The Inception of an Office Infatuation (Or 12 Warning Bells Before You Get Fired)

“At any given moment, the brain has 14 billion neurons firing at a speed of 450 miles per hour. We don’t have control over most of them. When we get a chill…goose bumps. When we get excited…adrenaline. The body naturally follows its impulses, which I think is part of what makes it so hard for us to control ours. Of course, sometimes we have impulses we would rather not control, that we later wish we had…”(Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy)

I can’t think of better lines than these to describe my feelings currently. The realisation that my heart is operating on a totally different tangent from the rest of me and the self awareness that logic has completely abandoned my thought process, is a little disconcerting to say the least. To cut a long story short, I have developed this crussssh very recently – which in itself is okay (good even?). But unfortunately, this crush comes with its own set of complications as she happens to be one of the big bosses at work (also super hot, super senior and not to forget super straight as well, forgone conclusion huh!). This is bizarre as I do consider myself as someone not delusional (yes, don’t we all?). In my normal avatar I would never consider my infatuation as being remotely sane or rational.

Before I completely wreck myself and to help anyone who may find themselves in a similar predicament, here are some pointers on how to realise very quickly that you are headed for disaster-ville and check out with your dignity and  job (hopefully) intact. As juvenile as this sounds, I am comforted by the fact that a similar incident recently occurred in the only K-serial I watch (no, it’s not a saas-bahu serial). So maybe, this is not that uncommon. Or heck, maybe it’s only me who goes through this as I do hold a special tag of being a crazy DRAMA QUEEN.

The funny thing is that the inception of an infatuation always begins rather innocuously. It’s not as if you were thinking about crushing on Madame X even once in the many years that you have been working together. You have a perfectly cordial, and happy work relationship with this person. All is well until one fine day, out of nowhere, realisation dawns and you see the early warning signs that you may just have a lil crush on that person. Soon enough, the crush unfortunately, morphs into massive infatuation, taking on a life of its own and despite wanting otherwise, you are unable to do anything to control or stop it. So, you definitely know you are in BIG TROUBLE when you:

· Get up bright and early, head to the gym at some god forsaken hour and can’t wait to get to work.

· Start noticing the teeniest tiniest things about them. Things that previously never occurred to you before, like how pretty they look (all the time). From the hair colour, to the eye liner, to the lipstick, to the makeup, to the smile, to their clothes – you begin to notice EVERY THING.

· Get giddy and fuzzy in the head every time they are around which impedes your ability to think straight (no pun intended, I mean this quite literally).

· Become besties with their personal assistant and the first-aid guy (for constant supplies of Disprin from all the head woozing).

· Spend the day smiling incessantly like a show monkey.

· Need to visit a doc to cure the constant neck ache from the innumerable times you turn to see whether they have entered your work area.

· Want to join the CID or become a private eye to get to know everything about them. From their likes to their dislikes, to any and every stoopid thing about them.

· Want to hang out with them more often yet are unable to make direct eye- contact.

· Constantly stare at your Blackberry to light up with their (work related) phone call or BBM or email.

· Wish for them to summon you to their office for work, at least five times a day.

· Plan out-of-office business meetings to spend more one-on-one time with them.

· Enter Madame X’s floor and even the receptionist smiles and tells you (without you asking) that X is in her cabin.

So that was my 12 sure shot signs on when you know you are headed the wrong way at work. While I spend my days hyperventilating over my crush and comfort myself by reading and memorizing clauses of the sexual harassment code in my office knowing that am safe, I wonder if any of you are faced with a similar predicament at present dear Gay-si’s? Feel free to let me know and add on.