thread of inappropriate professional attachments

this is the thread where you talk about WORK LUST and how inappropriate it is

crushing on a colleague? detail it here!

The two people in the cubicle next to mine have been engaged in a months-long flirt fest that has probably been the most tedious thing about this job. Really really annoying stuff like stealing things from each other's desk and fairly regular "NoIdidn't"/"Yesyoudid"/"NoIdidn't"/"Yesyoudid" exchanges, ENDLESS giggling, etc. I don't know how I've managed to avoided going off about them on the other co-worker thread, to be honest.

Having been in a relationship with someone who worked in the same building as me for a couple of years and it's subsequent demise has pretty much put me off this. You can't control a crush, though.

Hello my name is WCC and I have a hugely inappropriate workplace crush on a colleague, it is true.

(This thread means that I have to become even quicker with alt-tab than I used to be.)

i have an inappropriate professional attachment that's never going to happen and would be the worst idea ever -- so it's kind of driving me nuts and makes me feel like i've lost all control of whatever social graces i may possess normally whenever we cross paths (not that these were abundant to begin with)

abundant referring to social graces, not to crossing paths, which happens all the damn time

I have a work crush but she's in NYC now so we don't get to flirt as much as we used to.

Yes, this is the problem.

I know that it is completely in "never going to happen" territory and completely inappropriate and is clearly the ~worst idea ever~ and yet the very inaccessibility of this person makes me feel 1) all the more attracted and 2) become the stuttering socially incompetent crepey weirdo whenever I interact with them.

And I know it's wrong and yet the wrongness makes it more delicious and it's that compulsive thing where you know you are acting ridiculously even thinking about it, let alone talking about it, and yet that makes it ALL THE MORE IRRESISTIBLE.

It's basically not a crush, it's OCD with a cute haircut.

I had like four work boyfriends at my old job. Now I am surrounded by women I've no interest in crushing on. RIP work crushes.

xp to wcc

yes! and workcrush is a super awkward person in general, and our interactions, such as they are, are so fucking awkward. if i were not attracted to him, i think i could navigate his awkwardness, but now it's just out of control awkwardness. i think he knows i feel super weird around him. but i can't make it stop! the presence of former workcrush mitigated this but he's no longer around so...super focused weirdness on just one person!

Oh god the compounding of the awkwardness sounds awful.

I am at least lucky that this workcrush is Alpha Male-ish (ick! another reason I am so disappointed in myself!) that he at least is not awkward. In fact he is quite smooth and friendly, which makes it worse in a different sort of way, because it is too easy to read too much into that friendliness.

The good thing about these is that they liven up the workday. I find them enjoyable. Alas, no candidates at my current place of employment.

i've never found a workplace crush particularly debilitating. i look forward to interactions w certain people, that's about it. if they want to chat, i chat. otherwise, i make myself scarce to forestall awkwardness.

There was one at my first job where there was most def a charge between us, but I was too young and inexp'd w/ men to do anything about it. (He was a freelancer -- in work, I mean.)

Then we met outside the office about 4 years later and, of course, went at it like dogs.

I've never had one of these though I think I've been the object of a couple judging by the vastly inappropriate comments left by a few people in my goodbye card at my old job.

Oh I did have one once but it was during a summer job in HS not a real adult job.

I have to really work against mine own natural tendencies to catastrophise everything and keep it light, because it does make it fun going to work, and it does get me out of bed in the morning and actually look forward to going into the office which is quite a rare experience for me.

my workplace crush-o-meter is continuously redlined as I work in a department where like 80% of the grad students are beautiful, intelligent, science-and-liberal-causes women who travel all over the world like it was nothing. also, I'm in a position within the department where being nice to me makes their lives a lot easier, so they're always flattering me and buying me drinks and cat postcards. it's rough. pity me.

my office is 97.5% male...

my personal office that I work in by myself isn't even that male.

Mine lives two states away and probably likes basketball and is a bro and for the love of little green apples, works in Finance. FINANCE. What is wrong with me. But he has a shockingly great voice, I would probably do & believe anything that voice told me to. Physically he's kind of Hathaway-esque: not obviously good looking but...arresting. I will never ever ever tell him because letting people know you like them leads to embarrassment. And I couldn't bear for him to know and take pity on me--or avoid me. Either way. Show nothing.

