i remember thinking i was so smart in my 30s being a marketing exec and all that but looking back i was just… an idiot. a useful idiot mostly. the whole “work hard play hard” thing right. except it was just work hard and then occasionally pretend to play hard with people who didn’t actually like you. i mean i knew it then but i shoved it down. bc you just do don’t you. that’s what you’re supposed to do. i’d get a text and my heart would do this little flutter ‘oh so and so wants to grab coffee’ or ‘hey everyone let’s do happy hour’ and i’d be like YES they like me they really like me. but it was never that was it. it was always ‘hey can you look over this presentation for the johnson account i know you’re good with visuals’ or ‘heard anything about the q4 layoffs… i’m really worried’ and of course i usually *did* know something and of course i *would* help with the presentation. every time. like a puppy. an old tired puppy who just wanted to be patted on the head. it got so obvious eventually. a friend from another department, she’d only text me when she needed to know if mark was seeing someone new. or if there was a juicy rumor about who was getting promoted. never just ‘hey how are you doing’. never ‘let’s just chill and not talk about work or anyone at work’. it was like i was a walking information kiosk with a pulse. and they’d be so nice when they wanted something. so charming. and then radio silence for weeks until the next crisis or gossip drought. and the worst part. the ABSOLUTE worst part is that i let it happen. for DECADES. i knew what was going on. i FELT it. that little gnawing feeling in my stomach when i’d see their name pop up and i KNEW what it was gonna be. but i’d still respond. every time. i guess i just really wanted to believe i had these ‘work friends’. that i belonged somewhere. even if it was a transactional belonging. that’s the bit that gets me now. all these years later. doing my history degree and learning about human nature and still… still i did that. i was sitting in the library the other day trying to cram for a midterm and this girl, probably early 20s, she comes up to me ‘excuse me but do you have the notes from tuesday’s lecture i missed it’ and i just looked at her and i wanted to say ‘no i don’t because you only ever talk to me when you want my notes’ but i didn’t. i just said ‘sure here you go’ and emailed them to her. some things you just never escape do you. the pattern. it just… continues. even when you’re 70 and you’re supposed to be Wiser. i just don’t know.