Fools, by Willow Baum

The year is 2011. Our seven-person Internet start-up co-works in a glass fish bowl beside other start-ups on a high floor that overlooks the city’s arts district.

We are creating an online marketplace for reclaimed building materials: cabinets, windows, doors, and floors. Our mission is bold and seductive: reduce the 40% of Construction & Demolition US landfill waste to 30% by 2020. Catchy, right?

All afternoon, I’ve been updating the investor presentation. Leaning back in my second-hand Aeron chair, I stretch my arms and groan. “My neck is so tight.”  

Suddenly one hand is on my shoulder, another at the base of my skull. Startled, my arms jerk sideways. The hand presses hard and slowly down one tendon along my neck.

As if choreographed by Bob Fosse, all five male colleagues swivel away from their screens and watch. I glance over my shoulder. The mysterious massager in the thrift store sundress is my co-worker, Raven. I should’ve known. 

I close my eyes and hum with pleasure. Might as well enjoy.  

At work, Raven continues to surprise and charm me.  We whiteboard pricing models and exit strategies. Our minds complement each other. I chaotically connect disparate ideas. She clarifies and distills them. Together we find language to translate the Founder’s vision and revenue model that’s as flimsy as the back of the napkin it was scribbled on, into an alluring story to attract investment and attention. 

In meetings, she listens and calls out the merits of others' ideas when not reciprocated. After hours, she jokes with the janitor.

Raven digs into both divots on top of my shoulders. I melt further in her hands.  

The guys in the office might think it’s weird if they knew that my husband Ned and I hang out with Raven and her husband Ben almost every weekend. The four of us go to films and live music and the fringe festival and talk for hours. We especially geek out on businesses that aren’t just about making money but on doing real social and environmental good too. It is a bit odd how the four of us became such easy and fast friends. 

At our favorite brunch place -- the one with crayons and butcher-block table coverings -- I can’t help but notice how often Raven massages Ben’s hand and how easily he drapes his arm around her and pulls her in close when he speaks of topics that have nothing to do with her. Maybe it’s the twelve-year age difference, but Raven and Ben remind me of an earlier, more open, and connected version of Ned and me.  Until meeting them, I hadn’t seen how uptight and almost frosty we have become. 

My eyes flutter open. The men in the office, practically breathless, stare at us. My cheeks flush. The guys must think this is inappropriate. Or a little sexy. 

It’s innocent, among the four of us. Of course, Raven and Ben are our only married friends that, after a Manhattan or two, were up to trying that childhood game where you all lie on the floor together, and then each person places their head on someone else’s stomach. And you just wait for someone to start laughing. All that head-bobbing and the sound of bourbon sloshing, it’s hysterical. 

I swivel a half-moon in my chair to face Raven, forcing her hands off.  

“Thank you so much,” I say all polite and professional. “That’s so kind of you. But I’m good.” 

Raven might not be so handsy with me if she knew I’ve had relationships with men and women all my life. I’ve meant to casually slip this fact into conversation with them but the moment hasn’t presented itself. I want them to know this part of me just like my other close friends and three oldest stepkids do. But at this point my attraction to others is irrelevant. I’m in a committed, 13-year relationship with Ned. 

“You really want me to stop?” says Raven.

“No, yeah, I’m good.”  

Raven shrugs breezily and returns to her desk.  

Attention in the office drifts back to our work. I stare past the investor presentation on my laptop.  

Come to think of it, I find the whole thing a bit titillating. The way Raven just ambled over and put her hands on me. She didn’t care who was watching. I want to be free like that, but I felt shame so had to put an end to it. 

I press my palms, warm and damp, against my thighs. My stomach drops when I realize: I have a workplace crush. Again.

A Fool, they say, is one who “poops where they eat.” 

In other words: Do not crush on someone you work with.  

And yet crushing on a co-worker or a fellow non-profit board member or a wild talent in my writing group happens every few years.  I can’t help it.

A crush -- when it hits -- doesn’t care who is married. 

Doesn’t care about gender.  

Doesn’t care about the possibility of mutual interest. 

A crush simply has its way with me.

I steal a quick glance at Raven who is typing up a storm like nothing happened -- which it didn’t!  

To me, what seems more Foolish than being drawn to a co-worker is trying to “date” a complete stranger. Dating, we are taught, has only one goal: to size up one’s suitability as a long-term partner for an intimate relationship.  

I don’t know that I have ever actually dated. Even the idea of “dating” sends me out to sea in self-consciousness. I get caught in a current of rules and tips and tricks written in books I’ve never read about making myself magnetic to another person. 

What to say. What to wear. How to be positive. Arrange my body. Make eye contact. How to flirt. When to call or text or distance. How to keep it light. When to give it time. 

As a kid sitting criss-cross applesauce at the TV watching some period piece, I sensed this whole dating business was off. The woman being strapped into a corset by her handmaiden to meet a gentleman caller must’ve triggered some past-life memory of women beheld as a prize or prey or property or means of procreation to carry on some name other than her own.  A memory of dowries and chaperones and marriage as an unctuous business arrangement. Not for love. For legacy -- to give select families an economic or political leg up. 

Social Anthropologist Helen Fisher calls dating a game. One designed to “impress and capture.” Dating isn’t about “honesty,” she says, but about “novelty” “excitement” and even “danger.”  

I love the dopamine spike that comes from novelty as much as the next junkie. But how is everyone else NOT drawn to someone with whom we share a bold mission or creative purpose? 

When I get to witness the people around me show up in a variety of circumstances -- that have absolutely nothing to do with me --  I get a true read on how they think, handle conflict, use humor, and have integrity. 

For me, attraction works best when it takes root and unfurls over time.  Realizing that a person is special to me for the long term -- or any term -- can’t be a goal unto itself -- but a natural byproduct of discovery as we create together, something of value that goes well beyond my own romantic interest. 

Is it Foolish to have a workplace crush if you don’t act on it? I don’t know. I do know that even at a distance watching my fabulous crush just be who they are, makes the sun shine a bit warmer, and music sound sweeter.