In love but he's with someone

[Love2009]

I’m gay and have fallen in love with a male colleague who joined our team in August last year and it’s driving me mad. He’s living with his boyfriend who is neurotic and emotional but they are together.

 

I liked him from the first time I met him. A few months ago he started flirting quite heavily with me and running his boyfriend down to me. This has calmed down in the past few weeks but I’ve noticed he has started leaning his top half very close towards me while we’re both seated or I’m standing up by him sitting down.

 

When he leaves me to go somewhere with his boyfriend he never really looks at me or says goodbye properly – if I try to say goodbye he speeds off which breaks my heart. He was talking to me normally for a short time just before he left the last time looking into my eyes and smiling then marches off saying he was going now.

 

Part of me wishes I wasn’t so into him, I love him more than I’ve loved anyone before in my life. It’s brought me a lot of happiness but I want him to be with me and am thinking about him every moment of my waking day which is affecting my work too.

 

I've tried forgetting about him and getting on with my work but it just isn't possible.

[Love2009]

Please help, this is driving me mad. If it was something happening in my social life I would try and ignore him but he's in my workplace and it hurts so much.

[o_hopeless_o]

this probably really sucks to be going through this and having such strong feelings for someone. this sorta happened to me once and the other guy was so fixated on another girl who wasnt so great to him but all in all he wanted her and not me. i had to accept and keep reminding myself that and let him be. he would heavily flirt with me too but i think it was an ego boost for him but at the same time he cared for me too. for now i think you will have to let this guy be no matter what your feelings are, cause we cant force people to be with us or convince them with how much we love them. hope that made sense, hah.

 

things will be okay, you deserve someone who will give you their full attention. plus if i had gotten with the guy i really had strong feelings for i would have felt a bit bad for ruining his relationship with the other person, because who knows what they are thinking and feeling when they see them with another person, especially one who they had been flirting with when they were together. now he is with a new girl and we are still great friends. just sharing my experience. hope all goes well for you and keep your head up.

[psychoanalytical]

If I'm not mistaken, I should think how you would approach this situation would depend on where you stand morally.

 

It would appear to me that if the object of your desire is with someone, then I would question, "If I had a partner would I want someone to go after him/her?" I would suggest putting yourself in his/her shoes. If it's ok with you then go for it. Additionally, I should also think that there would be other realistic repercussions for your actions, for example, the consequence of your persuit would likely involve tension and stress for the person, and whether it would last between you two in the long term.

 

As for how to deal with falling for someone at work, I suspect if it was me i would try to distance myself for a while, to clear my head a little. Conceptually, I should think that one school of thought in psychological theory behind romantic love, is the Freudian sublimation of desires for intimacy. This would require economic stability and time for leisure to florish. In other words, you've got too much time on your hands. Keep yourself busy with some other exciting project for a while.

 

As Andreas Capellanus wrote in The Art of Courtly Love, What is love? She suggested that Love is suffering. The ruminations of someone involving fear of rejection, fear of non-reciprical desires. In the third chapter she argued to seriously think about whether to fall in love or not, as in the wrong situations love as an uncontrolled emotion can be as fundamentally detrimental as the uncontrolled emotions of anger.