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Hall Passes That Hit Close to Home

“Who’s your hall pass?”

At some point in our lives, many of us get too old or too married to play Fuck, Marry, Kill. Though let’s be real, you’re never actually too old or too married to play it, you just realize we live in a society and talking about fucking and/or killing other people might be a bit much for company.

Anyway, for those of us who for whatever reason, societal or not, feel like they can no longer play Fuck, Marry, Kill the way they used to, talking about hall passes seems to be a good way to fill the void.

What’s a hall pass?

For those who’ve never heard the term or didn’t bother to see what looked like a truly forgettable movie of same name, a hall pass is a person who you are allowed to step outside your marriage for in the hypothetical situation wherein they, too, are interested in having sex with you.

Usually, this person is a celebrity, the thought being that there’s no way you’d ever actually manage to bang them and thus all parties involved in the agreement feel secure.

It’s all very innocent fun.

It can also tell you a lot about someone’s tastes. Do they go for someone astronomically hot for their hall pass? Or are they more likely to be seduced by someone perhaps not as conventionally attractive, but has an outsized public personality? It can say a lot about your type.

(This, by the way, is how I came to realize my husband finds women with strong eyebrows to be very attractive.)

Is That Your Type Or…?

Bringing this around to Declan, several years ago, we were all enjoying ourselves at a work happy hour. We were all a few drinks in and the conversation wound up coming around to the subject of hall passes.

Our coworker, Kasey, posed the question to me: “Who’s your hall pass?”

I inwardly groaned.

I should state now that my hall passes, like most people’s, reflect what I find attractive in others. And what I usually find attractive are tall, ridiculous, goofy men.

I have never once been attracted to shorter men who have no sense of humor but are otherwise objectively hot. I honestly don’t understand what others see in them.

This is all to say that I’m one of the weirdos whose hall passes aren’t incredibly gorgeous humans, though they’re very much gorgeous in my eyes.

“Jason Segel and Matthew Lillard,” I finally answered.

Predictably, I was met with a sea of blank faces and spent the next five minutes explaining who each of those actors are and why in the world I’d want them over, say, Henry Cavill.

Eventually, everyone moved on and a few minutes later, the question was posed to Declan.

“Who’s your hall pass?”

He sat back and pretended to think for a moment, scratching at his beard and running a hand through his wild hair.

Then, for a brief moment, he turned and looked at me, before smiling sheepishly and admitting, “Selma Hayek.”

All right then.

So, Declan likes Latina women with large racks.

At this point, I should clarify that I am a half-Latina woman with a large rack.

Huh.

It was a little thing and no one dwelled on it—Kasey seemed more interested in discussing her hall pass with Ryan Gosling, but it’s something that’s always stuck in my brain. Declan likes brown women.

I’d already known at the time that I shared certain physical traits with his wife: curly brown hair, dark features, outsized boobs. We don’t look alike, she and I, but we don’t look different, if that makes sense.

A big difference is that she’s white and I’m… well, I don’t know what I am. During the winter when I’m paler I can pass for Italian. But once the weather gets warm and the sun hits my skin, it becomes clear pretty fast that I’m not 100% Caucasian.

And I’ve had to learn—as unfortunately many women of color have—that not every guy is into that.

But Declan, it would seem, is. And while I would never go so far as to compare myself to Salma Hayek’s beauty standards, I can’t help but wonder…

I also can’t help but wonder what Declan might have thought if I’d mentioned another one of my hall passes, who might be a tip off as to what else I happen to find attractive: Michael Sheen.

Wild salt and pepper hair, unruly beard, at times hilarious and at times unhinged? Sounds familiar.

#emotional affair #work crush #work husband #married crush #hall pass

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The Feeble Evidence That This Inadvisable Crush May Not Be One Sided

Part of what makes a crush so fun is the push and pull of living out your own will-they-or-won’t-they scenario.

Of course it’s appealing—how many sitcoms have explored the same territory? From The Office to Moonlighting, generations have been raised on the generally accepted truth that half the fun of going to bed is the trip up the stairs.

But as much fun as it can all be, wondering whether or not the object of your affections returns them, at some point you need a sign. Are you alone out on your branch or are they out there with you?

