temporarycontrol

If you haven't seen my prior posts that's totally fine! Here's the TLDR on that: Crush on coworker, also flirts with me and tells me she has feelings for me She has a boyfriend She leaves my workplace, comes back a year later, starts messaging me, I find out she still has the same boyfriend So we've started working together and it's been okay. I see her here and there, and we occasionally do some superficial chat in the lunchroom or just in passing. She still sends me texts but they're very short and to the point (hey do you know where I can park? Hey has the meeting been moved to 5:00? stuff like that). We've occasionally grabbed lunch but just talked about sports and whatnot. One day she asks me to get lunch with her and if we can talk. I say "....Okay?" and we meet up around noon while having some coffee and she tells me the following: "Are all men immature? I'm so frustrated! my bf doesn't cook, doesn't clean, has no ambitions to do anything, doesn't even try to find a better job but complains about his current work all the time. I can't even remember the last time we went on a date or had sex. The first six months were great, we would go out all the time and we couldn't even leave the bedroom, and now I feel like that part of my relationship is dead. I'm getting old, and I want kids soon, I only have a few years left to actually have them but I don't want to be a single mom doing everything. I do love him, and he's so good with kids and to his family, but he doesn't even know how to drive a car, but we've been talking about getting engaged and I don't see him fixing any of this" I just kind of sat there in shock and told her I was sorry to hear that and that maybe she needs to go to counselling with her boyfriend. I can see she's visually upset and I just tell her that relationships are hard and no ones perfect. We walk back to work and continue with the rest of our day. I tell my girlfriend all about this and she got upset with me. She tells me that the only reason she's complaining to me is because she's using me as a backup for when she dumps her boyfriend, and that I'm blind for not seeing this (considering our past where we were both attracted to each other), and how she's overlapping me and trying to see if I'll go back to her before she dumps her bf (she knows I have a gf). I tell her I'm sorry and I block her on my phone and tell her I'll no longer grab coffee or even chat with her at work. Am I in the wrong? I do feel bad now but I have been 100% open about all of this to my GF and she always seemed supportive until now. I just wanted to offer some support to someone that knows no one at work and who apparently has a crappy home life. I am in NO WAY trying to get back with this girl and I've even told her how me and my gf "can work out any problem and I'm so lucky I found her". I do feel bad, but I also feel like my gf is just getting jealous for.....no reason? In the end it doesn't matter, as I've blocked her number and I will avoid contact with her now. But truly I feel like my GF is wrong about the situation (her feelings are valid and she's allowed to feel this way, but I just think she may be wrong about the situation).

Thank you all for the feedback. If anyone else has anything to add, please do! I value everyones comments. I kind of expected as much. I never thought she was genuinely interested in talking to me again, but it just hurts to think someone I thought was (at one point) such a great person could be using me and treat me like I'm nothing. Sucks.

I've made previous posts about this before. Here's the long story short of our history. Used to flirt, talk, be into each other. I find out she has a boyfriend, we start to talk less and less, and I eventually just stop talking to her. We used to be old coworkers, not so much anymore. So 1 year went by, and I haven't heard from this girl since. She ended up working for a different organization than I did (same field of work, just a different company). I get a random email from her stating "Hey I know we lost touch, and I feel bad about how things ended. I'll be applying at your company soon, and I hope you don't have any sort of animosity towards me". I didn't really say much other than "no animosity, I hope you're doing well. Good luck applying! Take care". She acts all surprised that I'm surprised I'm still speaking to her and we exchange emails back and forth. She starts texting me (she must still have my number - I did not give her my number again) and we start exchanging texts here and there about...once a week? I try to keep my personal info vague, not tell her a lot about my travels and hobbies and whatnot and try to just stay friendly. She leaves me a voice message telling me "My life's been crazy, it would take forever just to catch up with you. You mention that you went to a few concerts! Are you seeing someone? How exciting! tell me more about her". I ignore that completely and I just tell her yeah the concerts were great and if she wants we can just catch up over brunch one of these days. That was two weeks ago and I haven't heard since. Normally I'd just ignore her and block her number, but two things are stopping me: 1. I still have feelings for her. I shouldn't, but I do. I haven't asked if she's still with her bf and she's made no sort of...hint towards it? Mind you we talk maybe once every two weeks. 2. She could just be trying to catch up and put our past behind us. Yeah we were flirty and talked a LOT over the phone and once I found out she had a boyfriend we both just kind of stopped talking. Maybe she's just trying to be nice since she'll be working at my company (different department - I wouldn't work with her ever) and she doesn't want it to be awkward around me. As of right now we stand at an awkward point. I told her hey we should catch up some time over brunch and we can totally talk about our lives over the past year!....to no response. I did wish her a happy birthday and she did thank me and wished me well. But other than that....radio silence. Should I just leave it? Is she just being nice and trying to catch up? Thanks!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think you’re all pretty much right. I’m upset about the situation as I was over the moon happy she wanted to get together, but she’s….maybe just not for me.

I actually didn’t. My assumption is maybe something is going on and maybe their relationship is either over or a little rocky, but for all I know she just wants to get coffee as friends (which is fine, but not my intention and I’ll be honest about that).

