The Annual Northeastern Mid-Market Office Supply Convention was a complete and utter waste of time, Jim decided. Was this really what assistant managers of regional paper companies had to look forward to? Well, he’d always known this wasn’t the right job for him, not long term, and this was just more proof of it. It was like…he was going to say being surrounded by four hundred Michael Scotts, but it was worse. It was like being surrounded by four hundred Dwight K. Schrutes. Michael at least had some originality. Most of these people were just laser-focused on paper. Hell, at least with Dwight he’d know what buttons to press, exactly how far to go before something went wrong. These guys had that little Andy Bernard edge where he didn’t know what would push them over into maniacal retaliation—and he didn’t really want that. So it was a relief to see the actual factual Dwight K. Schrute because here was a man he could safely prank.

Except, of course, he found himself being pranked. Worse than pranked. Because whatever Michael had just said about a date to Pam was clearly not meant for him. It wasn’t a prank. It was just life. Pam being Pam. Which meant Pam dating. Which meant Pam moving on in a way that he had pretended to himself that he had but he clearly had not.

At Michael’s little party he ended up confessing that he’d moved on from Scranton because of her, not Michael, and Michael had started out first by assuring him that “he’d fix it” and then (once he was a little drunker and Michael was a whole lot drunker) regaling him with the story of how Kelly had badgered Pam into this particular date. Given a discount of about 25% for Michael-being-Michael, he started to wonder.

Was Pam really over him (not that she’d ever been under him [that’s what she said])?

Was it fair for him to think this was such an important question, now that he lived in Stamford?

Why hadn’t she contacted him when she told literally everyone else in the office about it? He’d gone back to look at those emails at the end of the day and they’d all disappeared—it must have been time for the auto-delete of old spam, which he’d never regretted before—but the image was still seared onto his memory. Seven or eight emails, all with those big bold Pam-related subject lines, and nothing from her.

Feeling a little tipsier than he had realized he was, he hardened his heart.

So what if Kelly had badgered her into the date? She was still going on dates without him and so what if she had ended things with Roy, it still clearly had nothing to do with him. It was all her and her own needs and he was proud of her (of course) but that didn’t mean he could backslide. He couldn’t afford to think about her in that way. Look how much pain it was causing him just know that she was on a date! A date she didn’t even want to go on! It was time for him to put that all in the past and actually let go. Time to really let himself live in Stamford. Unpack some boxes. Dig out the PS2 and set up some Madden. Maybe some of the Stamford folks played video games. Maybe he could find out who his neighbors were, or what there was to eat in Connecticut besides fast food and frozen dinners. Maybe someday even go on a date.

After all, if Pam could do it, so could he.

And maybe someday he’d get to the point where his reasons didn’t have anything to do with Pam anyway. It wasn’t like Scranton and Stamford interacted that much. Sure, he missed the old place (and not just for Pam-related reasons): the games at the Y (did Stamford have a Y? It must. Maybe they did Saturday pickup games), Mark, pranking Dwight, even talking to Phyllis and Toby and Kevin (about life, Sasha, and fantasy football, respectively). Even Michael, who for all his massive obvious visible-from-space faults was actually a pretty good boss when you let yourself go in for the ride. But he could move on from all that, because Stamford had things too. He just needed to figure out what.

It was time to suck it up and become the Jim Halpert he was always meant to be. Like in Pokemon: Charizard into Charmeleon into Charmander, Jim Halpert (Scranton) into Jim Halpert (Stamford). And then eventually into…what? He’d eventually figure that out. Someday.