If you’re single, that sign is more or less a starting pistol. Both parties are interested? Great! Time to go on that first date, enjoy that first kiss and start working your way toward falling into bed together.

But if you’re married, not much may change. You could very well be doing this dance until you finally pass out of each other’s orbits. Too much is on the line and for many, as much as they’d like to heed that starting gun, their race will never officially start.

But even if you never make that jump from friends and co-workers to lovers, there’s something about receiving that confirmation, even if it comes embedded in code.

Podcasts Are the New Mix Tapes

I received what I believe to be my sign several months ago. But first, some context.

Declan is a man who loves himself a podcast. He has a long commute and spends at least part of it every day listening to podcasts.

He’s loyal to some and simply dabbles in others. If he’s interested in a new topic, he’s going to listen to a few different podcasts on the subject.

One of the first things we bonded over was the fact that we both listened to a certain now-defunct podcast about tech. He said he’d never met another person who listened. He still brings it up, his eyes crinkling each time as he recalls how he knew then and there that we were kindred spirits.

Declan also enjoys recommending podcasts. Whole series or individual episodes, he attempts to assign audio homework once every few weeks. Sometimes I listen, sometimes I don’t.

A few months ago, he recommended a short series podcast that explored the relationship between a journalist and a poet. I listened and fell in love with the series, particularly with the poet and the way she expressed herself.

Declan and I were getting lunch together a couple of weeks later and I told him I had finished the series. He dove in, excited to discuss the podcast, its characters and the themes it explored.

We went back and forth, sharing our experiences with the show—the things we liked, the things we disagreed with.

After a brief pause, he cocked his head and asked, “What did you think of the river simile?”

I knew what he was talking about. When asked about her 40+ year marriage and whether she had any advice about matters of the heart, the poet had shared that her love was like the Colorado river. The river itself was sure and strong, but there were also branches and tributaries and switchbacks.

Her love for her husband was the river itself, she explained. Everything flows back to that unyielding force. But the branches and offshoots? Those were the people she’s also fallen in love (or lust) with along the way.

Those branches didn’t take love away from the main river, they simply existed for a period of time, but inevitably ended, unlike the Colorado river.

“What did you think of the river simile?” Declan asked.

“I thought it was perfect,” I told him. “It made perfect sense to me and honestly, I think it explained in a way I never could how I feel about love and relationships.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes on me. “Same,” he said simply. “It made so much sense. I almost recommended the series to my wife, because I wanted her to hear that part, but…” he drifted off and shrugged.

I nodded. “I don’t know if I’d share that with my husband, either,” I confessed.

We held each other’s eyes for a moment, then he spoke, keeping his weighted gaze fixed on me. “But you get it, right?” He raised his brows.

I did. Declan viewed love and desire similary, if not the same as I did. We loved our spouses. We had no intention of leaving them or changing our respective situations.

But that didn’t mean we weren’t capable of feeling strongly about other people, including, just maybe, each other.

We were people capable of falling for more than one person at a time.

We didn’t come right out and say it, but something had shifted between us.

I considered him one of my branches.

And now I had reason to believe he might consider me one of his.

#work crush #work husband #married crush #emotional affair #workplace affairs

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From Smelly to Maybe, Sorta Swoon-Worthy… If You Squint

Let’s back things up a bit, shall we?

In my last post, I described meeting Declan on my first day at Work Co. and that our initial meeting hadn’t exactly thrilled me. But then I went on, admittedly without much context, to admit that not only had my feelings about him changed, they’d manage to escalate from “meh” to “holy shit, why haven’t we made out yet?”

So, what happened? How did Declan, the scrubby, slightly smelly man manage to burrow his way under my skin and stay there, rearranging my thoughts and feelings toward him until I actually began to find him desirable?

Maybe it would help to discuss who Declan is.

Declan is a divisive person. And by that I mean you either grow to love him or you don’t and he annoys the everloving fuck out of you. I think most of his fans and/or nemeses around the office would agree with me on that.

He is opinionated and stubborn. He likes to interrupt meetings to tell awful dad jokes. He has a tendency to hog the conversation and his short temper has been known to flare up with people he doesn’t like.

Sounds like a dream, right?

