The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

"Sounds to me like he bored you to the point where you almost passed out."

I rolled my eyes at Pete. "I think I was just dehydrated. I didn’t drink enough water that day and I was exhausted. Don't tell me this job isn't making you weak." I had just told Pete about my second date with Tom and in his typical, "big brother teasing" way, he had to rip on me for it. I was quick to point out that we had both been extremely stressed at work, especially with Larson in and out of the office all the time.

"I'm just saying," he replied with a shoulder shrug as he closed a Manila folder and threw it on top of a pile of others. "Don't you think passing out is a sign this guy is not, I don't know, stimulating enough for you?"

I laughed. “Stimulating?” I asked with a sarcastic smile. “When was the last time you stopped dating a girl because she wasn’t stimulating enough for you?”

Pete laughed. “I’m going to choose not to respond to that, because I don’t think you’d appreciate the direction I take that question.”

I sat puzzled for a moment before I realized he was making a sexual joke. “You’re so stupid,” I jokingly responded before picking up a soft stress ball he had on his desk and tossing it at his head.

“Whoa, Caroline,” Pete sarcastically replied before picking up the stress ball and narrowing his eyes at me. “This is a professional work environment and I’d appreciate if you acted accordingly.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ugh, I’m so sick of this ‘professional environment.’ This meeting with Larson on Friday is not going to go well.”

“Not with that attitude,” Pete jokingly responded. “Come on, it won’t be that bad. Larson just wants us to be as profitable as possible, which isn’t a bad thing.”

“I totally get being concerned about the ‘bottom line,’ Pete, but he won’t listen to any of our data or customer feedback research! Online dating is as accessible as ever and virtually everyone is utilizing it. With all the free apps out there, we need to focus on what makes us unique. He just wants us to be as cost effective as possible, but if we ignore our customers wants, they’re not going to continue paying for us.”

“I know, Caroline, I just don’t get why you let yourself get so worked up. He’s pretty reasonable when you approach him in a rational way.”

I let out a sigh. “He’s reasonable when you talk to him. When I try to show him anything I’m working on, he completely dismisses me. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman or because I haven’t been here for as long as everyone else or if it’s just my personality, but I really feel like he hates me.”

“Caroline, as a fellow psychology graduate, let me remind you of something called the ‘self-fulfilling prophecy.’ Maybe your anxiety that he hates you is making you all nervous around him and that’s causing him to, well, not like you as much as other employees.”

I bit my lip. “Whatever it is, I’m totally going to get fired during the next round of lay offs.”

“We don’t even know if those are coming,” Pete responded, but I knew they were. Pete and I had become pretty close while I was in California. While I had made some friends through fitness classes and with other coworkers, I still spent most of my time talking to Pete. We even spent time together outside of work pretty regularly. So, I knew when something was up. He told me that he didn’t know of any lay offs coming, but whenever it came up, he avoided eye contact with me and didn’t make any of his stupid, usual jokes.

But so what if lay offs were coming? Sure, I loved my job, but it had been really stressful lately. I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought about finding a new job. I browsed job listings and LinkedIn somewhat often to see if anything popped out at me. I even thought about moving back home. California had been great, but the whole reason I moved here was for this job and I hadn’t made a real life for myself outside of that. I’m just so indecisive that it’s hard for me to ever know what I actually want.

Which brings me back to Tom. After my second date with Tom, we were texting pretty much all day every day. He’d text me every morning and if he was going to be out of the office working, he’d let me know that he’d be out of contact for a few hours. It was such a small, seemingly insignificant gesture, but with all the flakey guys out there who would start texting me and then all of a sudden disappear for three days because they were ‘busy,’ it was nice to be seeing somebody who was so straightforward.

I thought about everything that I had gone through with guys in the last couple years; serious relationships that I thought could end in marriage, ridiculous men who I talked to on dating sites that made me want to give up on dating all together, and guys who I felt a real connection with before they seemingly disappeared to another planet.

I have to say, though, through it all, I was feeling pretty positive. Maybe it was because the new year had just started. Maybe it was because I had met Tom and things were going well. Maybe it was because I was living on my own, across the country, and I hadn’t completely fallen apart while being independent. Whatever it was, I felt good. A calm optimism had washed over me and even though the uncertainty of my work caused me some worry, I still felt confident that 2017 would be my year, regardless of where it took me.