Office SituationSHIT

[Written by: Kithara]

After a relaxing winter break at her hometown, Panvel, and a fun-filled New Year's trip to Alibaug, Madhu had just returned to Bangalore where she worked in an MNC. Employees had started to slowly return to their office's base location. On one afternoon in January 2023, Madhu was standing in line to collect her lunch. 'Chole Kulche', a counter in the office cafeteria, was famous for having a long queue but yet, the north Indian set of people in the office waited in the queue to get their food even if it was long because that was the closest they could feel to their native food in the south of India. Madhu was waiting in line and was fully out of patience, and she was looking around to divert her mind.


Suddenly her eyes were stuck in one place. She saw someone whom she immediately liked and found extremely cute. A tall, fair & handsome man with a good physique was seated right in front of Madhu. He was in a maroon shirt and black trousers. All of his focus was fully on his food. "What a blend of handsome and cute he is!", said Madhu in awe of the man. Madhu simply couldn't get her eyes off him. She kept staring at him and at one point he looked at her but didn't realize that she had been looking at him for over 10 seconds.


He was on the verge of finishing his lunch and there was Madhu, who was on the verge of losing her patience. Once he finished his lunch, he left the table and Madhu finally got her lunch. She did not see the man in the office after that and moved on with her life but the handsome man's face was well registered in Madhu's mind.


[5 months later, in June 2023]
Madhu worked on the 14th floor of her office. The building had different lift lobbies, North, Central & South. Unfortunately, the elevators in the north lobby had stopped working which was the closest to the employees seated in the north zone. Due to this, the people working on her floor in the north zone had to walk all the way to the Central lobby to get an elevator.


One day, while walking towards the Central lobby elevator, Madhu saw a very familiar face seated on the 14th Floor Central Zone. Black Shirt, black trousers! Oh, what a handsome man he was! The body language of the man said that he was very stressed because of his work. But who was he? Well, he was the same Maroon Shirt man who left Madhu awestruck 5 months back. Madhu was on cloud 9 to know that she and the mystery man sat on the same floor!


A few months later, there was a small pantry that was opened in one of the break-out areas of the 14th floor, North zone. This resulted in many people visiting the 14th floor north zone many times a day to grab some snacks. One of those people was the handsome mystery man. The mystery man would come to the north lobby bay at least once a day and Madhu would always wait for him to come so that she could see the man and be happy for the day. It often happened that they locked eyes, however, Madhu never initiated a conversation. But she knew that he recognized her by face. 


A few months into this, Madhu had an urge to talk to him. She used her network to know his name and she finally found it!
His name was Pratik. Madhu didn't waste any time in searching for him on Instagram and sending him a follow request. She was very nervous about sending him a request but she made the move. Her request was accepted within an hour of sending it and to top it off, he followed her back too!


Madhu had a colleague in her team named Akshata. Akshata and Madhu were more like friends than colleagues. Madhu once showed Akshta her office crush and Akshata always wanted things to work out between Madhu and Pratik. She was rooting for them to be together someday. She was always all ears for Madhu whenever she wanted to talk about Pratik. When they finally connected on social media, no one was happier than Akshata.
One day, Madhu wore a beautiful black dress to the office and asked Akshata to click some pictures for her. Akshata being a sweetheart not only clicked those pictures but also later asked Madhu to go down to the cafeteria for lunch using the central lobby lift so that Madhu could flaunt her looks in front of Pratik. While they walked past the central zone, they did not see Pratik. It was a little before 2 PM and Pratik worked in the 2 PM to 11 PM shift. Madhu and Akshata got very disheartened and walked towards the lift lobby. Madhu and Akshata were waiting for the lift and when the lift doors openedwalked out the handsome man, Pratik, and he was in the same Maroon shirt and black trousers! Madhu and Pratik had an eye contact, however, Pratik seemed like a shy man. The moment they had an eye contact, Pratik quickly looked away and walked out of the lift lobby. Madhu was happy that she saw Pratik and she had a great rest of the day.


