No Eye Contact

This story is a classic one, both old and familiar. It involves a new girl in the office, in search of new friends and the curiosity that would drive her to seek companionship in an area not uncommon. The women's bathroom.

It happens in any office. You get on the same pee schedule with someone else and it becomes this awkward but ongoing hilarious joke. Every time you go into the bathroom, they're there. Each of you does the, "We meet again!" look or say something like, "Stop following me!"

This has been happening to me at work with another girl my age. If I go to the bathroom six times a day, I will see her six times a day. If I'm leaving the bathroom, she's coming out. If she's leaving a stall, I'm walking past to go to the next one. If she's washing her hands, she'll look over and I'm washing my hands. I'd see her in the hallway later and we'd say, "I'll see you in there, alright?" It got to a ridiculous point where we ran out of jokes to describe how funny it was. Because at that point, it just wasn't funny anymore, it was creepy.

The demise of our bathroom relationship happened gradually. One night I was leaving the building and passed her by while she whispered something to another girl. That girl then looked at me with that, "Oh...her" look. I feel like the odd girl out on the playground where there's a new invention of some unforeseen reason to stop including you. I started thinking that maybe I was unintentionally making myself pee when she peed. That maybe I really was stalking her. One minute we were high fiving each other at the sink. The next, I'm acting like we're bathroom strangers. It just got weird.

The women's bathroom has always remained a mysterious room. One with hidden secrets, forbidden looks and lines you just don't cross. I will miss my bathroom friend and from now on I will keep my feelings heavily guarded. Just like my broken bathroom heart.