Chapter 129: Going Up?

I hate talking to married guys, more than I hate talking to single ones. It’s no secret that I am socially inept when it comes to talking to members of the opposite sex; I think that’s apparent by my dating record. But married guys are even harder for me, and I think it stems back to a summer in my college career when I worked at the catering service and a particular married manager of mine made me extremely uncomfortable and even tried to kiss me. It was the summer that I went from being naïve and carefree around married guys (because married guys used to be the safest to be friends with for me because there was no need to try to impress them) to cautious and guarded.
Well there is this married guy at work, and I found him really attractive at first, and then I found out he was married, coupled with the whole, getting to know him better takes away from the attractiveness sometimes thing. He’s a really nice guy, and he’s always been nice to me. Today as I was walking into the building he was walking in from the other door and we both happened to be taking the stairs. First off, I’m the kind of person who will slow down or speed up just to avoid being in the stairwell at the same time, or even to avoid having to go through a doorway at the same time. I blame my undiagnosed anxiety problems on that one. Needless to say girl, guy, married guy, I was already dreading the fact that we entered the building at the same time. Nothing against him, this is just the way I am, of course, he being a married guy didn’t help because I already have my problems with being alone in any capacity with a married guy. He’s making small talk with me, because as I said he’s a really friendly guy. So I try to make small talk back and sometimes when I do that and I don’t necessarily get a reaction from people I begin to wonder if I misunderstood their small talk, or if I’m not using the right words to convey what I am thinking and then I just feel stupid, or even borderline rude. Anyway, it’s just an awkward situation that I prefer to avoid altogether, so when we got up to our floor we go into different doors and I said, ‘see ya,’ and turned my back to him and walked to my door and rolled my eyes, because when I complete something that I didn’t want to do I roll my eyes, not sure why, but I’m just waiting for the day when someone catches me doing that.
Then I made the mistake of taking the elevator upstairs because whenever I see someone take the elevator it doesn’t seem to take as long, and they get upstairs before I get up the stairwell. For some reason when I take the elevator it takes forever and I sometimes even give up and take the stairs, beating the elevator. Well, I needed to go to the third floor so I decided to take the elevator, I almost gave up but it finally came to my floor and I was about to get in and there were two guys there from the paper shredding company and so it was obvious when I took a step forward and then stopped and took a step back that I didn’t want to get on the elevator. But I think they thought I thought they were getting off on that floor, which was a half thought I had. They asked if I was going up and I nodded and told them the 3rd floor and got in. Then the one in the corner asked how I was doing, the other one said, ‘hello,’ and then they spoke of the weather, and I said something in response that I didn’t even think was funny, it was just small talk and they both started to laugh like I was the wittiest elevator companion they had ever had. So we get to my floor, I tell them thank you for the elevator ride and walk off, once the doors closed behind me I rolled my eyes and went on to my destination.