I like Mike. You know, Mike the FBI Guy. He always flirts with me and I always flirt with him.
It's fun, kind of a two-person mutual appreciation society. He's never totally comfortable in the White House; Mike thinks he shouldn't be in the Oval Office, and that other people should be briefing the President.
Part of it's an FBI thing; they don't want to show off. And he's a totally different guy outside the West Wing, all Mr. Macho-Confident FBI Agent. But being here makes him nervous, so we joke and flirt, do a little banter, and it takes the pressure off.
Plus, I get to flirt with a cute, smart guy. And who can argue with that? I like cute, but I really go for smart.
It's not at all like my banter with Josh though.
Yeah, banter with Josh is comfortable, but it's also exciting, a little scary, and sometimes it's not much of a confidence builder. Now and then it gets kind of personal.
Like me telling Josh that he doesn't know how to woo women. How he thinks the way to have a relationship is to randomly tumble into bed with a member of the opposite sex, and then hope they break up with him when he starts to feel like they're getting too close or things are getting too serious.
Or like him telling me that I have terrible taste in men, an overwhelming desire to be coupled, and a small sense of self and self-worth.
See? Sometimes the banter stings a bit. I think it's because there's more at stake. We are close enough so that things can hurt, but we aren't close enough so that those truthful revelations don't bother us.
We've had daily contact for over three years and we know each other's weaknesses, baggage, and hang-ups. We can probably psychoanalyze one another better than your average therapist.
But for as well as I know Josh, there is always part of him that's inaccessible. There are very few people that he is truly open with.
Sam is one, I think. But I know he holds back even from Sam. I probably know him better than Sam, but he'd never admit that, and it probably scares him to even think about it.
There's only one person he won't pull away from: Leo.
Not that Josh doesn't try to hide things from Leo, and not that he doesn't make a show of denial when Leo calls him on things. But I believe that Leo is one of the few people that Josh will be honest with.
When it comes to real emotions, Josh is rarely honest, even with himself - most especially with himself.
I've spent enough time with him to know that Josh has demons to exorcise, and guilt to forgive. To make up for that, he puts on the smart aleck egotistical act. And rarely does he let that façade down.
But there is something special between Josh and Leo. It's more than loyalty; it's more like family. Leo battles his own demons and so he sees all the more clearly that Josh has demons of his own.
Demons from his PTSD; demons from thirty years of guilt about his sister; and demons from his father too. I know he felt terrible about being out campaigning and not spending more time with his father in his final months.
So, because of all that, Josh holds back with people. He won't get close so he won't have to feel the pain of loss again. It keeps him at an arm's length from even his closest friends. And it's what keeps him from being able to be in a real relationship with a woman.
Josh has issues with women and intimacy. Mandy was safe because she was always in charge. Josh didn't have to be open with her; didn't have to tell her how he was feeling. She did that for him.
His other relationships are those random couplings he clumsily stumbles into and out of. When a woman he finds attractive pursues him, he just lets it happen.
I think those encounters rarely have much to do with how he really feels about any one of the particular women. They are more out of basic need.
He never wears his heart on his sleeve. I am not sure he could bear to see what's in his heart, much less have other people see what's in there. Now and then I get a glimpse, but it's rarely because he wanted to show me, and it's never enough.
Josh and I have a complex relationship. It irritates him when I have dates, and I'm pretty sure my seeing Cliff affected him beyond the violation of political loyalties. In turn, I tell him to ask Joey Lucas out; I tell him repeatedly to ask Joey Lucas out. Several times.
There's been all this flirty banter over the past year: flowers, putting me on a stamp, not stopping for red lights, 8th grade textbooks, tough love...
But what does it all mean? Where is it going?
I know I have intense feelings for him. And I think he could have feelings for me too. Maybe it's just something that will be on the back burner until some unknown date in the future.
After we are out of the White House? Maybe.
When I get a higher-level job and am no longer his assistant? Possibly.
When Josh realizes that he can be close to a woman, have a physical relationship with her, and the world won't come crashing down? More likely.
I think that the first time Josh finally lets down his walls and allows himself to really feel, it will be all the more powerful, and he will fall all the harder. He is so passionate and intense about politics; I think that same passion and intensity, when directed towards a relationship, could really be something amazing.
In the meantime, he will bounce from unfulfilling relationship to unfulfilling relationship wondering why he never totally feels safe, why he never quite feels comfortable, why he never exactly feels fulfilled.
And I will wait, and watch, and psychoanalyze - both hoping to be the woman who'll be on the receiving end when the floodgates of passion are unleashed from Joshua Lyman's heart, and scared to death of drowning in that flood.
But the real truth is the idea of _not_ being that woman - and even worse, the thought of someone else getting to be her - fills me with a fear I cannot imagine.
END