Falling for a co-worker, with a twist.

[rupert]

I am going to start with my giving a little bit of backstory. I am currently 22, and I have been working for the same company for about two years now, it is a computer centric company, so as you can imagine, the work environment mostly consists of males between 20-35. We are also an international company, so all business is conducted in English despite that not being the official language in my country.

A couple months after I started out there, a rather cute girl from a different country started as an intern in my department, I immediately did feel that she was rather cute, but I did not pursue the matter since I found out that she had a local boyfriend whom she had been seeing for a couple months. As a side note, she is about three years my senior. We did not interact all that much, but when we did, it was strictly professional.

Fast forward about a year and a half, that would be about six months ago or so. At that time, she started contacting me a bit more at work than before, as we only really interacted when it was strictly needed before, but she would ask me questions or ask me about my opinion about various different projects she was working on. This was probably mainly due to her having mostly focused on a different area of work at first, but she was starting to branch out into the same kind of work I do, so naturally I was a bit more experienced in that area so it made sense for her to ask me for some advice. I of course helped her out a bit, and I started asking her for some tips in dealing with areas which she was more proficient in, as I figured that it wouldn't hurt to broaden my knowledge a bit too. It would always be her who initiated these conversations though, at that time, I had pretty much gotten over the little "thing" I had for her, so I really did regard our conversations as simply work related, so I guess it wasn't all that strange that she always initiated the conversations (both in real life and over computer messaging) since I was not actively working in the areas she was teaching me about, but she needed to branch out into what I was teaching her.

We slowly did get a bit acquainted with each other, and we would start chatting about things that were not really work related, we talked about some common interests we had, just general chit-chat to pass the time, nothing more than that. You could say that we were simply becoming rather good workplace friends.

Fast forward again, this time about two months ago. We had this little corporate event where we interact with our clients, the event lasted a few days, and I only attended two of them. The event was not strictly for business, so there was alcohol served on the premises, however, I did not drink any since I was driving at the time.

She asked if I could pick her up to go there, since she knew I would be driving, and since it was on the way for me, I picked her up and due to this, we ended up spending pretty much the whole day together. She had some drinks, but I would not say that she had become drunk, only a bit tipsy, I did not have any drinks myself on that day, but we still had a lot of fun together, surprisingly much considering that this was after all a work related event. We were getting along very well, and I would say that there was some flirting, as an example, she said right out what I should do to impress her in a joking manner. All in all, we had a lot of fun and I could feel already after that one day that I was starting to have feelings for her, even though only 24 hours before it wouldn't have occurred to me at all.

On the second day I attended however, she brought her boyfriend which I had all but forgotten about, I did not hang around with them all that much since I had business to attend to, but I did talk to the guy and he seemed like a pretty nice fellow. She also brought a female friend of hers, and she did exclaim to this friend that she would really like to do some night shifts with me since it would be fun. (At the time, I had been doing them for a couple months, we have staff working around the clock as our clientele needs service 24/7, I had sometimes told her about the fun stuff we "the guys" do on night shifts, which is probably why she thought it would be fun). I told her that it would probably be fun to do so sometime, and we should look into doing that sometime later.

Since I met her boyfriend on her day, I of course found out that she was still seeing him and was not actually single, which I had started to suspect after the previous day. I therefore pretty much decided that I would not chase after her at all since she was after all seeing someone.

In the next few days at work, we spoke and decided that we would do some night shifts together in January, so we put in requests for the same days. Fast forward to January.

We did the shifts together and by complete coincidence, it ended up being just me and her in the building for all of the shifts we had picked. We usually have between 2-4 people around during nights, and rarely do we have only two people around for more than one or two days in a row, so this was a pretty big coincidence I guess. Now, as you might imagine, business is a bit slower during nights, and provided there are no emergencies, there is a lot of idle time, so we talked.

We talked a lot during these days, and we got along very well. We ended up finding a lot more about each other and we have a stunning amount of things in common, down to loving the same books, computer games and movies. We therefore had a lot to talk about and it was all in all, a very good time.

At first it seemed to me that I had simply gained a very good friend, but as the days passed, it felt as if we were starting to flirt a little with each other. I do feel that it was mostly her who started initiating these, and I would simply follow suit. As an example, she would make jokes about me not being just looks after all. I took it all as just innocently having a bit of fun, and I still saw us as strictly simply being friends, as she was in a relationship. In fact, I tried my best to remain rather passive to her flirting, and I did not really return her comments such as the aforementioned one since I felt it would be inappropriate for me to do so.