Hey everyone I'll try to keep the situation short, but here's the gist of it: Met someone a few months ago and we really hit it off. I've made previous posts about it and frankly I haven't really talked to her too much. We did have occasional text convos and when I asked her why she seems a little distant (I thought I had upset her with a joke) she suggested she can't talk too much when she's at home as she's certain her BF would break up with her if she was caught talking to other guys. I pretty much told her to take care and that I'll see her around. A few months ago by and we text maybe every.....2-3 weeks, with very casual "hey hope you're doing okay!", and then nothing really after. However, a few weeks ago she sent me a text saying "I hope you're doing well!...", I say "You as well :)", and she says "Wanna coffee soon?". I just said yeah sure and for her to let me know a time that works well for her. She sent a few more texts about how she's doing okay and asking me how my trip went (She said something like "I've secretly been keeping an eye on you!") when I asked her how she knew. I know she is a busy person. She's currently in a transition period at work where she works 8-12 hours a day every other day and I know she's not a super outgoing person. However I haven't heard from her since two weeks ago. I don't know if maybe she changed her mind, if she's just busy, or if she's waiting for me to message her. Any suggestions/input? Thank you so much!

Wow - that would be crazy! I'd have no problem standing up and walking out haha.

Can't imagine she would ask for $. I would immediately shut that down.

Ya I definitely want to stay away from "tell me what to do!". Normally she jokes about being high strung and flakey, but this is the first time she's had a serious chat about wanting to run away and feeling trapped. No interest either way, she's happily married and I'm not interested in anything but friendship with her. We went one one date.....6 years ago? I think we both realized we aren't the right fit for one another haha.

I hope he knows. The last time I saw Matt (her husband) was a couple months ago when we met up at a birthday party. He does know we're meeting up for dinner/drinks (I semi-jokingly asked him for restaurant ideas and in a sense made sure he was okay with us going out), but I don't know how much he knows about her current feelings. Their relationship, at least on the surface, seems good and I can't imagine she's hiding her feelings from him but I'm not 100% certain.

I'm not 100% certain what her internships have been in. Truthfully we never really talk a lot about her schooling other than "hey how's school going? Good? Almost done!". My genuine feeling is that she's mentioned in the past she has "long-term commitment issues" and she see's this as she's trapping herself in one job that she's never wanted to really do and doesn't want to go ahead with it. But that would be.....catastrophic for her and her family. The amount of debt she has is painfully high and she needs to pay it back asap.

Thanks for responding and remembering my last post! I kind of agree with you about a future attorney who can't understand contracts being weird. I initially joked with her about the same thing, but she seemed to get defensive about it so I just left it and said we could take about this later. COMPLETELY different woman haha! No interest at all, this is an old friend from Uni, who is currently very happily married to a mutual friend.

Hello! I hope this is the correct forum to place this question in. Please let me know if I should post this somewhere else! I have a friend who's known to be a bit flakey. She's a truly wonderful person, but she's admitted herself that she has "commitment issues". She's currently in her final year of Law school and has been offered a job with a very good firm in our city. She still needs to finish some of her schooling, but she would start in February of 2023. She told me today she got the offer and I was over the moon happy for her. But then she said something along the lines of: "I feel trapped and defeated, to be honest with you. Signing into a contract, even one that's 18 months gives me really bad anxiety and I don't understand exactly everything the contract entails. I feel like I'm pressured into signing it sooner rather than later too! It's not that I don't want to work for *lawfirm here*, they're great, but I just feel like I'm trapped into something and I actually just want to play music and travel the world!....I want to run away.." We agreed to meet up for drinks tomorrow night to discuss things and just catch up. What can I say to her? Is there anything I can do for her? How can I let her know that I'm here for her and support her regardless of what she decides to do? Thank you for any input!

I agree with you guys. Looking back now, yeah maybe I dodged a bullet. I just haven't had a real relationship in maybe....10+ years and I just craved human connection with someone I thought was incredibly attractive and funny and smart. But the more I think about it now, the more I realize that these are red flags I need to avoid.

Hey everyone So my original post was basically this: Met a girl that's replacing me at work, we were both very flirtatious at work, but outside of work she was very cold and I didn't know how to go from there. So basically here's how things played out - I told her my feelings. I sat down with her, told her I feel very strong feelings for her and that I want to go out for drinks, dinner, or even just a walk. Basically any sort of time outside of work. Her response to me was something along the lines of this: Temporarycontrol...I have a boyfriend. I'm very happy with him, and I love him. But I'm also very attracted to you, and it's not just in your head what happened. We have great chemistry, I was drawn to you the first day I met you, and I love being around you as well. I find myself thinking about you a lot. I'm a little confused about things, but I can't leave my boyfriend. If this was at any other point in time, I'd say lets go for it, but I just can't do anything about this. I didn't push anything further, and said that at this point its probably best if we don't communicate any further as I don't want to be a wedge between her and her boyfriend. We hugged, said our goodbyes. A few days later we sent a few more harmless texts to each other, and she said she misses my friendship, but because she's recently divorced and in a new relationship she doesn't want to mess things up as she's very happy right now and she feels guilty for speaking to me, and I told her I'm happy for her and that if she needs anything to contact me, but we can't be friends. I'm leaving for another company in the same field, but in our line of work I know we'll run into each other maybe every 5-6 months for a few weeks at a time. Back to finding a partner, I guess.