Except that’s not all of Declan. He’s also an incredible listener. He has a knack for remembering small details that make people feel seen and special. His sense of humor, barring the dad jokes, is infectious and he has the ability to brighten the mood in a room just by entering and engaging with the people therein.

Burning It All Down

I remember the moment I realized my feelings for Declan had taken a turn.

I had come out of a meeting with another department and was in a funk. I needed to vent, so I messaged the one person I knew would immediately leap to my defense.

Sure enough, I’d barely gotten the words, “That fucking meeting,” out of my mouth, before Declan leaned in toward his camera with a sly grin and whispered conspiratorially, “Is today the day we burn it all down?”

I laughed, mood instantly lightened and feeling as though a small bubble of joy or something like it was swelling inside of me.

As we continued talking, that bubble kept growing. It felt warm and comfortable and eventually the feeling flooded through my system. It was more than the euphoric “these are my people,” feeling I associate with realizing you’re truly clicking with someone. It was more than that.

It took about five minutes after our call had ended to realize what it was: the beginning of a crush.

Declan had already gone from being my co-worker who I liked, but who also got on my nerves (more on that another time), to being a treasured friend. And now he’d gone from being a friend to something more.

He’d done it by giving me almost exactly what I wanted.

I had wanted a work friend. Someone who listened, someone to share inside jokes with and someone to go out for lunch with on Fridays.

I wanted someone who would always see the best in me and who’d cheer me on as I faced down challenges. Words of affirmation have always been my love language.

I wanted someone who I could trust. Someone to whom I could confess my professional insecurities or to whom I could safely rant about how Barb in Sales was a truly heinous bitch. Someone who, when I was struggling, was always on my side, ready to come out swinging on my behalf.

And Declan was all that. He is all that.

Is it any wonder I fell for him?

#work husband #work crush #emotional affair #extra marital affair

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The Horrible Tale of How I Managed to Fall for My Very Married Co-Worker

They say the heart wants what the heart wants.

But what if what the heart wants is not only unavailable, it’s also inadvisable, immature and immoral?

In other words, what if it’s trash?

Let’s be clear: I didn’t set out to fall for Declan (all names have been changed to protect the innocent [and not-so-innocent]). There was no lightning strike when we met. I didn’t hear bells or experience any kind of special tingle in my Spidey Senses. If anything, I was slightly repulsed.

It was my first day on the job at Work Co. and Declan was there to greet me. It was only the two of us, plus an irritable IT rep, due to the fact that it was 2021 and everyone was still working remotely.

Because of his mask, I couldn’t see Declan’s full face, but the top half was unremarkable. Blue eyes peered from behind John Lennon-style glasses. His mop of brown hair was clearly on its way to gray.

And he smelled. I remember wondering if there was something wrong with him, because the musty, slightly greasy scent wafting off of him was slightly concerning.

In short, not the first impression that launches an office crush.

And yet. Here I sit, three years and countless zoom calls, lunch breaks and strategy sessions later and I know one thing is certain: I want Declan.

Less certain: Does he want me?

There are times when we’re together, working or pretending to work in his shlubby office that I wish he’d clean more frequently when we lock eyes and I’m nearly certain something’s there.

I feel it when he calls me on our work from home days. Sometimes he’ll create a work-related reason—we need to prep for tomorrow’s meeting!—but I know our call will eventually devolve into our usual shoot-the-shit silliness where we talk about whatever comes to our mind, oversharing and ignoring professional boundaries. Even better are the times when he calls just because.

“I just felt like chatting.”

Or, “I need to vent.”

Or, best of all, “I was lonely and I haven’t talked to you all day.”

I feel it when his eyes light up after discovering another thing we have in common. There’s a small age gap between us, and he’s always surprised that not only am I aware of pop culture from his generation, but that I enjoy it.

I feel it when he says my name, more than necessary and often teasingly.

There is something unspoken between us, I know that. It may have to remain unspoken, with neither of us truly betraying our feelings.

But I have too much churning and bubbling inside of me. I need an outlet. And so I’m here.

Because there is too much on the line.

Our jobs.

His marriage.

Oh, and the little fact that I’m married, too.

#work crush #emotional affair #married crush #work husband #I’m gonna catch so much shit for this but dang it I need an outlet