I tried to act rather casual and passive as noted above, for example, we would be talking about our few female co-workers and I would exclaim that I found a certain one attractive or something to that effect, to kind of project the feeling that you know, we were just friends. I kind of tried to treat her as one of the guys, and I openly told her this, that she was one of the "nightshift guys" now. At that point however, she complained that I did not really see her as a woman. I am still not sure whether this was said jokingly or seriously, it is really hard to tell.

The above are just a few example instances of the playful flirting that went on, one more example would be when I would show her something on my computer screen to teach her, and she would lean in far too close to me than she would need to see the information presented on the screen, as she would not do that before when I would be assisting her during the day.

As the days passed, we got increasingly more friendly and I was looking more and more forward to each next shift to meet her. That was around the time when I noticed that I was developing serious feelings towards her. I knew it was wrong since she had a boyfriend, but I still let these feelings develop and I currently hate myself for letting it happen.

I have been attracted to many ladies in the past and gone out with a few, but I can genuinely say that this is the first time in my life when I was more drawn to the girls personality rather than her looks. She is physically attractive, and that is the part of her that I had a little crush on at first before I got to know her, but I feel that our personalities are amazingly compatible with each other. I have never met a member of the opposite sex which shared so many interests with me, and to be frank, all of my previous attractions feel extremely shallow in comparison to what I am feeling now.

She would sometimes talk about her boyfriend a bit when we spoke during those nights, and as far as I can tell, it is going okay between them. Without going into too much detail, I did find out that they do not share all that many interests, but they seem to get along okay from what I heard. He would sometimes call her during the weekends, when he was out partying somewhere, and she would seem slightly annoyed with him, telling him to go home since he had work in the morning and such, but as far as I could tell, their relationship is going okay. She did tell me that they have been going out for long enough now that they hardly ever have sex anymore, but I guess that holds true for many relationships.

Now, I want to reiterate that I feel absolutely horrible about harboring these feelings for her now, even knowing that she has a boyfriend. I do realize that I am in the wrong here, but it is very hard to ignore these feelings when they have gotten to this stage. I have never met anyone before who I felt so "compatible" with, and I can honestly say that I would see a future in our relationship if it were to be, other than in my previous relationships which were pretty much just founded on teenage lust. It feels that we could share a much deeper bond, and it is very hard for me to let go of these feelings right now, even though I realize that I am the "bad guy" here.

It was not my intention at all to fall for her, it just kind of happened. I am not sure if she shares these feelings, or if she simply regards me as a good friend, but we are quite close. We talk on our days off and most of our conversations are not really work related anymore.

[continued, post was too long]

[rupert]

[continued from above]

I have been thinking that perhaps it would simply be best to confront her as an adult and tell her how I feel. If she feels the same way and that we are both genuinely romantically attracted to each other, then we would be able to sort something out. If not, then I hope we could still stay as friends. I would have done this a long time ago if she was not in a relationship, that is really holding me back and my morals are really conflicting here since I know it is wrong to feel like this about her when she has a boyfriend.

I normally have no problems approaching women in this way, but the idea of doing the above scared me as much as the idea of asking a girl out for the first time did, I think it mainly has to do with the fact that it would not be possible to go back if I did that, and perhaps our friendship would be ruined, which I definitely do not want. Not to mention how awkward work would be.

I could also take the "cowards" way out and simply try to bury these feelings within and wait and see how her current relationship turns out. I don't know how viable this will be however, as I see her almost every day, and since I have let my emotions escalate to where they have gone now, I think it will be very painful to suppress these feelings.

Now, I wrote a lot more than I thought I would write, and if anyone made it this far, thanks for listening to my ramblings. It would be appreciated if you could give me your thoughts.

Perhaps I will write some more once I have collected my thoughts a bit more, as the above is mostly just simple snippets of my situation.

[swargolet]

I'm not going to lie I didnt read the whole post, I just skimmed through a lot of it but I think I kinda understand it.

You are in a bad situation as from what you described it doesnt seem like it is just you that are having some of these feelings, but maybe it is. Maybe she is just the flirty/open type. Have you seen her with other close guy friends? How does she act with them? If she isnt as flirty with them then there probably is a good chance that she does see you as a little more than a friend.
I also see why you wouldnt want to pursue it. You dont want to be disrespectful.
About harboring your feelings, I think this all comes down to what you want to do. You have to see the pros and cons of telling her how you feel or not telling her. If you tell her then the best thing that can come out of it is she says she feels the same and you guys should move forward. The worst that could happen is she would say she doesnt feel the same and from that day on everything is awkward or anything in between such as she has small feelings but not enough to pursue it further.

