How do you know...work crush...

crackers and cheese

Work crushes seem to be a very common thread on here....I have two main problems in relation to this at the moment. ...so looking for two conflicting bits of advice at the moment...
Firstly. ...how do you diffrentiate between someone who is just being friendly in the work environment towards you and someone who may be interested in you....I have been in a new job five months and have developed a massive crush on a Co worker. ...I am getting signs from him that makes me feel it's recepricated ...He goes out of his way to talk to me...smiles a lot at me. .etc. ..There seems to be a very fine line between friendliness and attraction judging by some of these threads and I don't want to get it wrong so any advice would be appreciated
secondly....The reason I am now in a new job is that I got involved with a Co worker in my old job and it ended badly and ended up leaving the job....I am constantly torn between the fact that I got badly burnt before and fighting my attraction for the guy I work with now(who seems to be a genuinely lovely guy) hence the reason I worry I may be misreading the signs. .....what to do?? I would prefer to ignore my feelings but that just makes it harder for me and feel I am also confusing the guy as some days I will be very outgoing and giving him signs that I like him then other days I withdraw into myself

CaraMay

I really think you should ignore it and just get on with your new job. You've just moved job due to a failed romance so the silly thing to do would be to jump into another office romance which could again go wrong. Stick your head down and work and focus on that until you get established there.

stuboy01

My thoughts on this are that you go to work to work, not to pull. If you find it hard to have a working relationship with people without mistaking it for romance you really need to detach yourself from interactions and keep them strictly work related.
But, it all depends on what level of work/life you are at.
If you're young and in a more casual job with other young people, there can be a culture of work/social/romantic interaction; that's grand and can be accepted.
However, if you are in a career job, workplace romantic endeavors are a no-no. People are there to work primarily, in the cases that people do strike up a romance, it tends to be kept low key and if/when it fails, they have to agree to stay professional in the workplace, however hard that can be.
I've seen it in my current workplace where a manager from one department had a relationship with a person from another, while the breakup was difficult for a few months, neither dragged their dirty laundry through the workplace and spoke about it to colleagues. As a result they are both back to a functional working relationship.

I mentored a young employee recently, in her induction I said to her that the workplace is exactly that, and not a social club. That her position was a career position; friendships are fine, but don't sh*t where you work.

My tuppence worth...

crackers and cheese

Yes this is what I think most of the time ...its just hard to ignore and am so annoyed with myself as should know better...I have signed up to a dating website in an effort to distract myself from him and maybe find someone who is not risky.

crackers and cheese

stuboy01 wrote: »

My thoughts on this are that you go to work to work, not to pull. If you find it hard to have a working relationship with people without mistaking it for romance you really need to detach yourself from interactions and keep them strictly work related.
But, it all depends on what level of work/life you are at.
If you're young and in a more casual job with other young people, there can be a culture of work/social/romantic interaction; that's grand and can be accepted.
However, if you are in a career job, workplace romantic endeavors are a no-no. People are there to work primarily, in the cases that people do strike up a romance, it tends to be kept low key and if/when it fails, they have to agree to stay professional in the workplace, however hard that can be.
I've seen it in my current workplace where a manager from one department had a relationship with a person from another, while the breakup was difficult for a few months, neither dragged their dirty laundry through the workplace and spoke about it to colleagues. As a result they are both back to a functional working relationship.

I mentored a young employee recently, in her induction I said to her that the workplace is exactly that, and not a social club. That her position was a career position; friendships are fine, but don't sh*t where you work.

My tuppence worth...

Thanks for your advice. ..its not a casual job it's a career job...I am in my mid twenties
I have the opportunity to meet people outside of work ...its just an unfortunate coincidence that the last two people I have had strong feelings for are Co workers

CaraMay

It's because you see them so much. You've already moved once because you couldn't handle the post break up work relationship so you need to forget about this guy and concentrate on your job. You can't risk the same happening and you needing to move again.

crackers and cheese

CaraMay wrote: »

It's because you see them so much. You've already moved once because you couldn't handle the post break up work relationship so you need to forget about this guy and concentrate on your job. You can't risk the same happening and you needing to move again.

Yes I agree. How do you handle working so closely to someone and switching off the strong feelings you have for them though

CaraMay

By concentrating on your work and remembering that another move won't do your cv any favours. On top of that, you are the new girl and the first impression your colleagues get shouldn't be your ability to flirt with your colleague focus and make a go of this job.

crackers and cheese

Yes I get that it wouldn't make a good impression. ..yes I will have to try distance myself and detach from the feelings as would be awful to go through that again 😯

LegacyUser

Don't do it.
You've been burned once, you should probably learn from that and start looking outside work for somebody new. Especially, as someone said, if it's a career job.
If nothing else, Ireland is a small place and in most areas of work, people know or know of each other. You might find that you get yourself a reputation that you mightn't want.
The world is full of other men

giggle84

Just to go slightly against the grain here..

Last year I went against all my instincts and kissed a colleague. I'd had a bad experience before and swore I'd never ever get involved with a colleague again.

A year later we're still together, still working together and very happy and I'm so glad I took the risk. But I do acknowledge that we're lucky and it could have gone badly and work would have been really awkward! So you have to weigh it up and decide if it's worth the risk.

Take your time, you don't have to decide today, he's not going anywhere!

crackers and cheese

A year later we're still together, still working together and very happy and I'm so glad I took the risk. But I do acknowledge that we're lucky

Good for you for taking the risk and glad it worked out. Am just going to try detach for now and meet a few guys online and see if I can get that spark there for the moment. I know he not going anywhere but you never know when someone might snap him up...sigh...

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

ManOfMystery

I embarked on a workplace romance once. We're married now with a wonderful little boy. However we had both been in the particular workplace for a long time.

But I also understand that not every workplace romance will succeed and caution is needed.

So my advice would be, as you're somewhat new to the job, keep your head down and get on with the work for now. Don't make a conscious effort to flirt or chase something with your colleague. However, if things naturally proceed to a point where he asks you out or you two get closer and discover the feelings are all mutual, maybe you shouldn't be totally closed off and opposed to the idea either - keep an open mind, life's too short.

crackers and cheese

Thanks all for the advice. Others are starting to comment on how we act with each other so I am gonna try pull back for the moment as obviously something in my behaviour must be very noticeable. If he asks me out then fair enough but from my end it's probably best to not pursue

Banjoxed

Two choices, be an obedient drone, or be careful and discreet.