Summary/TL;DR: Still in my BP days, I asked out a woman I worked with who was also about to hit the wall. Woman declines, I proceed to make virtually every mistake imaginable, drama ensues resulting in me quitting my job earlier than anticipated.

Body: This post is partly cathartic and partly directed at other budding TRP readers so that they never forget one of the most basic rules of the game: DO NOT EAT WHERE YOU SHIT. JUST DON’T DO IT. Names and details changed for anonymity. Here goes:

I took up a job post-college in a professional office staffed almost entirely by women at least 5 years my senior (early 20’s here.) When I was initially hired on, my job required me to be a subordinate to several professionals in my department. The job was a nice change of pace from the academic environment that I had recently left behind, and I quickly found my niche. Within my first few months on the job, my superiors took notice of my work efficiency and ability to handle greater tasks and so my responsibilities grew. All in all, I was thriving and genuinely enjoying myself.

One of the perks of the particular industry I was in was that socializing and getting to know my coworkers on both a personal and professional level was highly encouraged. Not being a particularly social type, I avoided most of my coworkers and opted to keep everything as professional as I possibly could. This job was for experience purposes anyway, so I just wanted to do my work and mind my own business. This strategy worked for a while. However, a few months into my job and the annual staff changes were cycling through.

Enter Kathy, a single, loud, recent graduate of a professional school looking to begin her career and her life in a new city and a new environment. As a result of my company’s staff changes, my position was reassigned to become a subordinate to three new employees — Kathy included. Kathy’s behavior was very simple: make friends with everyone, have as much fun as possible. As I began executing my duties under my new superiors, I attempted to maintain my distance and keep my personal life hidden from them all. But Kathy would have none of that.

After repeatedly failed attempts to get to know me better, Kathy demanded that I begin accompanying her to various company functions and other business appointments. Before I knew it, my job transformed into being her personal chauffeur and scheduler. I didn’t mind it. My job compensated me for my time and my mileage, so getting paid to get to know someone wasn’t half bad. We began taking extra long lunches together on a regular basis and work emails became overtly friendly and personal. Over the course of a month, she forced me out of my shell. I began to open up to her and we became somewhat close friends, contrary to the typical superior-subordinate relationship.

A little too close, actually.

As our work relationship became more and more unprofessional, I began taking Kathy out to lunches and buying her meals simply out of habit. Every.Single.Time. Eventually this transitioned into spending time with her outside of work, too: movies (as friends), hangouts with her other work friends at her house, etc. I began providing her emotional support and attempted to find solutions to many of her day-to-day problems. She received additional money from family to help pay for living expenses; I invested significant time to try and help her find alternatives. I didn’t care. In my BP laden eyes, Kathy was the girl friend I never had. Girl friend. But not girlfriend.

It was at this point that I realized the exorbitant amount of time and resources that I had spent both working with and thinking about Kathy. I never noticed her at first, but now I had very clearly fallen under her spell. Accompanying her on a business trip one day, I confirmed my attraction: Kathy was sexy. Her lush hair, gratuitous breasts, and thick legs only complimented her loud and flirty ex-party girl vibe. I began to think about what I would do if I had a night with her, and my imagination ran wild. There was only one problem: we still worked together.

Several more weeks passed, and Kathy was getting a little too comfortable with me. She began telling me every intimate detail about her life -- how long it had been since she had been laid, where she went to take care of her grooming for her lady parts, how tight her pussy was, what she did with past boyfriends, how she planned to “snatch" her next bf and get him to marry her, etc. It was all shit that I didn't need to hear but I was told anyway because I had inadvertently become her emotional tampon. Each new bit of sexual detail or innuendo she imparted upon me fueled my already raging lust for her. And I had had enough of it.

On a bright and unassuming work day afternoon, I took Kathy to lunch and asked her out while driving her back to work. My question seemed to catch her off guard as she silently sat in the passenger seat. After a few moments of stumbling over her words, she gave me the "but we work together" spiel, and then told me she'd think about it. About an hour later, I received a text from her indicating that she was interested, but that we would have to postpone a date until I quit my job to avoid any unnecessary complications. The proposition seemed agreeable at the time. The day I quit my job we would go out. But until that day arrived, it was business as usual and we would remain friends.

Fast forward to the next week and everything totally changed. Kathy stopped talking to me regularly, avoided me in the hallways around work, and we didn't go out to lunch ever again. I tried to confront her about her new behavior, but I only received a bunch of ambiguous answers about me putting her in a hard spot. A few weeks after that, I texted her telling her not to talk to me anymore and to keep everything strictly professional. From that day forward, any work emails regarding our cooperative assignments were as bare bones as could be.