Ha ha, sounds like a terrible life, f.hazel, but I suppose someone has to do it. Bastard. ;-)

I wish I knew how to talk to a crush without turning into a 9 year old. But basically the only way I know how to respond is to pull his pigtails and give him a really hard time, and tell him he's rubbish and he's making my job difficult. And then I worry that it's not fair to give him a hard time, even joking, but I guess he thinks I'm just a ballbuster who gives everyone a hard time. I should probably be less obvious about telling him he's crap at least twice a day.

I will never ever ever tell him because letting people know you like them leads to embarrassment.

^but the one time it hits and its a match and the other person is up for giving you a chance makes all the times you get shot down in flames worth it. at least in my experience, and i have had plenty of "shot down in flames" (rip bon scott) moments.

There's getting shot down in flames, and there's getting shot down in flames by someone who you have to work closely with and interact with every day for the rest of your career at that office.

Plus I am terrified of making someone else uncomfortable, or creating that old ~hostile working environment~ so I think Laurel really has the best idea. Don't make it embarrassing or awkward.

I kind of like it when women flirt by berating me. It feels appropriate.

flirting by giving each other shit is fun

But it can lead to pretty epic getting shot down in flames when it turns out they're just berating you with no ulterior motives.

sincere compliments make for terrible banter!

watching other people flirt by berating one another is so fucking weird

had a drunken argument last week with my secret crush about which of us scored higher on the autism spectrum

sincere compliments make for terrible banter!

It's true, there's really nowhere to go with a compliment.

It's kind of a conversational dead end.

wasn't really berating tho it was more professional discussion

there's a difference?

what level of berating are we talking here? beyond giving someone shit? berating seems kind of harsh

i'm envisioning "god, you really fucked up this report"

Or "when are you going to learn how to do your damn job correctly?"

He wouldn't dare give me shit. I'd bite his head off and he knows it. He cowers and smirks, I have him trained already.

He cowers behind the desk to hide the tenting you are causing with your flirty beratings.

That is extremely unlikely. He is half my age.

I have already said that when training young men to do the checking for me, the first time they make a stupid mistake, I shout at them so ferociously so that they will never do it again.

Basically his job is checking data, and my job is fixing data errors, so I complain that he is rubbish for picking up obscure errors that I will have to chase around and be unable to fix. And then I tell him that I hate him and he's ruining my job and ruining my beautiful database with his over-zealousness. And then his boss laughs at me and tells him that he is good for finding an error so obscure that I can't fix it. They are basically setting up the two new show-off know-it-all smart-asses in the office to catch one another out. Which would be quite funny if he wasn't so fucking attractive.

That kind of tension can give excellent productivity results if handled properly.

"handled"

thread of appropriate sexual innuendo

I am just awful at this kind of thing.

Last week, he kept setting up all these double entendres that I didn't even realise could be construed as such until it was too late to turn them back on him. Like, if I were slightly quicker, would have been an excellent "that's what she said" but I'm just slow and it didn't hit me until 5 minutes too late.

Or maybe I just have my nose put out of joint that he's new and clever and everyone is fawning over him because he can do a fucking pivot table ::rolls eyes:: and I just want to blow raspberries and tell him to come back when he's built a database or 6.

I would actually hate him if he wasn't v v v pretty.

Curse his cheekbones.

We are interviewing for a position within our department and I am being very adult and not just crushing on the cute girl with a degree in textiles and awesome tattoos.

I am not doing that.

Be very, very careful with crushing on people in the interview process. Especially if you have a hand in the selection process.

This is how it started for me.

Got to work one day and this 20 y.o. TY lookalike gets in the lift with me. Gets off at my floor. 30 minutes later, I hear my boss talking to some bloke in the conference room about complexity theory and Chinese linguistics and totally hott maths type stuff to the point where I asked afterwards "who was that?" because I had a ladyboner for his interview technique.

