TL;DR Started a new job and narrowly avoided a close encounter of bird kind. Using TRP, I get a night of drinking and fun comped while upping my SMV.

Body

I recently began a new job, and the girl who hired me (23f) was a head supervisor, and somewhat known by my circle of friends from my previous job. Shortly after hiring me, she begins making it clear that she considers me attractive and is somewhat interested (gifts, shift preference, making effort to get near and hang out with me). Now, I keep frame and remember AWALT, but I am interested to see where it goes because of the professional implications alone.

Fast forward to about a month into my employment here, she is fired for mysterious reasons, and the whole place is buzzing about it. It seems she was either loved or hated (mostly hated), nothing in between. I stay neutral, and consider it to be nothing to do with me, but she does invite me and a bunch of others from work out for a baseball game. I'm always down to have a good time, and feel as though some light could be shed on the situation if I got to know the group a little better. How right I was.

Turns out she was fucking the owner, who was married (his wife actually works with us on occasion).

Now, after hearing this in not so many words from her best friend (22f) (who, I should mention, was running a little ASD for her on the whole subject), I firmly decide I did the right thing by taking it slow and not going all in on this girl I was pretty sure was into me. The best thing to do now is finish the game, politely say goodbye and excuse myself before I get too drunk and make a fool of myself.

But that doesn't sound like a good time.

I happen to be coming back from a little smoke break session in my car when the game ends. I lose track of my coworkers (didn't look too hard for them), and end up texting the girls "Thanks, I'm headed home."

It is immediately suggested by both of them that the evening continue with bowling, which I have no objection to. I'm drunk and high and there's no way the night can go wrong as long as that doesn't change. We meet up at 23f house and from there we carpool to the bowling alley.

Once we get there we immediately start playing games and drinking. She pays for all of it. I get drunker and drunker and we end up staying until the place closes. I have a hard time remembering what happened after this point, but one thing stood out to me: the punching machine. I have skills in pugilism, and this is known, but she was really interested in me punching stuff. Like, too interested. My spidey sense goes off and I make a drunken mental note on how it would be in my best interests not to agree to punch anyone (including our boss) on her behalf. More drinking, we go home after grabbing some food.

Now, there was flirting. But far more of it came from her friend and I could only flirt back. She, on the other hand was no where near as drunk as I was, though still apparently having a good time. I give no fucks and pass out on her couch as I touch on her friend and cuddle up onto her (we were all under the same blanket).

I wake up extremely hung over and head home before her friend and her friends husband awake. She is already up when I am so I say goodbye. The next day she sends a nicely wrapped gift to my work so everyone can see. It's got a gift card and a note. Aww.

We text for a short while afterwards, but I stop after she gives a few too many shit tests (taking too long to text back, etc.)

Now a few months later it comes out that she fucked a dude that I still work with ONE WEEK before we went to the game. No games. Just "come over."

Here it becomes clear to me, she viewed me as the beta. She wanted to use me for something, be it beating someone up or making someone jealous, but it wasn't for sex. Unacceptable.

She has since tried to keep in contact (probably since she still hangs with all these fuckers I work with), but I don't got time for it. I'm glad I never paid her dumb ass back.

Lessons Learned

Actually, what is there to learn here? AWALT? That they will stop at nothing, be it professional or social boundaries? No, it seems textbook. I just wonder if anyone else out there feels like it's kind of a shit sandwich either way.

She hired me, established me as a valuable employee, boosted my SMV and then dropped hundreds on a night of drunken shenanigans. By all accounts, I got the most out of that situation that I could have gotten, except I maybe could have fucked her if I wasn't so drunk. But for the most part, I won. So, why do I feel like I lost?

Any advice, criticisms and help would be appreciated. I'm new to this world, but I already know that before TRP I would have got oneitis and beta'd out in front of all these people I have to maintain a professional relationship with, and for that I'm grateful.