Regret of a Lifetime

A slight detour from working in this nut house today as a blast from the past has popped up on Face Barf. Before I sold my soul to the corporate devil to work with Lord Crazy and his band of geeks I actually had a career in the education sector and almost 60% of the time enjoyed turning up for work. I know, hard to believe isn’t it?

I was working in a university which of course meant I was working with students. Young, fresh faced pimples of our future, the back bone of our society to be, the Prime Ministers and Bank Managers of tomorrow…..well lets not get too carried away, I’m sure some of them ended up working in a bank anyway. My role was to help these kids get jobs (I know, someone like me giving out careers advice – ironic doesn’t begin to cover it) so I had to meet with them in a one to one situation, do CV’s, interview skills, the usual. Most of them were very nice, polite and said thank you, some were rude, obnoxious and shocked they wouldn’t be earning £50k on a graduate starting salary and some were just a bit odd.

One of these students, Chan, was a regular customer as whilst being an IT geek genius he struggled somewhat with writing and spelling and the English language in general. This was a common problem amongst my students; you’d be shocked to learn how many would put the word ‘innit’ into an essay…. So Chan would come back again and again trying to perfect a CV or an application form and time and time again he would fail to get a job. Good on paper, not so good in an interview.

After a few weeks he started to bring things to the sessions with him, offer me a chewing gum or sweet to start with, then bring a box of biscuits, that kind of thing. This wasn’t unusual as normally students would bring in chocolates and things as a thank you for the help we gave them so I didn’t really think anything of it. Then one week he bought me some chocolates, a random lolly pop and some other food stuffs. This seemed to be getting slightly excessive. Then came the flower. Now we were falling into creepy-ville.

In one session Chan said “can I ask you something Nancy?” “Of course” says me, thinking it would be career related. “Would you like to go out with me?” Shit, not what I was expecting. “Er how do you mean?” – “Like on a date” Oh arse biscuits. I had to tell the guy very nicely that even though it was flattering I was actually in a relationship, that he was probably a wee bit young for me and that there was definitely a policy against university staff dating students.

“Oh. OK.”

Phew, got out of that one.

“Are you sure?”

Got to admire the little man’s determination. Yes I was sure and no it wouldn’t happen.

After this I lay off the meetings and would only see him when I thought it was absolutely necessary. He seemed to settle back down to normal and all was forgotten until a few months later….

“Nancy, you know I asked you out that time? Well would you reconsider?”

“No Chan, I told you before it’s not going to happen.”

“Not even dinner or the cinema?”

“No.”

So I had to stop the meetings with Chan, avoid seeing him at the student desk, ask a colleague to take over seeing him and then I left the uni to pursue other interests. Bye bye Chan, nice knowing you, good luck with the love life.

On a regular basis this guy still tries to hunt me down in Face Book, I get regular friend requests which I just ignore. I know I could block him but I think that would be mean and I was hoping that after a few years he would just get the hint. But no, I think I may have a stalker on my hands as today I received this message:

“Felt like a regret of a life time when some two years ago I have a slightly better chance than now. I still wanted a date with you, beautiful Miss Clueless. Like having lunch or dinner, going to a movie together (honestly, I like outdoor activities, feel free to contribute your idea if you are interested) if I could ever had that chance (to appreciate you and listen to what you think).

P.S. Exams will be finish by the end of next week; I hope I can get ahead of the queue of people who would also like to date you this summer.

Chan”

I would like to know where this queue of people waiting to date me is? Can someone point me in the direction of them?!

Seriously though I am starting to worry, this is now getting creepy. It’s been 2 years, get over it! My constant rejection of you and then ignoring you for several years should be a big enough hint that it’s never going to happen! I suppose this is the danger one faces when working with young impressionable students and I of course can’t be held responsible for being ‘beautiful Miss Clueless’ can I? I’m glad nothing like that has happened in this place. I think I would run screaming from the building.

Maybe I should block Chan now on FB? Maybe then he’d get the hint? Although that would mean not being able to receive any of these hilarious messages – oh come on it is hilarious admit it!!

Right I’m off to find that queue…..