The Dating Chronicles – The Scheme

The Dating Chronicles

The Scheme

Roger was the most popular guy in the office.  He was single, handsome, full of mischief, and fun to be around.  His phone rang constantly from female co-workers who would go to great lengths to get his attention. However, he would only smile flirtatiously and never stop for long at any one desk.

For him, his life had room for only one woman and they had been together a long time.  But there was one woman in the office whose presence he was well aware of.  Her name was Marla and her behavior was an enigma to him. In his mind, she was no real beauty and certainly not his type, but there was something about her that kept him awake sometimes at night.

She never smiled and when he joked in her presence, everyone laughed but her.  In meetings, he would stare at her, but she never looked his way.  When he spoke to her in the office, she would mumble a faint greeting without ever looking him in the eye.  She was always polite when duty called for them to talk, but she never responded to the somersaults he performed with his wit to make her laugh.

Then one day, he saw her at a basketball game with a guy and he felt flustered for the rest of the evening.  He had been with his girlfriend Kathy, who had been by his side since college and no woman had ever come between them.  He viewed her as his anchor and that part of him that helped brace him against the winds of life. But that night, he wished he was alone.

Suddenly, this co-worker, who wouldn’t look at him, was starting to invade soul territory no other woman had ever been allowed to enter. After seeing her at the game, he became distracted at work and preoccupied with what he was feeling and what she was thinking.  He was puzzled by her aloofness.

Finally, one morning, he felt compelled to knock on her office door.  It was time to investigate what he felt.  “May I come in?” he asked in a very serious tone.  She looked up as if startled.  Her face held its usual blank expression. 

“Sure,” she replied.  “What can I do for you?”

“Are you busy tonight?” he asked in a voice that stammered with uncertainty. He rushed on without waiting for an answer  “If not, I’d like to invite you out for a drink.  We need to talk.”

For the first time, Marla looked him directly in the eye and smiled slowly in triumph.  “Sure,” she replied, in a satisfied tone. It was a question she’d been secretly hoping for.  She had been attracted to him ever since he’d been there, but she knew she would never get his attention by putting her admiration on display as the other women in the office. She decided to get his attention by ignoring him and she knew it was working when she caught him staring at her in the office meetings.

With staged hesitation, she responded.

“I’d love to.”