I put Kathy on radio silence for about a month and a half. Anytime we were in the same room or in the same staff meeting, it was clear that she was visibly uncomfortable around me. One day, I was talking with another coworker of mine that I had previously hooked up with once before. In my attempt to rekindle something for the fun of it, I learned that this coworker had heard there was something between Kathy and me. At that moment, I knew exactly what had transpired. Having kept my personal interactions with her mostly secret to all, the only possible way anyone else could have learned about my failed pursuit was if Kathy told others what had happened.

I texted Kathy out of the blue one weekend to confront her about the revelation, and our conversation instantly began antagonistically. We argued for a bit about our work and personal relationship, and the information I received was fruitful. Kathy had not only told my other superiors that I asked her out, but, whether truthfully or not, she also claimed to have strong feelings for me. She then proceeded to tell me about wanting to fuck my brains out and wanting to be with me, but that she couldn't because I worked for her. Shortly thereafter, our conversation died. The next morning I received a text telling me that she was super drunk and that I should forget everything she said.

I didn’t.

At the start of the next month, I tendered my resignation and informed my coworkers of my last day on the job. My contractual obligation was about to end, but as a result of the growing tension in my department and the increasing isolation that I experienced following the revelation that I had asked my superior out, I scheduled my last day a month earlier than necessary. In doing so, my professional integrity would be safe for the foreseeable future. I had fortunately saved the sexually explicit texts that I had received from Kathy weeks before and threatened to report her to HR in a subsequent fight we had. Furthermore, as the professional with the credentials to lose, I further threatened to report her to the relevant authority governing professional licenses in our industry in the event that she said anything about me to anyone else. To safeguard myself against a nuclear fallout, I proceeded to secure letters of recommendation/references from superiors I assisted in other departments.

The result of my costly mistake was a draw. Neither one of us could continue associating with the other without sustaining significant reputational damage. This, however, was not the outcome that I desired. I was still strongly attracted to Kathy. But my mistakes continued to multiply. During my last month on the job, my company co-hosted a major social event at a convention where everyone in the office was allowed to invite spouses and significant others. That evening, I spotted Kathy with a guy whom I had never met. She was introducing him to my other coworkers and I spotted them holding hands as they walked around. I knew I wasn’t supposed to get attached to someone, but that scene -- the sight of them intimately talking to each other and then walking off holding hands -- that stabbed me like an ice pick in the gut. That scene kept replaying in my mind and I became a depressed, moping wreck for weeks.

By that point, I began writing Kathy off as a loss and didn't talk to her again. My office threw me a going away party at a restaurant during my last week on the job, and it was my most awkward experience to date. Of all the seats I could have taken, I was asked to take the center most seat sitting right next to the person I didn’t want to see: Kathy. We went through the entire lunch period without really saying a word to each other and we carried on conversations on opposite sides of the table to avoid face. Making matters worse, my former coworker — the one that I had previously hooked up with — attended the lunch and struck up a conversation with Kathy. To everyone around the table, the conversation was harmless. To me, it was like driving a stake through the vampire’s heart. In my more comfortable days opening myself up, I had previously told Kathy about my hook ups with this coworker. She was fully aware of my failed pursuit and the awkwardness that ensued between us as well. And by all intents and purposes, this other coworker was now aware of the moves I had made on Kathy. It was the worst lunch I had ever attended.

I left my job without having said goodbye to the person I had longed for months before. When I first asked out my superior, there was a promise that she would go out with me the day I quit my job. Of course, that never happened. But over the course of the drama, I was assured that I would get an answer about her decision when I finally left. I texted Kathy a few days after leaving my job, knowing full well that she now had a new boyfriend, and attempted to force an answer. I never received one. Instead, she confirmed the existence of her new boyfriend and we had a huge argument. I burned my bridge. And that was that. I haven't heard from her since.

Lessons Learned:

*DON’T EAT WHERE YOU SHIT. JUST DON’T.

*Abundance mentality. I had oneitus for the longest time before TRP. Go out, place everything in perspective, and you’ll never be a moping wreck like I was.

*Don’t ever orbit. Tried it, didn’t work.

*Be very skeptical of anyone who is a self-admitted ex-party girl.

*Be mindful of who you’re gaming. Throughout my interactions with Kathy, one thing never occurred to me: Kathy was about to hit the wall. She rode the CC in her previous years and was now looking for her BB to settle down. Before TRP, that thought never once ran through my mind.

*If you’re going to hard next someone, then FUCKING HARD NEXT and don’t look back. Any other response and you will regret it.

Don’t be me. As Bismarck once said, “Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."