Vorfreude

The soft silence that grows into a hollow echo fills the void within my entire being. From the ringing in my ears to the mindless fidgeting of my fingers. I long to talk to someone. I crave intellectual stimulation. I yearn to learn of experiences I have never dreamt of before. My teeth ache for the sweetness of one's smile. My eyelids grow heavy from the hallucinatory glimmer from another’s stare. My chest flutters at the hypothetical of a companion. Lost love tends to do these things to you, and unlove tends to amplify them. 

I whisked away all the resentment of my love from the past. I moved on from all things encompassing them and etched them away from the deepest corners of my mind. A butter knife to the charred toast of my memories and scraping off the most tender moments I used to cherish. Hatred would not and did not find refuge in my heart, but merely my words. Supplemental moments from the dim glow of a screen meant nothing to me now. But at the time, it gave me enough to hope and dream of a future. A future circling around a singularity I did not fit with, and a singularity I never would again. For shame, I find myself whispering their name in my mind as if I were to conjure them from the depths of the shadows I cursed them to. I didn’t mean to, yet it happened. These days, I try to muster the susurrations of another’s name into existence, but it comes with force. 

My own confusion fills the pale pathways of squeezed membranes I refused to harbor love and life into. While I had sentimental feelings, I knew it would fade. Whether through a replacement of infatuation or the obsession of entertainment via nostalgia, I tried to ignore it. Ignore the peculiar ways my mind would snap into consciousness with the thought of someone new. Not just shiny, not for the excitement of it, but the innocent joy he emitted and further instilled into me. 

As lively as a young puppy, he tempted me and I found myself smiling at the prospect of reaching out first. A companion, one of the same caliber as I, in the most general sense I suppose. Respect unnamed between us, yet the similarities of existence and time alone tethered me to the idea of being the initiator. All the interactions of wide, blank eyes filled with fright would end, because I would open the dialogue for us. Bridge the gap and ask of his spare time. I soon became filled to the brim with knowledge that it overwhelmed me. I scrawled out notes of his interests, family, and dislikes, with pen and paper before transferring each fact over to a typed copy. When recounting what I learned, I found that other notes became engrained in my brain without notice. 

I formed a personally crafted mental catalog of each small thing he uniquely does with his body language and facial expressions. When he smiles from annoyance with a client, his brows always scrunch together in a tight pyramid and languid fingers will swim up to caress the tallest point. When he smiles from the hilarity of a story or a hypothetical, he always follows the same routine, but substitutes the caress of fingertips for throwing his head back halfway in a silent laugh. Dark brown eyes covered in a half-lidded manner when relaxed in conversation or growing tired. The exaggeration of hand movements and the roll of his wrists as he explains anything from his personal life or our mutual work were always flashing in my brain. 

Observations made astute, I filed them as my way of trying to force a companionship. Yet when those small moments I had taken incorrectly as subtly laced with a fervor of romantic air, I began to doubt myself. Most specifically, the way he not only wore a green sweater the morning after I had told him that green suits him, but his socks doubled to match–sewed with white and black cows in green pastures. The action itself was nothing more than a choice of uniform, and my brain twisted it into a form of mutual declaration. Were I truly only trying to gain platonic company, or was I just transferring my admirations of the past onto people anew? 

Misplaced affection for this new flame of mine wasn’t terrifying, but confusing. Did I wish to see his smile from afar, to hear the bravado of his voice through the telephone with nothing more to fill my heart but with a simple ‘Hello’? Did I wish to study his facial composition and hope that one day I may find myself calling him attractive? Did I truly think that even if I were to sort myself, he would have the hint of a notion to dismiss me in any case? Surely, he recognized how flippant I became day by day. Attentive with large, yellowing pearls spilling from my mouth on Tuesday, then wide, beady onyx gems aimed towards him in a silent stare on Wednesday. Once, I had confessed to myself, yes, he was someone I could find myself staring at with the same limerence I’ve felt before. But even as the thought pranced around my mind, I couldn’t imagine it the same again. 

For another man briefly took hold of my superficial attachment purely based on the incandescent flesh that adorned his face. Razor thin windows marked the way to his eyes, I never could even guess the color they held behind them. The stretch of thin, salmon colored lips sent a tinge of excitement through my spine. This, I knew for certain, was truly nothing but merely an instance of visual attraction. His affairs were none of my concern, yet I came to believe he already had his own to care for. I pushed my fake feelings aside and condemned myself for every impure thought that dared to dance along the line of consciousness and not. To be human, surely this is fine, but to be moral, to think, to render myself safe and alive, I would banish each thought to Hell if I had any belief.

I grew more aware each day; aware and unsure of how to understand each interaction I had with my colleague and nervousness grew heated under my clammy flesh. I sought him out whenever I could for a sliver of conversation as I found relaxing warmth in his stories. Yet, I couldn’t help myself but to wonder. To wonder if he was only nice to me out of necessity. Did he internally cringe at the thought of my breath near his or my hands that dared to reach towards him in a fit of excitement as we conversed? Did he smile when I did because he felt the magnetic pull as well? No. I knew that answer. But what I didn’t know was how to take his words. Words that could hold so much meaning, and none at all coupled with the language that his arms, legs, and gaze spoke. 

