myself. So much so that I'm surprised we were both able to be in the same space without cancelling each other out.
A couple of days later it was time for Bill to leave for his new job. I didn't expect a particularly pleasant goodbye after the way he'd acted, and I certainly had never expected that he would keep in touch afterwards. So I was once again surprised when Bill expressed a lot of admiration for me (professionally, but with a tremor in his voice and with pupils so dilated his eyes looked almost black) and wrote me a nice note thanking me for my "friendship" even though he had shown no signs of thinking of us as "friends" particularly up till then.
He obviously had too much admiration for you and was thinking you were a princess he should worship.
(He wrote goodbye notes to everyone, not just me, although the stationery he used could have been seen as having particular significance for me, but maybe not... it's quite characteristic of him to embed a signal in a lot of noise like this.) And he very strongly urged me to keep in touch. Not the usual "yeah, keep in touch, piss off" you usually get. He acted like it was really important to him.
This was 9 months ago.
Bill had certainly never shown any signs of fancying me before. He certainly didn't show any of the body language that you say gives it away. But now I think that's probably because he was deliberately disguising it, which wouldn't have been very difficult since we usually conversed over IM even though he was in the next room.
To add to the evidence, a few weeks after Bill left, Dick, who is known as Bill's friend, subjected me to a vicious line of questioning as to whether Bill had made a pass at me or not, which I denied. Dick also went on to try to undermine Bill in a number of ways that I knew to be unfair, so obviously, Dick is not as friendly towards Bill as he appears.
Jealous because he thinks you fancy Bill and really Dick fancies you too? If Bill fancies you there is a good chance he would have leaked this to Dick.
Dick has also appeared to be watching the state of Bill's relationship quite carefully since then. (Bill's gf has friends at our then-workplace.)
At first, I hung back from contacting Bill, but then I found that I was missing him more and more and that he had really gotten to me. I knew he was really attached to his girlfriend and this was painful because now I wanted more, but I figured I'd rather have him as a friend than that he disappear from my life. So I got back in touch properly and Bill responded enthusiastically. I was very glad that he did because shortly after that, a very nasty situation arose at work, not of my own making, but it quickly became so uncomfortable that I felt I had no real alternative but to leave. This was a very upsetting time because I needed support and allies but couldn't confide in anyone else at work because it would have dragged them into a conflict of interest.
It was in large part because of Bill's support that I was able to get through that time emotionally, and he also was able and willing to vouch for my integrity and competence when I needed it. This was a direct help in getting the job I'm now in.
That is good, that he is sticking up for you.
Meanwhile, Bill's blog posts started mentioning his girlfriend less and less. Previously, when he'd mentioned her, it was with great enthusiasm. Then for a while, reading between the lines of some of these posts, it looked like they might be having serious fights. This passed, but he didn't really talk about her with the same enthusiasm any more, although it was intermittently made clear that they were still together. Because Bill doesn't talk to me about himself very much, I was forced to read his blog to find out what's going on with him, because otherwise I just found myself talking only about myself and this is very awkward. (I learned not to ask questions at the conference, when Bill would push back very strongly every time I did so. Especially questions about his gf. From then on I decided if he's not mentioning something himself, he may not want to talk about it.)
Men talk about things they want to, if they find things uncomfortable, they tend to deal with those issues themselves. They do so when they are on their own, maybe in a pub, sat staring at their pint, maybe in bed staring at the walls, maybe on the settee staring blankly at the TV.
At one point during the work trauma, I was faced with the choice of whether or not to attend an event where I would be surrounded by people I wanted to avoid. Then Bill told me he was going to be there too, even though I would have expected him to be almost equally desperate to avoid it, but he said there was some professional reason why it was a good idea for him to go, and since he would be there anyway he'd watch my back. So I said I'd go. But then the event got cancelled. And rescheduled. I said to Bill I'd go to the rescheduled event only if he went but I was really looking forward to seeing him. And then something came up which meant it was impossible for me to go even if I wanted to. Strangely enough it turned out Bill couldn't make the rescheduled event either. For logistical reasons, he said.
Bill never directly gave away anything that suggested he still fancied me or had ever fancied me. Although there were a few tells: subtly asking questions about other males in my environment, that sort of thing.
Checking out your availability and the competition.
Again, I can't go into any detail. At one point Bill suggested that he and his gf and I should all get together sometime, but never did anything to make this happen. That's good because, as much as I like her, I really don't want to do this and I suspect that Bill is in reality as keen on the idea as I am.
In return for his support in getting my new job, Bill asked that I introduce him to my new colleagues. Again (not going into detail) I got the sense that despite playing it cool he was very anxious that I would forget about this. I reassured him that I was looking forward to it and would really enjoy seeing him again.
So about a month ago I took steps to arrange this. I suspect, though I can't prove, that Bill was getting impatient and used pack-up artist techniques to provoke me into action at that particular moment. But when I emailed him to ask him when he'd like to visit, he didn't answer. For ten days. It was clear from his online activity that he could have answered that very afternoon, if only to say "I'll get back to you", and in fact he did do this with another of his business contacts in one of his blog posts, which otherwise were all about the million and one super-cool and glamorous things he had going on in his life. Just at the moment when I was ready to give up in disgust at this display of rudeness - and also at the exact moment when he had boasted about the cool stuff as much as he could and would have to get back to the daily grind - an email. In which he apologized and explained that his schedule was unpredictable that month and he would get back to me as quickly as he could.
