Marian is sitting down in the cafeteria at Blahco. She normally doesn't eat in the cafeteria because she works with engineers. Conversations between engineers always get a little weird. Marian likes to talk about new developing technology and hacks to make your home life better, but not every day. She can do it in small doses. On top of that, every engineer is sure that their way is the right way to do everything. Then they debate with each other over the best practices. Normally when she does eat in the cafeteria she sits with Kris and the two of them talk about different things. But the biggest problem about eating at work around your coworkers is that sometimes they try to talk about work while you are on break. Which goes against everything Marian believes in.

Marian has her phone out today so people won't approach her and ask her about work. It's working nicely and she is halfway done with her lunch break when Robin approaches her. She looks up at him. They usually stay away during lunch because they spend all day in the office together. She wasn't sure why he was approaching her today. "Can I join you for lunch today?"

Marian moves over and makes space at her table for Robin to join her. She puts her phone down too and responds, "Sure,  sit." The two sit awkwardly with each other for a few minutes. Marian isn't sure if Robin plans to explain why he is here next to her. She begins to stretch her arms while waiting on Robin. Next, she starts picking up her phone to go back to watching the video she had started when Robin interrupts her, "Do you have any idea when you are going to be done running that simulation?" 

Marian immediately puts her hand up in a stop sign. Robin stops. "Let me revise my invitation to join me for lunch. You can only do that if you promise to NOT talk about work. I am not getting paid right now so I am not doing anything for free." Robin looks embarrassed and slips down a little in his seat. "I am fine with that. I won't say anything." Marian looks at Robin with annoyance. "You don't have to be silent, I am just off the clock. Talk about something better." 

Robin doesn't know how to talk about anything but work. So he continues to eat his food in silence. SLLLURP! He is taking a big swig of his drink and Marian is watching him. She starts getting her stuff ready to throw away when she stops herself and remembers they do have something they could talk about. She looks excitedly over at Robin and Robin catches her grinning at him. The straw slips out of his mouth.

Marian does a little wiggle as she starts speaking. "I just remembered you owe me a story about your first relationship. This would be the perfect time." Marian settles in for a good story when Robin exhales in frustration. "That is not something I feel comfortable talking about at work. Just like you don't like talking about work on your break, I don't like talking about personal stuff at work."

Marian sits back defeated. Of course, he would say that. He comes off as such a robot sometimes. Does he not realize how sad his life sounds? Nothing will change for him until he realizes it's normal to talk about personal things at work. Getting to know someone is beneficial to making a better workplace. Human connection is important in building good teamwork. Marian decides that she could show him how to do it without going too crazy. Marian looks at Robin and starts to make eye contact and smiles, "I have a deal for you. How about one story for one? I will tell you about my first boyfriend and you can then tell me about yours."

Robin sits back and crosses his arms. He doesn't want to tell Marian anything about his ex, his last job, or his old life. He plans to run down the clock on his break by letting Marian talk the whole time. So he is going to agree to this, without actually agreeing to it. Robin smirks at Marian, "We'll see. It depends on how good your story is."

Flashback: I met Isa through a friend. He was someone who when I first met him, I wasn't sure how he felt about me. He was the type to keep his feelings to himself. I had recently graduated high school and was going to community college. I wanted to try dating someone. I hadn't done it in high school because I had been so worried about my grades all the time.

 He was interested in things I had never done before so it all felt new and exiting. One night when we watched a movie together, he put his arm around me and asked if her could kiss me. Twenty minutes later it still hadn't happened. I couldn't figure out what was going through his mind. But I did know that I wanted to kiss him so I figured I should just try it and see what happens. So I grabbed him and leaned in and kissed him.  Later, he told me that was the moment he fell for me. He loved being with someone who just decided something and went and did it.

But we had blinders on. We were very different. Something that everyone around us kept telling us. My family tried to be supportive, but it just seemed like everything they did made things worse. And his friends always treated me like I was just some extra baggage.  Eventually, after lots of fighting, breaking up, getting back together, and starting the cycle again, I gave him up completely. His life was different enough that I honestly never saw him again after we broke up. We lasted a little over a year.

Robin looks at Marian with a shocked expression and asks, "Wait, you were the one to put the moves on your first boyfriend?" He looks at Marian with a newfound respect. Marian explains to him, "He was taking too long. I would rather try and get turned down than lose out on a chance at love." Robin keeps smiling, "You are so aggressive in relationships." Marian wants to defend this accusation. The word aggressive makes her cringe. It makes it seem like she pushed herself on Isa, which is not what happened. "I would argue I am more of a risk taker in relationships. It's not like I have a plan to go after someone and won't stop until I get them. I just seize the moments that I am in and try to get the best out of them."

Robin looks at Marian with a bit of awe. She is such an anomaly to all the other coworkers they have. He looks at her with wonder and honestly asks, "How can an engineer be so outgoing? Aren't we all supposed to be shy and nerdy? We are supposed to be introverts." Marian puts her hands on her hips, she is about to defy stereotypes with this one. "I swear that my approach to dating is that of an engineer. I see dating as an experiment. I want to find the path to the most efficient relationship. With maximum happiness. I test out different hypotheses about who will best fit that with each new person I date. You don't learn anything if you never experiment." 

During her speech about dating as an experiment, Marian got very excited. She started to sit on the edge of her seat and reached across the table to pat Robin on the arm as she spoke. Robin takes what she says and deeply ponders it. He is truly seeing the world from a different perspective. "I never thought of it that way, but I guess you make a little sense. Theo said you guys were like an instant connection. Is he one of your experiments?"

Marian smiles at this. Robin just asked a question about her current dating life. This was something he had never done before. "Robin, I am not giving you anything else until you tell me about YOUR ex." Robin looks slightly upset again. Coming back to his ex brought him back to reality. "Fine," says Robin, "I can tell you that my ex and I were together for a long time."

Marian, "Why did the two of you break up?" Robin looks down trying to avoid questions like this one. "Statistically your first relationship is bound to fail." Marian's eyes narrow around Robin. He is trying to get out of this topic. Marian decides to change subjects to something that might be easier for Robin to talk about. "Yes, that's true. Do you still think about your ex?" Robin looks non-committal and says, "Who doesn't?" 

Marian stops asking Robin questions. He keeps trying to change the topic. So Marian does her best to just talk about stalking your exes. Marian, "I think about my exes sometimes too. Most of the time when I am happy and sober, I don't think about them, because usually I'm happy I moved on. But there are bad days or drunk nights when I go and stalk my exes on social media. Because I want to know what they are up to and if they are doing better than me." 

Robin looks surprised at this. "You really care that much about your exes? It's a good thing I don't have any social media accounts or I might get tempted to look up my ex." Marian starts laughing, "that's right, I tried to find you instajam and couldn't. Then I tried finding you anywhere and it was like you are a ghost!" Robin smiles at this, "if you had told me you were looking I would have saved you the time." Marian cuts in all dramatically, "you never tell people you are trying to look them up online."

Just as the two are starting to get at a comfortable place in the conversation, an alarm goes off on Robin's phone. He looks at Marian and says, "Time's up. My break is over. I need to go clock back in." And just like that he was off by himself again. Almost like they had never even been talking about first love.