[Anonymous]

I’ve worked with this girl for 2 ½ years now and wasn’t initially attracted to her but has since developed a “crush” on her. She sometimes seems to like me and show affection to me and other times I don’t seem to exist at all or she might make an off hand comment that I find disrespectful to me. We have joked around a lot and have a lot of fun together and other times it seems like I don’t exist. Over the past summer she started to come up to me and give me hugs at work and tell me she loves me. Generally coworkers will do this when joking with each other but she seems to do this when we aren’t joking around and she says “I love you” to me out of the blue. This happened with more and more frequency. I know that I’m not her type so I am really confused. I think she is just playing with me but then think she was trying to let me know she was interested in me.

We have only met once outside of work, back in January. She offered, almost insisted on driving me to my radiation treatment when I was first diagnosed with cancer. A 12 hour drive and treatment she took the time out of her day to do this for me even though I told her my brother could probably do it. Other than that, we have not talked on the phone personally (other than the couple of times she called me to see if I was ok when I called off work because of my illness from the radiation). We don’t talk to each other about personal things, like her ex-husband, family, personal interests, hobbies, etc. She doesn’t seem to want to share this info with anyone but will make comments about it.

I sometimes think that she is just being nice to me because of the cancer I have and she is only trying to not feel guilty if I die (a popular coworker died last year from cancer). So I don’t know what’s going on.

Last month I wrote her a letter telling her I liked her because of her strength, overcoming obstacles in her life and preserving through it all but that I am confused by her affection towards me and think that she is playing with me because I know I’m not her type. She responds in an email very angrily saying she wasn’t playing with me. She says that she gives other guys hugs and she was just being friendly, [i]that’s all[/i]. She says my letter proves that men and women can’t work together, it was cowardly of me to write a letter and she doesn’t want to talk to me ever again. She was very insulted by my letter, which wasn’t the intent. I wrote back telling her it wasn’t meant to insult her but tell her how I felt about her and why I liked her and apologized for offending her.

A few days later she sends an email saying that ignoring each other at work isn’t working out and we can go back to “pre-letter”. We are gradually starting to talk to each other again and starting to joke around again like it was before. She hasn’t gave me hugs yet nor has she told me she loves me (and don’t know if she will or not) but now she is making comments that I have a beautiful smile. So what gives? Is she crossing the boundaries of “friendly” coworkers or does she feel more towards me than what she is telling me?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

You’re confused because you don’t understand [b]your[/b] role as the man in this dynamic. She’s flirted with you. If you like her, then ask her out on a date. That way you’ll know if she’s interested in you as a boyfriend or not, and very quickly, your confusion will be eliminated.

Letter writing the way you did it is so high school. In fact, you even used the word “crush” when describing your feelings about her, which is a very high school emotion. Well, you’re not in high school! 🙂 Man up, and invite her to dinner — outside of work.

She’s going to get frustrated with your lack of action (if she hasn’t already) and move on — and the letters you wrote her didn’t work, so quit it. Go up to her, face to face, and invite her to have dinner with you this coming weekend.

Let me know how it goes!

[Member]

Posts