We all get together to discuss who we're going to hire. After making a crack about "hire whichever one is cuter" (I was all "ha ha, kidding, I'd be sacked if I were a man and said that" but boss grinned and said "well, which one would that be, WCC?") I tell them to hire whichever one it was talking about hott lingustics and maths geek stuff because that would make for fun office banter.

3 months later, it's "here's the new boy and we're seating him RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR DESK, WCC and making him work on your stuff" just so I have to stare at him all day.

^^^^^ do not do this. This way madness lies.

Luckily the rest of the staff knows I am generally useless and directed wholly by passions, obsessions, etc. so they will weigh my input accordingly. As a professional however, I must try and remain detached.

Just quoted XKCD at me in the middle of a play-argument.

He's one of you lot, pretending to be a hott boy, just to fuck with my head, right?

Oh. I also discovered on Friday that he is exactly the same age (as in, born the exact day after) the daughter my partner and I gave up for adoption during my gap year. This makes me feel actually physically ill. It's been a long time since I hated myself so much for being attracted to someone. And it's dragged up a lot of complicated memories I've never discussed. I guess it just stopped being fun, and I need to step away.

Why can't anything, in my life, ever just be simple and fun? Even just a crush? This shit sucks.

gap yar

have never had this happen, thankfully.

WCC, don't hate yourself for having feelings you did not choose and cannot control.

You already seem aware of these feelings as somewhat alien and unwanted residents in your brain/body. Just hang onto that perspective as best you can. It won't prevent them, but it will allow you to get angry at them, without being angry with yourself. That anger will neutralize them somewhat. Good luck.

don't do this people

bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad idea

and don't have a work spouse either. equally bad idea.

back in the day when bookstores existed, they were dens of iniquity for their employees. of course we were young then, and could drink significant quantities on consecutive nights.

my current job is very very male and most conversations are undertaken via instant message although we are sitting in cubicles very near one another. there is a cute girl attractive woman in an adjacent room, but she has taken steps to make outlook render her emails in comic sans.

I actually disagree about the whole "cannot control" this thing. Although one cannot control to whom one is attracted, one can certainly control what one does with that attraction. And developing an actual crush, with all the silly behaviour that goes along with it, is certainly a choice. I don't *have* to act like this, I do so because I choose to, because I clearly get some kind of fun or rush out of it. These feelings aren't alien or unwanted, they have been carefully cultivated.

It accidentally dragged up an unpleasant memory I thought I had successfully buried, but no memories are ever buried permanently.

But thanks for the advice anyway. Sometimes it is helpful to have completely off-base advice because it puts things in perspective as to what is really going on.

I actually disagree about the whole "cannot control" this thing.

I think you misunderstood me.

You most certainly can control your actions, regardless of your feelings. However, if the feelings themselves were easily controlled, you would already have banished them from your mind and consequently would not have be having any difficulties over them.

However, if my advice made no sense to you, it is unlikely you can make anything of value out of it, so it's fine with me if you just dismiss it. I still wish you good luck in turning this into a much happier situation.

i have an inappropriate professional attachment that's never going to happen and would be the worst idea ever

I'm not sure I can really talk about it here (paranoia!), but I just need this space to bury my head in my hands and weep salt tears.

also - imploding speech centre.

I am not sure if I am happy or slightly disappointed to report that he has done something utterly tragic to his hair over the weekend, but he instantly went from Bends era TY to Karma Police TY and I think that's done for the crush. My crushes can survive anything but bad hair. Why do attractive men do terrible, disfiguring things to their hair? I will never understand it.

So.

Just when I thought I was safely over this.

Owner of the company (BigBoss) today came over and asked me how I'd feel about taking on {Project X type work} as an additional component of my job. I said yeah, actually that sounds really interesting and fun, and would take some of the pressure off MyImmediateBoss. Great! Fantastic!

BigBoss then tells me that from now on I will be working even more closely with OfficeBoy on Project X. MyImmediateBoss then rings me to tell me that BigBoss has told him that he thinks that OfficeBoy and I should work together more because he thinks we will "really get on well together."

basically: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

How do I nicely say that I don't want to work with someone - not because he's not capable and clever and good with numbers, all of which he is - but because I find it impossible to talk with him without staring like a mooning teenagers at his cheekbones? There's "get on well with" and then there's "have such an inappropriate crush on that working together is almost impossible."

