Susie Meredith is an HR professional for one of the world’s leading online retailers. She currently resides in Nashville, TN with her Golden Retriever, Sadie and her two cats, Vinny and Joey. Susie saved Vinny and Joey from a hard life in the cat-mob on the streets of Tennessee. She received her Bachelor’s in HR Development from Indiana State University and is currently working toward her Master’s in HR Management.
While obtaining her Bachelor’s she was a member of the Gamma Chi chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha where along with holding several leadership positions she also spent a significant amount of time partying hard, having fun, and playing Harvest Moon on Nintendo 64 with her roommates. Susie moved to Nashville with her family after a lifetime of living in Indiana after college and loves being a transplant Nashvillian. In her free time she is a self proclaimed TV junkie, alien movie connoisseur, and craft extraordinaire. Her motto is “If you can buy it, I can make it,” which sometimes leads to some interesting projects and meals.
The Friend Zone is an area I mostly associate with nerdy guys. You grow up watching movies such as, “Pretty in Pink” or my personal favorite, “Clueless” (no seriously, I’ve got an issue) where somewhat good looking guys are the girl’s friend and they spend 95% of the movie doing things to try to get the girl to realize they should wake up and see what is in front of them.
You also spend life with those guy friends that whine and complain about how they are only considered a “friend” by, of course, the most beautiful and unrealistic female they can find. I have decided that I am the girl version of these nerdy guys, except it didn’t end at high school.
It continued on through college and well into adulthood. As I am breathing on my 30th birthday, which is less than two months away, I have been spending some time reflecting on my life and where I’m at. I own my own home; have my own car, an amazing family, a great and rewarding career with an awesome company and wonderful friends. The one thing I don’t have is a significant other.
As I reflect on this fact, I start to ask myself questions and replay through previous relationships trying to find out where I went wrong. Was there a turn where if you went right you would meet an amazing guy that was your perfect match, but instead I went left and ended up in Crazyville? I think it’s quite possible. Together let’s move backward through time and look at how I ended up in Crazyville, living in the Friend Zone.
My most recent experience did not come as a surprise that it ended the way it did, as I am almost becoming immune to the disappointment of the opposite sex. I work in Human Resources, which very much limits how I can interact with my co-workers. It is something that I have come to grips with and have grown to appreciate because it keeps a certain level of crazy out of my life.
A year ago, I was approached by an employee to set up a specific benefit offered by our company. I let them know that I was more than willing to help them and would get with them soon to set it up. There is a two-year window to set up this benefit so it didn’t jump to my priority list as the person had maybe worked there six months. As days passed, every time I saw this employee they reminded me that I had yet to get with them.
To me, this seemed odd because this employee was always very quiet, so I though he must REALLY want to get this done. I took the time and met with him to set up his benefits. As we were setting it up, I noticed that he didn’t really need my help. He seemed to be setting it up just fine on his own, but he was super chatty. I walked away thinking it was odd and wondering why he waited around nagging me for weeks to help him when he could have easily done it from any computer he came in contact with.
From then on, I wasn’t sure if it was just because I had a recent interaction with him but I noticed him around me more. Every time he would walk by my desk, he would find a silly excuse to talk to me or stare at me to the point where my co-workers were noticing. This is something that happens often with all of us so we all just chuckled about it and moved on.
Soon after this, he added me as a friend on Facebook. I accept all Facebook requests, as long as I actually know the person so I didn’t think anything of it. Soon after that, he started messaging me pretty excessively on Facebook. First, under the pretense of interview/resume help, then it moved to casual conversation and just normal randomness.
Again, I didn’t think much about it as it was nothing threatening or leading. I just thought maybe he was lonely and wanted a friend. I knew that he was in his mid-twenties and lived with his family, and sometimes being surrounded by people is the loneliest place to be. In my many years of being in the Friend Zone, I have learned to not jump to conclusions that someone may be interested in more than friends. I’ve gotten burned by that illusion to many times and have learned my lesson.
Time passed on with random Facebook conversations until my friend had to sever ties with my company. I figured that would be the end of it as many times people are not interested in conversing with their old HR person. Interestingly enough, this was not the case. I forget the exact reasoning behind it, but he ended up with my cell phone number and was texting me instead of Facebook messaging me.
Then I started to notice they started getting a flirty tone to them. The open-ended questions or answers that could be interpreted as something more risqué than simple “friend” talk. I showed these texts to a good friend of mine and she confirmed my suspicions. It was not my imagination; he was sending me flirty texts.
As someone who has purposefully become a recluse I did not know how to react to this. I’m a pretty straight forward cat, so if you’re interested I would rather someone say so versus hinting around and playing games. These texts lasted a few days and I finally told him I wasn’t interested playing his games and left it at that.
I received silence for a few months, then out of nowhere I get a random message on Facebook accusing me of ignoring texts. As being ignoring is one of my biggest pet peeves, I immediately went to my phone and looked and saw nothing. We went back and forth a few times about that (I didn’t receive a text…. Well I sent you like five texts…. Well I never got them so how could I have responded?) and this is where the meat of our story starts.
From this point on, he started texting me every day, he even went as far as to call me (say it isn’t so!) and chat for an hour on the phone about anything and everything. I learned that he had moved out of his family’s house and in with a roommate that had some strange habits along with other things going on in life.
It seemed pretty causal, so I kept myself thinking “Friend Zone,” but then the messages started turning flirty again. They then became littered with questions about previous boyfriends that I had and if they had any weird quirks or habits. This led me to ask the question if he had some weird quirks or habits and I received a “no, not really” response.
Again, going back to my friend for a sanity check, she verified that he was going down a path that was outside of my normal Friend Zone. I didn’t know what to do with this. She gave me some advice, even though I wasn’t sold on the idea. He lacked some qualities that I preferred, such as drive, education, career aspirations, and assertiveness.
But I thought…what else do I have going on? As the texts kept rolling in he offered a piece of information about himself:
He had a Giantess fetish.
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Check back Friday, June 27, to read part 2 of Susie’s life in the “Friend Zone.” If you would like to get in touch directly with Susie you can e-mail her at pumpkinpie8784@gmail.com or find her on Facebook.
The Bitter Lemon 
What is a giantess fetish? I’m intrigued! Write more! And what is Harvest moon? lol