“I like having you here,” he replied to my comment. Always being around, I exposed that I enjoyed spending time around his area of work. I thought for a moment that that’s where it would end, but I was foolish and overly full of pride. “It makes communication easier,” he finished. Ah, as much as I wished to gain the company of his by my side on off chance encounters or hours of tedious roundabout conversation, I had to remind myself where I was and am. A place of business, where people came to spend their money needlessly when cheaper options are available. The complaints were endless, but his presence made it all the more pleasant to endure.

His words, friendly, but at arms length. I understand, yet my brain tricks me into believing that the refusal to meet my gaze stems from nervousness of saying that he enjoys my company. My brain plays me the fool for believing that for a single pause, I could truly delude myself into thinking that the soft smiles we share every so often are charged with desire so innocent, that it feels inherently romantic. Breathy laughter drips from both our lips when we confuse each other–leaving me to always scrunch my brows and lift my chin in a natural manner. So natural, the action, but with him, as he mirrors the same scrunch and lift I offer, we begin a game of copycat. Mimicking each other until the other fills in the informational gap. But once, just once, there was no informational gap to be filled. 

Instead, pure curiosity of misunderstanding. The playful laughter and uproarious whine of his words “Don’t tease me.” reddened my face as he dashed to greet someone, leaving me to simmer on my own. My face would betray me often it seemed. From the comments of others, the blush that spreads across my skin is akin to the likes of a wildfire to a forest. My body had rendered the fancying far earlier than my mind had. The obviousness I emulated was overshadowed by my own obliviousness. All it took were a few moments to fuel my delirium into believing that the kind words and entertainment translated towards mutual want of companionship. 

My mind had soured things before I got the chance to ask the daring questions: Do I make you so uncomfortable that you wish to crawl out from beneath your skin and sprint away on broken bones with nothing more than the delusion of a soul accompanying you? Do you hesitate when we speak because you must train yourself to be polite and entertaining as a jester of sorts? Does the mood of our day to day conversations lack that air as time goes on because you cannot stand to see the wretched face I wear once more? Do you too wish to gain my company against your better judgement of someone so clearly interested in your life that I may seem gormless? Do my incessant apologies for taking up space and time with you become so burdensome you have come to resent ever extending me the graciousness of friendliness?

Questions so quiet to my brain, I hadn’t felt the insecurity set in. Though, truthfully, I didn’t feel the sense of unworthiness to try. I felt as though these were concerns of responsibility. To ensure my part of making him feel welcome and not to appear moon struck. My whole life I struggled with alexithymia, words became profound within my mind yet could never escape through my throat like a spider through its web. Instead, it traversed the barren lands of a blinding sand storm and found its rest in my chest. Undoubtedly a factor in the loneliness I experienced, but not the entirety. Friends prior never stuck, perhaps I lacked the effort required to provide them with satisfaction of my existence. Irony cruel in the entertainment I viewed of companions on daring adventures with hearts of gold and minds of obsidian.

The movie I watched at all hours of the day and night became one of sorrow that I lacked the control to override. Watching myself pull back and regress in my friendliness after parts arrived that would render my appearances in his space limited. No longer would there be the days of half hour conversations on sixteen separate topics that neither of us would recollect how we got there. No longer would there be the random ‘Hello’s or soft exchanged smile or the brief lick of eye contact made as I rushed my steps behind the elongated desk he resided behind. No longer would there be the rushing footsteps and sudden stops by him as he came to greet whoever stood waiting for him only to find my boring stature. 

Perhaps it would be good for us both—my limerence would seep away like suds in a wash basin and he would have the ability to breathe again without putting on a facade. I would come to forget the way speaking to him felt like heliophilia, as if the sun graced me when his eyes met mine and refused to waver until I did. It was merely attention I was after, loneliness clogging my brain and depriving it of oxygen to make logical and rational decisions. 

I would absquatulate more than regularly—it used to be only when a client came to ring or when another colleague required his attention and presence. Then, it happened as I would leave after completing a simple task rather than engaging in garrulous conversation. Oh, how I miss a garrulous speech with a friend.

Each time I did this, I found myself on the verge of anxiousness at what he would come to think of me. What would I come to think of myself? The self-sabotage grew more intense than the limerence I fear, the resentment too. I would grow to endeavor my own mind and play a head cinema of daydreams created around him wanting me to burden him with lectures of myself as I did with him.

It was made clear to me then, my feelings truly had been misplaced all along. The intense nervousness I felt as I groomed myself to present as put together as possible was to impress, not to court, but to make myself appeal as a trustworthy and competent individual for a candidate of friendship. 

I regret my cowardice and wish I had asked the most important questions of all: Would I be friends with myself if I were another? Do you make friends with your colleagues and if so, would you like to attempt a cordial friendship with me? 

So, what say you, would you like to expatiate your knowledge of automobiles with me on a warm, sunny day, Sir?