Question/Advice request - Contacting a former co-worker through friends/colleagues?

[TheEvilJester]

(Disclaimer: I am new to this board, so folks obviously do not know me here yet. So, just a fair warning… I am a bit of a story teller. Hence, my posts tend to get very long. I somehow just cannot seem to help myself. So, I will try to keep my story today as brief as possible. I apologize in advance if it gets very long, and I greatly appreciate anybody who reads it anyway.

In fact, for those of you wanting to help, but without the patience to read through my giant story, I am actually going to include a “tl;dr” (too long, didn’t read) summary in bold below. If you don’t have the time and/or patience to read my whole story but were still willing to help, skip to that part for a quick summary of everything up to that point. Everything from then on is my actual question.)

So, recently my life has undergone a lot of huge changes. The funny thing is, almost all of them seemed like extremely bad things at first, only to wind up actually being extremely good. In the end, it was a lot of bad things, necessary to bring on the good. One of those things was the ending of my relatively brief marriage. As of the date we officially decided to divorce, our marriage had just hit 3 years. The relationship itself lasted about 8 years, but we’d only been married the last 3. Leading up to the marriage, neither of us had a single doubt that it would be forever. So, please do not mistake me for somebody who looks at things through rose-colored glasses and ignores the truth. I am NOT the type of guy who does not take his commitments seriously.

I don’t want to go into too great of detail about it to avoid this becoming a novel. LOL! However, my then wife basically turned into a completely different person during our marriage. For our entire relationship, I was deceived into thinking she was a completely different person, and it seems she slowly revealed the truth once we were married. Looking at it objectively, I think the truth is probably that it was the person she truly wanted to be, and truly felt she could be. So, in fairness, I don’t think her intention was to be deceptive. But the result was the same nonetheless. Trust me, I won’t sit here and pretend I was 100% innocent in our eventual break-up. But, it is a little hard to remain a happy, loving, supportive guy when you feel completely unappreciated.

As we decided to end the relationship, I went through all the feelings you might expect. I had a period of feeling like there was NO WAY I would ever want to put myself through that again. I thought I was better off alone, and never wanted to try again. But, after some time to heal, I realized there was nothing normal or okay about the way I was treated. I also had to re-discover who I was. The truth is, I have always been a very romantic guy. A bit of a “hopeless romantic,” I suppose. I am always very realistic about it. In other words, I may get crushes a lot, but I don’t automatically think they are all my true dream soulmate. I just want the opportunity to find out if perhaps they are. But, even so, I am in love with love. I am like the guy you see in all those romantic comedies. Or, for those of you familiar with the show, I am Ted Mosby. LOL! So, I started to feel it would be such a shame to let one bad relationship ruin that for me. Especially considering that my then wife was actually my first and only relationship (I was a bit of a late bloomer. Nearly graduated college before I even had my first girlfriend).

So, I started to think about what I wanted in an eventual soulmate. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help myself. The funny thing is, without any conscious decision or thought on my part, I kept picturing the same girl in my head as I thought of these qualities. She kind of just popped in there. She worked at my company, but I really didn’t know her very well. We only ran into each other from time to time, and hadn’t really talked. So, don’t get me wrong. I’m no dummy. For all I knew, she could have been the nastiest, meanest person in the world. But, the admittedly small evidence I had said that maybe she was a lot of the things I pictured in my head. That and, even though I don’t believe in this sort of thing, I kind of sensed that she was. It is hard to explain. So, before I even felt ready, there it was…. I once again had a crush.

But, it was too soon. In my head, in my heart, I 100% felt that the right thing to do at the time was to hold off. I was going through a lot and needed some time. So, with every ounce of me knowing I was doing the right thing, I decided to wait until I could move my life along, have time to heal, get my divorce finalized or at least on its way, move into my own place… All that stuff. In the meantime, I thought about it a lot. I decided that once I was in a better place in life, I would talk to her. I’d maybe try to strike up a friendship and ask her out later. Or… maybe I’d just ask her our and hope we also became friends. I would want my soulmate to also be my best friend, so why not? And… you know something… I decided that once the time was right, I was going to do just that. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested, maybe she’d reject me, but it was worth a try.