Post connecting on social media, for a month, Pratik kept reacting and liking the posts that Madhu shared but never initiated a conversation with her. She often tried to make eye contact with him in the office and succeeded at times too but the two never exchanged smiles nor did they ever say "Hi!" and start a conversation. 


Madhu was losing her patience and wanted to talk to Pratik. So finally on the night of 30th September, 2023, Madhu sent her first message to her crush, "Hello Pratik!".


Suddenly Madhu panicked and said, "Should I unsend the message? No, but what if he has already seen the notification". She became so nervous that she switched her phone off, turned on Netflix, and started watching the evergreen Bollywood movie 'Jab We Met'. She watched the entire movie but still couldn't gather the guts to check her messages. After 3 hours, when she finally gathered the guts to switch her phone on and check for his message, she turned red in embarrassment. Pratik replied to her within 5 minutes saying "Hi Madhu. How are you doing?".


She was dancing out of joy and was so happy that she lost her sense of reality. They started to have regular chats and used to have very fun-filled conversations.

On 18th October 2023, Madhu was gearing up to leave for her hometown for the Navratri festival. She received a text saying "Hello Madam" from Pratik few hours before leaving for the airport. During their conversation, he expressed to her that he wanted to approach a girl who used to sit on Madhu's floor. When she read those texts, Madhu was heartbroken. It shattered her to know that the man she had been crushing on for so long already had a liking for someone else. Madhu being unable to handle her emotions, decided to express them to Pratik. Before her flight took off, she sent a message to Pratik wherein she confessed her liking towards him. Pratik responded to Madhu and told her that he didn't like Madhu back. However, he expressed that he wished to stay friends with her.

Madhu felt bad about the rejection and found solace in Akshata. Of course, she did not tell Akshata about Pratik's interest in another woman since it was Pratik's personal matter, but Madhu told Akshata that she had confessed her feelings to Pratik, but he didn't feel the same way. Akshata could see that Madhu was feeling down and did everything she could to help her feel better, reassuring her that being rejected didn't diminish her worth. Madhu was grateful to have such a supportive friend in Akshata.


Madhu tried to keep her distance from Pratik, but eventually gave up and started to talk to Pratik as a friend. Pratik would often initiate their conversations and that would somewhere make Madhu happy that he is making an effort to stay in touch with her. Madhu would always try not to come across as a desperate person and would try to maintain her boundaries. On the contrary, Pratik, on many occasions, had a very flirtatious way of talking to Madhu. Madhu was an artist, she would often post videos of paintings on her YouTube channel. Pratik, despite not being into arts would watch all her videos and compliment Madhu on the same. All of these efforts made Madhu like Pratik even more with each passing day and she thought that Pratik was developing an interest in her too.

One day, Madhu and Pratik were discussing about music and Pratik told Madhu that he really liked the song 'Let Her Go' by Passenger. He asked her to sing the song for him. Madhu was into Hindustani Classical music and Indian songs. She hardly even listened to English songs, let alone singing them. But she tried to sing the song for him which turned out to be an utter failure. Both Madhu & Pratik had a good laugh about it. But that song quickly grew on Madhu. After all, it was Pratik who suggested the song. Thereafter, she started listening to it whenever she would think about Pratik.

Despite the warm & friendly gestures from Pratik, Madhu always tried to suppress her liking towards Pratik. Every time she would cross paths with Pratik in office and they would have a short conversation, Madhu held herself back from saying "Whenever I see you, the song 'My dil goes mmm' starts playing in my mind. I wish we would go out on dates, not the conventional ones. Dates like a badminton game, sitting together and listening to our favourite songs & dancing to them, sitting under the sky late at night and staring at the moon and counting stars, going in long rides, cooking food together, and so on." But Madhu could not say any of that to Pratik and would often just smile at Pratik and pass by him, suppressing all that she felt.

But as they say, when you try to suppress something, it starts to spill and, more often than not, in an unpleasant way. She suppressed her emotions for a very long time! But eventually, because she was failing to hide her feelings for him, it started to come out in very weird ways and her behavior began to be very obnoxious towards him. This started to cause fights between them at times.

