A Friend in Need...

There's a girl I work with, we'll call her Abby for anonymity's sake, and we seem to have hit it off, or have a connection of some sort that goes beyond simply being workmates. I would go so far as to say that, over time, I have come to care for this person and watching her be unhappy with her life always takes a little out of me.

Now, I swore years ago that I would never again take on the mantle of 'helper', after my friend Stacey drove me absolutely batshit while I tried to help her through some relationship problems. There's only so much advice that you can give, or support you can provide that gets ignored before you start to wonder why they asked for your help in the first place. Still, I look at Abby, who has not actually directly asked me to help her with anything, but the naive, romantic, helpful idiot inside me has decided that I am going to try and help her with some of her issues.

She hates her life, wants to expand her horizons, change her job, find a guy who likes her, travel, and more-or-less get out of the miserable and predictable rut that she finds herself trapped in every day of her life. In all honesty, I can probably help her out with many of the above items listed, and am willing to throw myself into the breach, as it were, if she were willing to accept the help, but I find myself confused by some of the reactions that I'm getting. Mixed signals, if you will.

We'll have these great talks after work and she'll be all personal, sharing things from her past and slightly-below-the-surface things about her family, things she wants out of life, things that I would think you wouldn't normally divulge to someone whose company you don't really want to keep. Yet almost without fail, the day after one of our really good talks, she throws the cold shoulder and all the cool stuff we shared is sort of lost out in the ether. I always have to start from square one with her and I don't understand totally why.

I do understand that I'm offering myself to her unsolicited and she may not feel entirely comfortable carrying things on during our regular work hours, and I'm even willing to accept that she's faking it all and doesn't want to socialize with me much during the day. Heck, I'm even willing to say that the only reason I'm putting myself through this is because I want her to be a closer friend so badly that I'm the one making shit up.

But then I get those help me signals again and I get suckered (totally self-imposed, of course) into lining up at the plate and waiting for the pitch yet again.
We'll see how tomorrow works out, I guess. If anything interesting happens, I'll post something on here.

Stay gold, Pony-Boy!