Nicole: The Lottery Never Fails to
Fail
Preface: My spirituality goes
through phases depending on whom I’m interacting with most at the time. I like this because it always keeps me
thinking and it always keeps me asking. The
one thing I can’t help but do is, when I come across a story-worthy girl, approach
the situation like it might be fate. If
a girl peaks my interest, I investigate the circumstances around our meeting
and suppose. Why not? What’s more
romantic than fate?
Nicole and I were coworkers for a short time and her beauty
did not strike me on first impression for a number of reasons. Firstly, I was walking into a professional
setting and the last thing I wanted to do was cause a schism of unease around
the office; I was there to work.
Secondly, she wasn’t the most warming, inviting of people. Her greeting to me was a simply put, “hey.” But over time, as I grew comfortable with the
people around me and Nicole’s and my interactions increased, her beauty began
to amaze me.
Let’s see… how to describe her? Nicole was a personified dichotomy. She had flaws that she was aware of, which
might have been her most attractive feature had she not had these fantastic
eyes that I repeatedly had to catch myself from getting lost in, but many flaws
that she was not aware of as well. She
dyed her hair an unnatural, reddish color, which shows a willingness to stand
out as well as a discomfort with herself.
She had a tremendous worldview, which I would classify as idealistic at
some points and realistic at others. The
flaw with her was that her worldviews varied according her needs. She was athletically curvy which shows an attention
to health but not an over-concern for vanity.
The point here is that in Nicole, there was potential for our flaws and
our attributes to complement and contrast very nicely. Did I mention she was single? She was. And around my age as well. The occurrences were stacking up.
We had a nice rapport going as the
only two people in the office not in a committed relationship. We laughed, we joked, we worked, and we learned,
about each other. I knew she was leaving
her position in a few weeks, so I told myself to hold off on any dating suggestions
until then, when we would no longer be coworkers. One day, when discussing things somewhat
related to dating, she showed me her profile on a dating APP, and jealousy hit
me clear across the face. I hid it well
though; I hid it completely. As I proved
myself a coworker of keen intellect, she asked me if I would help her edit her ‘personal
statement’ to be included in her published work. I accepted.
I did a complete and objective edit or her write-up and then asked her
for a private meeting to go over my suggestions.
I had three things on my agenda for
that meeting, which all transpired as planned.
First, we discussed my suggestions.
Then, as my nerves started tightening up, I told her a story (if you
read my blogs, it was the Jenny and Her
Options story). The moral to the Jenny story was that Jenny had two
options: one was me and the other was another, and had there not been a lapse
in time and a waste of opportunity, Jenny might have chose me and not the
other. Nicole liked the story but
wondered why I told it to her. This
brought me to the third part of my agenda.
I told her, “I was planning on waiting until you were no longer a
coworker to mention this, but as I see that you are actively pursuing dating, I
think you should consider dating me.” I
didn’t want another Jenny repeat
where if I had mentioned it sooner, I might have been the choice. This caught Nicole of guard; she obviously
didn’t entertain fate the way I did. She
smiled and asked me why. Because we had
a window and could see that we were about to be interrupted, I succinctly answered,
“Because I think you’re fantastic,” which I did.
I told Nicole that this would not
change our office relationship and it didn’t on my end. I still think Nicole is fantastic. However, our interactions dwindled, and she
became very standoffish. We occasionally
shared a laugh and a joke. At times, we
gave each other advice. But something
changed and I can’t tell who changed it.
Was it her for becoming standoffish when I carried on with normal office
business? Or was it me for changing the
nature of our relationship by proposing a different one? An argument could be made either way.
So, it comes time for the office
Christmas party and the exchange of gifts.
The premises here were that the gifts were to be applicable to anyone/everyone
and had a very modest price limit.
Everyone was given a number at random and selected a wrapped gift
sequentially. Upon distribution, everyone
was given a chance to exchange their wrapped gift with another, again done sequentially. The personal premise here was that the day
before, I had incurred a significant financial burden, which I was not ready to
bear. I remember going home that night
and telling myself to go buy some lottery tickets to see if I couldn’t put the
scratch together. After all, what better
way to make some fast, legal money than the lottery right?
We all had our gifts and I told
myself that when my number came up, I would refuse to exchange. For me, this was a humanitarian decision
based on the thinking that most people would be exchanging. But one of our coworkers, to me, seemed way
too possessive of the gift she chose.
She went right for it when her number was drawn and she seemed almost to
be cradling it when seated. I exchanged
our gifts and told her that it was not because I wanted her gift, but because
she did. A number of exchanges
transpired and my number came up again.
I then gave the gift that I had taken from her back to her, hoping to
instill a comedic moral message.
However, the gift that I had given to her was exchanged for
another. I now possessed a gift
different from the one I had chosen and different from the one I had traded
for. Some more gifts were exchanged
blindly throughout the dozen or so employees at the table, but no one seemed
interested in mine. We opened our gifts
and exchanged thank you’s. My gift was a
bag comprised of a few lottery tickets and some chocolates. The stranger gift choices got their due
explanations and the more interesting gifts got their reverence. During a small break in the conversation, I
asked the table, “Who gave the lottery tickets?” Nicole replied that it was she. I thanked her and she reciprocated, not
knowing that her gift, which required maybe 30 seconds of thought and 2 minutes
of time, was in fact the perfect gift for me given my prior days’ anxiety. As I pondered the situation, those tickets
became not just a chance to win some fast money, but a symbol of fate. I told myself that a winning ticket meant our
fate was to be together and if they all were losers, that fate meant for us to
be apart. Because we still had time together
at the office, I couldn’t bear to face her knowing that all optimism on my part
was futile, so I held off on scratching the tickets.
During the time that Nicole had left
at the office, we shared what had become run-of-the-mill interaction. When I asked her if she could answer a
question, she approached the question with skepticism. My questions were always business-oriented,
but tentativeness on her part supposed that they were of a romantic nature,
which is why she tried to field as few of them as possible. It’s safe to say that our inquiries into each
other personally grew stale; hers because she supposed, and mine because I
recognized the withdrawal.
Supposing fate might be a fault of
mine, but I it does an injustice to people not to do so. One of our coworker came in and announced
that over the weekend, he got engaged.
Naturally, people inquired about the announcement. Nicole championed the timeframe of their
relationship and said, “if it was meant to be, why rush it?” To which I countered, “But if it was meant to
be, and they both knew it, then why wait?”
The relationship between Nicole and I has run its course to this point;
my last words to her were, “I wish you well in your future plans and I hope to
encounter you again.”
While not the fate that I had envisioned, I recognize that
this may be the end of our fate. My
idealism says that another encounter in the future might bring different
results. My realism says the opposite,
which is why I still have the lottery tickets, unscratched, because to me, no
matter what the monetary gain, they’re all losers.
