Love and Escape Rooms

I had been in a long-term relationship for around 5 years at this point, as a man with above-average libido and decent-enough sex life, but of course my ape brain could be swayed to crush on someone with a pretty face, or the right angular momentum.

To set the proper stage, I had been assistant managing an escape room in the height of the industry boom, finding myself sucked in by the energy that one finds themselves with when explaining rules of a game with the presentation skills of a circus leader. The faces of the players, from bright-eyed children to bespectacled grandmas, with all the drunken frat boys and bachelorettes in between, would glow in anticipation of entering their room. The surprise reveal of the room that would keep their minds busy for the next sixty minutes always appealed to me, and would rarely feel old-hat.

What would keep this daily exercise exciting for me would be not only enticing these people to succeed in the game, but hopefully letting them see a bit of my character that I don't normally share with people. You know, the fun side. Some of these groups I could convince to be so comfortable in the situation that they would put me in a perfect position to make jokes, uplift the little kid that is never heard, or even stomp on a misogynist's attempt at humor when he implies his girlfriend is too dumb to do this.

And some of the groups would feel so comfortable that they would try to set me up with one of them.

This lovely bunch, a group of three older white women and one exceptionally pretty youthful blonde (the hair color matters for one specific reason, bear with me) were spending their sixty minutes in this escape room as a teambuilding opportunity, as they worked together at a local architecture firm. They laughed at all too many of my jokes and were more cordial than the tipsy-est of bachelorettes. After they escaped, of course with maybe a little too much of my help as their game master, they were thrilled with the idea. This experience was both a boon to self confidence and humbling in a matter of speaking for the older ladies, but they wanted to play another game as soon as possible. We would convince each other during their slow exit that they'd have to come back at a discounted rate. When it came down to it, each woman voted yeah or nay on their comeback tour. Then it was her turn.

The blonde was of course much more than one attribute, as she had a smile and hairstyle strikingly similar to the quintessential goddess of the time, a certain dragon-queen that would eventually take King's Landing. During the game, I had watched her lead this wily pack in most of the right directions, but she kept an unsure demeanor behind the image of what could only be described as someone that could stop traffic just with her presence. Curves in all the right places, red lipstick that would make any person with a sex drive double-take, and the Jessica Rabbit meets Kristen Stewart hair-over-one-eye thing...I was quite literally gobsmacked when she expressed that she'd love to come back and thanked me for giving them a good time. One of the ladies mentioned inviting me for drinks after, and if I didn't have more work to do that night, I think my future might've altered a bit.

Not to say I had a shot, but this story isn't exactly over.

The group would be back. If memory serves, it was maybe a month later. At this time, there were a couple more employees on the roster, and on the gang's arrival, they insisted I do the honors of handling their game. So I did. The in-room hijinks continued and this room was a bit tougher, but they made it out in time and I got to hear a little more about who these women were. A little old-fashioned, but generally kind-hearted and fun-loving as you'd like to see coming from someone that spends their days in a stuffy office building. The blonde though (not looking to stereotype, simply titling for the sake of privacy), was a photographic artist with thoughts hiding away from these women, with a facade thicker than I'd seen from someone so visually impactful (also not trying to stereotype, when someone is stunning, that's simply the easiest way to say it). When I would bring up again that she led the group to success with her cunning, the others would get all gushy and flatly joke that the two of us should spend some more time together. She would crack a smile and glance at me with the cattiest hazel eyes, throwing me back to the look that Laura Dern's Ellie Sattler gave Alan Grant when he realized he was manipulated to sit in the car with Timmy in Jurassic Park.

Now, I'm not that hard of a man to please, but this person was otherworldly to me. Each time she glanced at me or flashed that smile, I would turn a little more to stone. I was dumbstruck. This would happen again on their third appearance at the escape room. And then, months down the line, they'd show up one final time.

During the intervening expanse, I had friended her on Facebook (she wasn't very active there, but again, she was a photographer) and would find myself thinking about the idea of this woman, what she was like outside of this group, what persuaded her into the visual art she made (as I myself was a student of film and camerawork), what colored the lens of her world with joy, and would I be able to? Did she prefer to cuddle up and watch a movie, or would she prefer to go hiking? Would she require all my attention, or would she be exceedingly independent? Would she let me in, or should I stay back?

The thoughts were fleeting, but recurring, if that makes sense, as a crush might be for the person you met in summer camp.

So this final game, during the exit process (their first non-escape, even), I made it clear that I had really enjoyed the time they spent with me, however short, and *ahem* expensive. We exchanged pleasantries, I received a business card with a phone number on it, the blonde and I hugged. I etched her embrace into my mind and hoped I'd one day get to repeat it.

Years down the road, and we interact as much as anybody does really, via random Instagram likes...and I see the changes she's had as a person, noting almost no physical difference, save for perhaps more of a penchant to dress like a millennial artist, then I note that this person has found their partner, is loving life, is sharing positive messages and generally being inspiring to others. And I find myself wrestling with the what-ifs. Coming clean with my own self-doubt, but also assuring that this person was never a goal to accomplish or a trophy to be won, but for me, a flower in the middle of a prairie that had started to bloom, and I was but a raindrop that fell just outside her grasp. But hopefully, I had left a bit of moisture for her roots.