#there is a

Somebody’s watching me, it’s my Anxiety™️

I got a last-minute invite to a birthday party from a much older friend. He knew I’d been trying to expand my network, so he brought me along—even though he also knew my introvert tendencies would be screaming once I realized I’d know only 20% of the room.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at the number of attractive middle-aged women there. My friend is an investor married into the local alta sociedad circuit. So of course the guest list looked like the cast of a glamorous, 40+ all-women ensemble drama. I was literally the only woman under 40. The eldest attendee was seventy-freaking-seven, and she was stunning.

And there I was, trying to behave, trying to keep my eyes from twinkling at every elegant, gorgeous older woman floating around the room.

It didn’t help that a guy—smart, attractive, clearly into me—kept trying to flirt. I was doing my best to stay engaged, but then another beautiful woman would glide past us, smile, say hello, or air-kiss me, and suddenly my attention span was on life support. How does one focus on one man when surrounded by the entire cast of “Women I Would Happily Develop a Crush On™”?

As the night went on, I somehow drifted out of the orbit of that dude and straight into the gravitational pull of one stunning fifty-something woman. The chemistry was ridiculous. She listened to every story I told like I was reading Scripture off a mountaintop. Next thing I knew, we were practically glued at the hip: getting food together, going to the restroom together, playing card games together—mind you, we had just met that same night.

Unfortunately (for my delulu heart), she’s straight (?) and married. So nothing romantic is going to come out of that spark, unless the universe decides to get messy. LOL.

When it was finally time to leave, we still couldn’t stop talking. We’d wrap up a topic only to accidentally start another. It took several false endings before we finally exchanged contacts and promised to stay in touch. And even as we did, I was already giving myself the lecture: Keep it professional. She’s married. Behave.

Sigh. I went there looking for business opportunities. Why did I walk away with chemistry I absolutely cannot act on?

I almost wanted to stop most people within her immediate vicinity to tell them:

“Pay your respects!!! This woman is single-handedly responsible for creating the stars that you all bow down to during prime time, and practically every waking moment of your lives! She has, essentially, supplied your lives with ‘meaning’ that you didn’t ask for but clearly wanted!”