Few months later, it was Pratik's birthday. On his birthday, Madhu made the effort to find out his number to surprise him with her call. Madhu always liked to wish her close ones over a phone call. She called Pratik to wish him on his birthday, but he didn't pick up.  Not only did he not answer her call, he didn't even call back or tell her that he saw her call. Madhu felt disrespected for her effort and well wishing.

She also started to notice that the same person who used to message her almost every day and would initiate conversations a lot of times, had suddenly started to be disinterested in talking to her. Even if Madhu would initiate a conversation, he wouldn't be interested in holding on to the conversation & more often than not, he would leave her messages on 'seen'.


Madhu couldn't understand Pratik's behavior at all. When Madhu was in her hometown, Pratik would often ask her about when she would come back to Bangalore. When Madhu once said that her return date wasn't fixed till then, he replied saying "I am waiting". One day he also told Madhu "I want to pull your cheeks 👀❤️". During one conversation, Pratik also went as cheesy as "Aapko meri kisi cheez se farak nahi padta? Main marr jaau toh bhi nahi padega?".
All of these messages somewhere started to make Madhu feel that Pratik was starting to develop an interest in her.


But when Madhu came back to Bangalore, Pratik never took any initiative to meet her. Madhu asked herself, "Why did he say that he was waiting? What was he waiting for?"


But Madhu was not Pratik's girlfriend. So she could never tell him about these feelings. Eventually, suppressing her emotions started to make everything worse. This led to fights between Madhu and Pratik. The fights went to an extent where he got extremely pissed and blocked her on social media.

Little did Pratik know that Madhu saw this coming from miles away. What else was supposed to happen when Madhu had started to behave so obnoxiously!? Of course, Pratik had a threshold. And since he had no liking towards Madhu, he would not tolerate her behavior for long. Madhu knew that no one would put up with such obnoxious behavior, but she still just kept it real and was herself.


A month had passed since Pratik had blocked Madhu. Madhu felt bad about the way things ended between them. She missed talking to Pratik. Whenever Madhu missed Pratik, she would listen to 'Let her go' and try to feel better.


Madhu missed Pratik a lot and wanted to mend things between them. So she took the risk of texting him on whatsapp and asked Pratik if he could let go whatever had happened and be friends again. Madhu wasn't expecting anything postive since Pratik ignored her left, right & centre for the entire month in office. She sent Pratik the message and closed the app. After an hour, she saw a notification pop up on her screen. It was Pratik and his response was positive.

Luckily, Pratik unblocked her and they started to talk again. They started exchanging smiles in the office once again and things seemed like they were getting back to normal. But little did Madhu know that her happiness was going to be very short-lived.


Since Madhu and Pratik had started talking again, Madhu thought of giving things another shot and wanted to see if this time things could work.
Without sounding clingy or creepy, Madhu tried to ask Pratik out for a 'Chai' date over the upcoming weekend. However, Pratik declined without being rude, and Madhu took the hint and let that pass.

The next day Madhu went to office and was focused on her mundane tasks. In the afternoon, she saw Pratik heading towards the pantry, however, Pratik did not see her. Without dwelling on it, Madhu returned to work.

A few minutes later, Pratik messaged Madhu on Instagram, saying, "There is a girl I saw sitting in your bay at the office & I found her pretty. Can you help me out with her details?"


Tears welled up in Madhu's eyes. Something didn't feel good. It felt like a pierce. It felt like someone stabbed her in the heart 1000 times. It hurt. And it was bound to hurt because she liked him. She has liked this man for almost a year now! How else is someone supposed to feel when the person they like shows interest in pursuing someone else and asks for their help? It was extremely hurtful for Madhu. In a rage, Madhu replied to "Pratik saying you are the dumbest and the most heartless person I have ever come across". To this, Pratik replied, "Oh god! You have so many tantrums! Bye!".


Madhu went numb. She slowly felt the rush of adrenaline in her body. And it was a familiar feeling. Soon she knew that it was an anxiety attack. She felt shivers down her body and her legs went numb. Her brain was fully blank and she slowly started to lose sense of reality. Her laptop was open in front of her and she had no idea about what she was looking at. But it was all happening in the office and she couldn't afford to show what she was feeling openly. With great difficulty, she got up from her chair and dialed a number. 
"Hello Ujjwal...", she said.