If you dont tell her then you are always left wondering, what if.

I guess you should tell her ONLY if you feel like you 2 could continue being good friends and having your little flirty moments without it affecting either of you. I dont think it is really possible because if you tell her and she doesnt feel the same then she will hold back those flirty moments because she knows you will take them a certain way but everyone is different.

That probably didnt help much but it might get you thinking.

[rupert]

I'm not going to lie I didnt read the whole post, I just skimmed through a lot of it but I think I kinda understand it.

You are in a bad situation as from what you described it doesnt seem like it is just you that are having some of these feelings, but maybe it is. Maybe she is just the flirty/open type. Have you seen her with other close guy friends? How does she act with them? If she isnt as flirty with them then there probably is a good chance that she does see you as a little more than a friend.
I also see why you wouldnt want to pursue it. You dont want to be disrespectful.
About harboring your feelings, I think this all comes down to what you want to do. You have to see the pros and cons of telling her how you feel or not telling her. If you tell her then the best thing that can come out of it is she says she feels the same and you guys should move forward. The worst that could happen is she would say she doesnt feel the same and from that day on everything is awkward or anything in between such as she has small feelings but not enough to pursue it further.

If you dont tell her then you are always left wondering, what if.

I guess you should tell her ONLY if you feel like you 2 could continue being good friends and having your little flirty moments without it affecting either of you. I dont think it is really possible because if you tell her and she doesnt feel the same then she will hold back those flirty moments because she knows you will take them a certain way but everyone is different.

That probably didnt help much but it might get you thinking.

Thanks for the feedback. I feel that the pros outweigh the cons in all respects, except for the fact that she is currently in a relationship. I personally think one of the worst things imaginable is desiring another mans woman and if you told me a few months ago that today I would be in that situation myself, I would laugh!

I think for example, that if she was not in a relationship and she did reject me, it would probably not be hard to still be friends, but I don't think many people would take it well if I actually made a move knowing that she has a boyfriend, it is a pretty low move, and I am really at conflicts with myself for even considering this.

You make a good point, if I don't do anything, I will just be kept wondering about the "what if's" as is the case with all of those high school crushes which were never followed up on.

She has a few male friends within the company, mostly ones from her own country, which I have seen her with, and she seems to be quite friendly with them, but I have not seen her flirt with them. Then again, we have not had any flirty moments in public, it has only happened when it was just the two of us, or while conversing through the internet, so it is hard to tell, she might simply be the open/flirty type as you said. I definitely get the feeling that she is more open than most of her peers, since she has told me quite a bit of personal information that I have never been told by any girls I knew as just friends. That could just be attributed to us being very close friends though!

But yes, I am just ranting again, thank you for the feedback, it is appreciated.

[damn2008]

I had a similar situation as you. My co-worker girl was older than I, but what was different was she was broken up with her b/f and they've had this "on-off" thing going on for over a year. We are good friends, I did indeed ask her out but she gently basically said "no". Her main reason being she is still confused over her ex- and is not in the "mindset" for dating (it was a long relationship and they are still doing whatever they are doing to this day...kind of sad...they both can't move on).

Anyways, I would somewhat stand back as long as she has a boyfriend and things are solid between them. If you consider yourself a "good guy" you don't want to mess that up for her b/c wouldn't you not want the same to happen to you? Of course, you could try drive a wedge but it depends on how evil you are.

I say stand back and look elsewhere, she obviously is involved with someone and girls always engage in playful flirting even though they're involved with someone...because they like the attention. Don't wait for her and if something happens then it happens.

[rupert]

You are right and I have pretty much decided to follow your advice. I respect her and it would be nothing but disrespect towards both her and her boyfriend (who seems like a good fellow) to attempt to butt in on her current relationship. Like you said, I would not want that to happen to myself!

After all, I am fine if she is happy, and if she is not happy in her current relationship, I expect that she would end it since she is a smart girl. I will continue to be friends with her, and perhaps something will happen later, relationships come and go and there is no way to tell what the future will hold.

Thanks for the feedback, it did help while I was thinking the situation over. Sorry to hear about you situation, I can relate with it a lot!

[Lite]

Pretty much all you can do is respect her enough to not approach her while she has a boyfriend. If you feel that makes things difficult for you, then you should probably back out of being her 'Friend'.

Your feelings for her aren't part of a real relationship, they're just feelings of attraction for someone with whom you have a pseudo friendship with. It's a crush. Get over it.