That may not sound like such a big deal, but for me it was GROUND-BREAKING! Why, you may ask? Because I am so ridiculously shy, that I have LITERALLY NEVER talked to a girl (other than friends), especially not when I was interested in her. Now you may be thinking to yourself “…but you were married.” True, but my wife and I were close friends before we even started dating, so that little hurdle was already in my past. It was just a smooth transition. So, I had really NEVER gotten over that. I mean, even thinking about girls I liked in my own head, I knew I could NEVER get up the courage to talk to them. Yet, this time, I knew I could. That was HUGE for me.

So, I gave myself some time to heal. Then, I was finally ready to start moving along. Ready to get the divorce going. Ready to find my own place. It was only a matter of time until I’d be ready to talk to her. … Then I was laid off (as were many others). To be honest, it was a blessing in disguise. It was not a good company, and I had been trying to get a better job for a looooong time. But, that just wasn’t the way I wanted to go about it. I’ve since landed in a MUCH better job that I hope is finally the right one for me. So far so good, but I have often put my loyalty in companies who turned out not to deserve it. Anyway, this obviously delayed things for me as I could not move along with things with such an uncertain financial situation. But, what was most devastating to me was the loss of my chance.

I held on to one small hope. Hence here comes my actual request for advice.

(tl;dr sum-up – I met a girl at work that I was really crushing on, and wanted a chance to find out if she may be the kind of girl I was looking for in my life. We didn’t know each other very much at all, but she seemed really nice and I wanted to try to get to know her. However, due to the end of a bad relationship, I needed to take some time to heal first, and before I ever got my chance, I was laid off, and thankfully eventually found a much better new job.)

It seems like a HUGE longshot, plus I am also not sure if it may be a little weird. But, it would be my only hope, so I have been considering giving it a try. I didn’t know her well, but I happened to know a few people on her team. At least one of those people was somebody I talked to from time to time, with whom I would actually kind of like to keep in touch. My thought was, I could keep in touch with one or some of them, since I kind of wanted to anyway. Then, when my life is in a better place, I could casually ask them about her. Unless she was already in a relationship, I could maybe ask if they could pass along my contact information and say I wanted to talk to her, or however they could word it that would seem the least weird. LOL!

It seems like a HUGE long shot, but it is all I’ve got now that I’m not at that company anymore. So, my question is regarding that. Does that seem too weird of a thing to do? I mean, people try to set friends up all the time. This would basically kind of be like that, so on the one hand I don’t see the harm. But what is everybody else’s opinion? Would that seem weird and possibly turn her right off from contacting me? Or, for that matter, put yourself in that situation. If a friend from work, or a past job, suddenly contacted you and told you somebody asked them to give you their contact information, what would you think about it? For that matter, if you think it is worth trying, can anybody offer advice on what to say to my friend/colleague? Or how specifically to ask them to word it if they contact her? In all honesty, I’m thinking with my luck, she probably isn’t close enough to any of my colleagues to where this would work anyway, but it is the only chance I can think of since I no longer have a way to talk to her myself.

[basilandthyme]

OK, I must confess to skim-reading this.

You say that you've got no way to contact this girl yourself. That seems very odd. Are you not able to call the company and ask to be transferred to her phone?

[Feel-Free]

When you stay true to your desire for communication, whether it be with her co-workers or with her, it won't matter much how the communication gets made. You are a free-thinking human and it's very common to obsess about things we don't actually know anything about. Try to move past your over-thinking and over-considering around this woman. Just put the word out that you used to 'know' her and would like to say hello again. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. You know what your own definition of 'clean' is. Stay true to your desire to reach out and say hello. Move forward. See how it feels. Move forward or back depending on what you find out. Move easy. Move with clarity.

[TheEvilJester]

OK, I must confess to skim-reading this.

You say that you've got no way to contact this girl yourself. That seems very odd. Are you not able to call the company and ask to be transferred to her phone?

Well, I greatly appreciate that you took the time to read it at all. Trust me, I know it got crazy long, hence why I made a too long, didn't read summary in case anybody wanted to help, but simply didn't have the time or patience to read the whole thing.

Anyway, I appreciate the advice. However, unfortunately, I don't think she works there anymore either. Though, to be honest, even if she still did by the time I decided to reach back out to her, wouldn't that seem a little weird? As I mentioned before, we never really talked beyond a friendly nod, smile, and a "Hello" now and then as we passed in the hallways. It wasn't as though it was somebody I worked directly with all the time. Heck, though, even if it was, I feel like it would be a little weird to call somebody out of the blue at their work number to ask them out.

By the way, just in case that is one of the parts you skimmed, as I said (admittedly in the middle of my long, long story) it isn't like I idealized this girl I barely knew. I realized that if I got to know her it could be possible my senses were wrong about her and/or we weren't right for each other. I just wanted the chance to find out.