Ujjwal was a very dear friend of Madhu who understood anxiety and could calm Madhu down in her situation. When Ujjwal heard Madhu's voice, he got tensed immediately and knew that something was not right. Her voice was trembling. Her mouth was dry and she could barely speak. She felt light-headed and she wasn't able to get up from her chair. But she somehow gathered the strength and got up and walked towards the balcony. She had jelly legs at that point but she still pushed herself to keep moving. After all, she was in the office and she couldn't break down in front of her colleagues. All she could tell Ujjwal was "I liked a guy in the office and he expressed his interest in another woman and asked me for help despite knowing that I liked him. How heartless can one be to do something like this, despite knowing that a person likes them? Are my emotions a joke to him? Or does he really not give a flying fuck about the way he makes me feel? Doesn't he understand the gravity of the effect his deeds would leave on me?"


Ujjwal listened to Madhu's rant while she was breathless but he didn't interrupt her as he knew that it was important for her to let things out. Once she said everything that came to her mind, Ujjwal talked Madhu through it as he understood Anxiety attacks and calmed her down. Slowly Madhu's body went back to normal but she kept feeling uneasy for the rest of the day.


Akshata had gone on vacation when this happened and that is why she wasn't there in the office to be there for Madhu and handle her. But the minute she got to know about this incident through Madhu's texts, she was immediately there for Madhu to comfort her through messages & voice notes. Akshata made sure to make Madhu feel that she wasn't alone. In her voice note, Akshata spoke to Madhu with a great deal of empathy, understanding the pain and hurt she must be feeling.


After speaking with Ujjwal and Akshata, Madhu felt like she had returned to a state of normalcy. Once Madhu got back home from office, Ujjwal came to pick her up and she went out with him to get some fresh air. Ujjwal took her to a beautiful Café where they had some good food and a heart-to-heart conversation about what had happened that day. Ujjwal said something that cleared the clouds in Madhu's mind. He said "Madhu, you like him, but, he doesn't. Whatever time you spent talking to him, meant something to you. To him, you were just another person. Even if you felt that he casually flirted you, it's a very normal thing these days. People don't take it very seriously. You have to learn to manage your emotions." 

Madhu always hated the way this generation had defined love and one term she hated was "Situationship". She never wanted to have one and never thought that she would be in a situation like that. But when she spoke to Ujjwal on the day she had a panic attack in the office, with a defeated voice she said: "Ujjwal, as hard as it is to accept it, it's even harder to say it out loud. But I guess I was, indeed, in a SITUATIONSHIP. .. or SHITuationship.. or SituationSHIT?? But ultimately, it's just shit!"


She wanted to talk this out with Pratik, but then she thought that Pratik might not even have the capability to understand what Madhu was feeling and how she was feeling since he did not have any feelings for her. 

Madhu came back from the cafe that night and started to pen down her emotions in her journal. Writing was like therapy for Madhu. Once Madhu calmed down after releasing her emotions through writing, she tried to think of Pratik's side. Maybe it wasn't his fault either. He never said that he had any romantic feelings for Madhu. Maybe he was never interested in Madhu at all which made him not care about her and their bond at all. That could also be the reason why he always kept things to texts and never beyond that, since he didn't want to have any deeper connection at with Madhu.  People in this generation are good at flirting casually and it means nothing to them. Maybe the things Pratik told Madhu which made her feel special were very normal things for Pratik and meant nothing to him. Pratik was always clear on not wanting to have deep conversations and therefore he always kept them fun, flirtatious, and superficial. When he asked Madhu to give him details of other girls, maybe he did not know the intensity of Madhu's liking towards him. But it can also not be forgotten that Madhu had expressed her liking towards him and he could have been a little more considerate towards her feelings. Perhaps, both Madhu and Pratik were right in their places. Maybe Pratik has his side of the story too, which Madhu would never know.

Madhu and Pratik continued to cross paths in office at times and Madhu did not let whatever happened change her behavior towards him. She always greeted Pratik and also shared small conversations with him when they crossed paths. As they say, "Life goes on".