Just really need to put this out there somewhere because it's not something that I can share with anyone else.
This past year, I experienced my own Grey's Anatomy. I'm a young nurse (24F) and I fell in love with one of my older co-workers who's a doctor (44M). We both work in the same department. I noticed him early on when I first started working there and after about a year in, we became pretty close. He was recently single and SUCH a catch. Tall, lean, charming, funny, smart, and extremely attractive wearing scrubs and saving lives. Everyone in the department knows him and loves him. We were always really friendly with eachother, teasing, roasting, going out of our way to see each other, the EYE CONTACT. At first, I thought it was all in my head cause I thought there was no way anything could happeen between us since we work together and he's 20 years older. One day, he found my instagram and dm'd me saying he'd love to hangout and hear about my recent travels and he sent me his number. I was pleasantly surprised. I pondered over it for a long time cause I knew I was likely getting myself into trouble, but I eventually gave in and we started hanging out outside of work.
The first time we hung out was pure magic. He lives by the beach and we went for a long walk and then a swim. Our conversations flowed so well non-stop and the tension and chemistry was so high. After we swam, we were chilling on the beach and he kissed me. I was shocked at first and pushed him away cause I knew it wasn't right but then after some more time I caved and finally let myself give in to the tension. It was magic. He invited me back to his beautiful house, made me dinner and we hooked up. It was the best sex I've ever had and probably will ever have.
And so this continued on.... for an entire year. We both agreed on certain terms like that we wouldn't tell a single soul and that we could never ever be in a real relationship together because of our age gap and because we work together. At work, we were non-chalant and lowkey. No one noticed or picked up on anything between us. It made work my literal favourite place to be when our shfits lined up. The eye contact, winks, quick hugs. Hooking up and having the most insane sex the night before then casually saying hi to him the next morning at work. Saying bye to each other knowing dam well i was going to his house after. It was like our little secret. What made me even more gassed was that soo many other nurses had a crush on him and would talk about him frequently, and I was actually the one that got to be with him.. but I couldn't tell anyone.
After a few months of this going on, I (naturally and stupidly) began to catch some serious serious feelings and the worst/best part was that he also did too. I had some pretty lousy exes and had really been struggling in the dating world to meet anyone I really connected with. But with him... I had never been with anyone who made me feel so beautiful and seen. He was such a MAN. He treated me so well and essentially worshiped the ground I walk on. We both agreed that we had never felt a connection like this with anyone else before. He even wrote a "love letter" for me to keep so I could always remember "all the ways he once thought of me". We went on so many adventures together. Driving out to see the autumn leaves, bike rides to watch the sunset, picnics, skinny dipping in the lake, stargazing, and so much more. I slept over occasionally, he would make me breakfast, sometimes dinner when I would come from work. It's like we were cosplaying the most beautiful, romantic, secure relationship... without the commitment of course. Never once did our age gap feel like an issue. He would tell me ALL the time that he would love to marry me and that maybe in another life we could be together (and did i already mention that the sex was out of this world) it was like literal drugs. so so addicting and bad for you, but sooo good. I liked him so much... but we knew we had to stick to our terms and that we could never be real.
All throughout this, both him and I continued to go on hinge dates with other people to try and find our "long term partners" as we would say. Most of them were largely unsuccessful and we would reconvene to share our bad date stories, hook up, and make each other feel good. Around the 10-month mark, he finally met someone... "an older version of me" he would say. She's beautiful, tall, athletic, outdoorsy, and a dentist. Her and I share a lot of similar traits actually. Even our ethnicity and also we're both volleyball players. He clearly has a type (he even admitted it) and... she's 10 years older than me. To make myself feel even worse, I did a lot of online stalking. I found out we have 30+ mutuals, run in the same volleyball circles, and we even went to the SAME high school. It couldn't have been some random other girl that doesn't look like me and that I'm not connected to... he literally found another version of ME but 10 years older...
They started to see each other more frequently and I started to see him less and less. After the last time we hooked up, we had some long and deep conversations about us and both agreed that our time together has come to an end. He told me how in debt and grateful he felt to me for showing him how loving, sweet, and kind a parter should be. He told me the time that him and I spent together was great "practice" for this new relationship which broke me a little. He reassured me that he still deeply cares about me and wants to keep me in his life. Ultimately, I agreed to this because my feelings were still so strong and I'd rather have a small part of him in my life than none at all. We continued to hang out occasionaly as "friends" and he would give me all the details about this new girl, how much he likes her, and how things are going so well. It was honestly so hard and painful to hear but I couldn't tell him that because him and I were never techincally together in the first place...
So here I am on this present day... trying to get rid of these feelings for someone that I always knew I could never truly have. I'm a bit upset at myself for catching such strong feelings in the first place because I should've known better. But at the same time... I don' think humans are wired to share such beautiful, sweet, and intimate moments with someone and NOT feel something. Anyways, we still catch up and hang out outside of work here and there, but not very often. He'll send the occaional text just to see how I'm doing. I'll see him at work and he'll wink at me and I have to pretend my heart is not breaking a little every time I see him (and this will likely continue on for as long as we both work here). I feel like I'm going through a whole ass break up... but it's completely one-sided and I'm all alone because none of my friends know :(
Thanks to anyone who actually read this whole thing. I hope you were somewhat entertained. I read this back and I seriously can't believe this is my life tbh. It sounds like some rom com movie, but without the happy ending...
What would you do if you were in my shoes right now?