When you stay true to your desire for communication, whether it be with her co-workers or with her, it won't matter much how the communication gets made. You are a free-thinking human and it's very common to obsess about things we don't actually know anything about. Try to move past your over-thinking and over-considering around this woman. Just put the word out that you used to 'know' her and would like to say hello again. Keep it simple. Keep it clean. You know what your own definition of 'clean' is. Stay true to your desire to reach out and say hello. Move forward. See how it feels. Move forward or back depending on what you find out. Move easy. Move with clarity.

Feel-Free, I really appreciate your advice as well. It means a lot to me to hear that maybe it isn't as weird as I thought it may be. Probably just more of my low self-esteem talking. I may just try after all. My biggest concern now, though, is that nobody will have her contact information, or anything like that and my search will stop dead in its tracks right there.

Well, anybody else still reading this...

If I do decide to reach out to one of my friends/colleagues from my old work in hopes that they kept in touch with her...

Any suggestions on how to word the request to my friend/colleague without it seeming weird? And, more importantly, any suggestions on how to have the friend/colleague go about it? In other words, what to ask them to say to her? And, if they have multiple ways to contact her, should I ask them to e-mail her, call her? Which would you think would be best?

[TheEvilJester]

I try not to be one of those people always bumping my own threads, but was hoping to get input from a few more people. I will give it this one bump, and if nobody else really has any input, I will leave it be.

[HeartIsAching]

Can I get the cliff notes? Really don't feel like reading all of that.

[TheEvilJester]

No problem. I absolutely understand that. That is actually why I included the too long, didn't read (tl;dr) summary. Skip to the second bold part and read that for a quick summary, then read all the rest after that.

[HeartIsAching]

Aha... should've read a bit more.

Well, if she didn't really know you, there's a strong possibility that if you do find/contact her that it will come off as kind of creepy/stalker-ish, unless she was into you too. If you felt like maybe there was something there, I'd go for it. However, I would caution that you should contact her only once, make sure she has contact information if she wants to find you, then leave it at that.

[TheEvilJester]

That is definitely one thing that concerned me. I don't want it to possibly come off as seeming creepy and stalkerific. Because, as I've said, the truth is I am not like that. It isn't like I am crazy obsessed with her, nor am I ever with any crushes I have had in the past. It is just when I get a crush, I want the chance to actually give it a chance. Before, I have always been too shy to even try. This time, for the first time ever in my life, I actually felt I could do it, but I never got the chance.

The truly sad thing is, I had minor little clues that told me that maybe she actually could potentially be interested given the chance. Of course, that could just be the crush talking (it is sometimes hard not to read too much into things when you have a crush). But, it seemed like she was at least friendly with me (again, we gave each other a friendly smile or hello now and then), so she at least possibly wouldn't have been offended/creeped out/whatever if I asked her out. But, now it just feels like I will never know, which is so much worse because it was the first time I ever felt I could have gotten up the nerve to talk to her.

[bubble]

I don't consider it stalkerish, she's someone you're interested in and you found a way to get in touch, that's flattering. Though I would agree with the notion of messaging her only once and if she doesn't respond, leave it at that. And if by some chance she does find it stalkerish, so what? What are your other options, hoping you'll randomly bump into her somewhere on the street? At this point you don't exactly have much to lose.

[TheEvilJester]

I don't consider it stalkerish, she's someone you're interested in and you found a way to get in touch, that's flattering. Though I would agree with the notion of messaging her only once and if she doesn't respond, leave it at that. And if by some chance she does find it stalkerish, so what? What are your other options, hoping you'll randomly bump into her somewhere on the street? At this point you don't exactly have much to lose.

Thank you. I am so glad to hear others feel that way. I was a little worried it would seem weird, but then I was thinking that I would find it awesome of some girl tried to go out of her way to get back in touch with me. Unfortunately, I don't have her contact information, hence why I wanted to try to see if one of her team members did, and could pass her my info.

And you make a very good point. Because, honestly, beyond this my hope was maybe lightning would strike, Hell would freeze over, pigs would fly, and I'd randomly bump into her on the street somewhere. LOL! That, or the even less likely idea that... wouldn't it be too cool if I started online dating and found her on one of the sites? Granted, I know neither of those things will probably EVER happen, but without a way to get in touch with her, I find myself daydreaming, wishing they would.