Alpha males will respond in their own time and arrange to meet in their own time, they won’t be dictated to, they don’t like to be predictable. After all, if he accepts, then he’ll be saying to you that he will do anything and everything, he will feel like a weak submissive man. Deep down he didn’t want to respond at that point in time, then as time went by he started to feel as though he left it long enough not to appear weak.
I responded only with a wink (after all, he did apologize, in a respectful albeit bullshitty manner) and haven't attempted to contact him since. It has been two and a half weeks since he apologized. It is a month since I originally invited him.
It is believable that his work schedule was unpredictable, as this is the busiest time of the year for him. But that should be winding down now. And his blog posts recently have suggested that his spare time has greatly increased of late, even if it hasn't - he's talking less about work and much more about his hobbies.
I don't think it makes sense any more that he hasn't tried to pencil something in. You do not try to network with someone and then act like you don't give a shit if you see them or not, especially if they work in a much more prestigious company than you do (which I do, now).
It is not believable that a guy like Bill is not conscious of the impression he's creating. Professionally, this is exactly the kind of impression I would expect him to want to avoid making at all costs.
So if his behaviour makes no sense professionally, I think it must be personal.
After Bill emailed his apology, I carried on as normal for a week, though I didn't email him with minor chatter as I usually do. After a week, though, I got sick of seeing Bill's picture online so I stopped going online myself, though I still read his blog.
Three days after I went offline, Bill posted a strange comment about a social event he was attending, which seemed like it could have been a very veiled complaint about feeling stuck or trapped; or perhaps not. But at the end of that day he posted a picture of his gf, something he has not done in many months (in fact not since the time they were apparently fighting).
Then a few days after that he posted a description of the decor in "our bedroom".
Then yesterday he described what a "lovely" time he'd had doing a series of activities that he could only have been doing with his gf, even though I'd have expected him to have been glued to the football.
He really hasn't come out with a series of posts quite like this in a long time. I take this as a signal that he has, in fact, been leading me on and he wants to stop now. Because he hasn't followed through with making the appointment to visit my workplace, I take this to mean that he was somehow planning to use this as an occasion to cheat (I can't think how, as it's my workplace, but whatever) and he's changed his mind.
He must know he'd have to leave his gf before he could have a chance with me, and it certainly does not look as if he has any intention of doing that.
I don't think I can contact Bill again because he put the ball in his own court by saying he'd get back to me, which he possibly will never do.
I guess I could continue to stay offline, too. If it was my continued presence in Bill's life that was causing stress in his relationship, then their relationship will continue to improve in my absence; and if Bill was attracted to me because there are underlying problems between them, then my staying away may now build up enough pressure to blow their relationship apart.
In my opinion, you are reading too much into everything. You need to stick to the facts. You also know the facts too, but you are glossing them up with a load of other fluffy stories that are not based on fact. The fact is as you say: He didn’t respond to your offer to meet up and he put the ball in his own court. Unless he’s prepared to throw his balls into your court again, things are just not going to happen. As a result of that I think you should move on and find someone else. There’s no point in making up stories about what he might be thinking, when really you should focus on his actions. His actions demonstrate that at this moment in time, he’s not motivated to meeting up with you. That could be because of the reasons that you have given or it could be any other number of stories. Whatever the case, you need to stick to the facts and move on, unless he’s willing to prove to you that he misses you so much, he wants to meet up again.
If he really is using pack up artist techniques on you, then he needs to pack it in, because it isn’t really working is it!
Do you think that's right or do you think there are other possibilities that I haven't thought of?
I could make up a 101 other possibilities, but you need to stick to the facts. You should presume he’s not interested and move on with your life. When guys aren’t motivated to meet women, it’s because they are not that interested. He may have been interested in the past but does that really matter, because whether he’s interested in the present is what really matters.
Reply by Anne Onymous 05.07.10
Okay, I exaggerate. But you'd be surprised how little. Now if Bill had said he wanted to be invited to pack up his worldly possessions and leave Schmoopsie to run off to Xanadu with me, this might be an appropriate way of letting me down gently. But what Bill actually asked for was to come to my densely-populated office in broad daylight, and meet my cow-orkers over some PowerPoint slides and instant coffee. Therefore, I think the least he could do is make up some bullshit about not being able to find the time. As far as I am concerned Bill is being wholly unprofessional, disrespectful, and rude about this. Bragging nonstop about how wonderful his life is, while dropping passive-aggressive hints as to why he doesn't want or need to see me, is the behaviour of a wilting pansy, not an Alpha male. Obviously it's impossible to make Bill do anything, but I am not going to make it the slightest bit easier for him to continue to be a pansy. I won't go offline and I won't block him - if he wants to get rid of me, he has a block button same as I do. I won't confront him - he knows what he looks like. I certainly won't lose my cool, which is likely what he's hoping I'll do, so that he will have an excuse to remove me from his professional network. I think that the more I continue to do nothing, the more the discomfort will turn back on him where it belongs, and the more conscious he'll be of his bad manners and the fact that he looks like a pansy and I'll think less of him for it. He may never do anything to relieve his own discomfort (pansies rarely do), but at least he can continue to experience it. That was harsh, wasn't it? Yeah, maybe Bill doesn't deserve a rant that bad. But I feel better now ;-) and he will never know. I'm sorry I'm a bit late replying to this but I hope it's allowed you to let off steam and move on. I omitted some of the things you mentioned about the blog because it might be identifiable information. I presume that he thinks you know about his blog and keep up to date with it and I presume you think that what he is putting is targeted at you, rather than him just letting off steam about his life or aiming the comments at another person other than you. |
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