Or do I just shut up and deal and act like an adult and keep it to myself?

If I were a man in this situation I'd punch myself in the face with how gross this is. :-(

They are basically setting up the two new show-off know-it-all smart-asses in the office to catch one another out.

^^^^^I was correct. This is exactly what they are doing.

StupidAnnoyingCoWorker asked him earlier if he liked football. OfficeBoy responded, I shit you not "I absolutely hate football. Watching it is so boring." My ladyboner nearly exploded.

I can't handle this! I have to work with this guy!

Cut the tension by telling cutie that as a smart guy and hater of football, he's gonna make some woman an excellent boyfriend someday.

There is no tension anywhere except in my head.

How do I nicely say that I don't want to work with someone - not because he's not capable and clever and good with numbers, all of which he is - but because I find it impossible to talk with him without staring like a mooning teenagers at his cheekbones? There's "get on well with" and then there's "have such an inappropriate crush on that working together is almost impossible."

Or do I just shut up and deal and act like an adult and keep it to myself?

If I were a man in this situation I'd punch myself in the face with how gross this is. :-(

I have worked in an office for years with a few coworkers whose appealing physical attributes make them very distracting. Sometimes you just have to knuckle down and look them in the eyes instead of their "cheekbones".

His eyes are even prettier. Deep green. So looking in his eyes is even worse. :-/

You mentioned that you didn't like his hair, look at that!

This is a much better plan. Maybe I can convince him to shave his head!

once upon a time there where cute arty fags at my job whom i'd consider propositioning but no longer.

shave his head

His scalp is certain to undulate in irresistably sensuous curves.

working closely with them just means that it almost imperceptibly turns from being a crush into a gigantic trap from which you cannot escape because it is daily renewed, even if you wanted to escape, which you don't, because you're heartsick for them, and even when opportunities to escape do arise (haircuts, the inevitable annoying thing they do or say, moments of sense and clarity) you cannot take advantage of this opportunity (because you cannot just stay away from them, because you are working closely together) you can only raise a brief flailing hand above the waters, before sinking back into the cold ache of the waters' grasp.

maybe. i mean i cd see how it might work like that on occasion. I'm sure you'd be fine, WCC.

Perhaps, you need to turn him from a crush into a colleague or a friend. There's lots of reasons why continuing down this path will be bad news for you. Tell him you used to have a crush on him but now that's he's messed up his hair, it's over. It will make him wary of you crushing on him. It sounds like it fits your usual style of banter. You'll have unburdened yourself of part of your crushitude and moved you away from the crush object area and closer to the professional area. I have lots of inappropriate crushes. I almost always tell them, but calmly and fully cognizent of the fact that it's highly unlikely to be requited and that it would almost scare me out of my crush if it were, and, regardless, I am perfectly capable of keeping my wits enough about me to never ever do anything. Then you can vaguely flirt and be a pal and enjoy your crush instead of kicking yourself in the head over it and they'll know that they have a discreet and civilized admirer.

One of my inappropriate professional attachments bought me a cappuccino yesterday.

are they inappropriately attached to you? mutual inappropriate attachment?

Argh. And yet sigh. And yet swoon. And yet so much ARGH.

I am beginning to suspect that WCC has no intention of listening to any advice in regard to this fine fresh fellow, whether it is good, bad or indifferent, but rather asks ilx only to provide her a dumping ground for her latest gush of feelings. We may observe, or not, as we are moved to.

OK. :-)

Go fuck yourself. Seriously.

OK. :-)

I think at least a couple of times there has been mutual inappropriate attachment (never acted on), but this instance was just shameless flirting and bribery in order to get the rules bent in her favor. I can be swayed with drinks, chocolates, or flirting (pick any two) and everybody knows it.

xpost those of us forever perched on the knife edge of inappropriate professional attachments invite you to take any criticism of our sorrowful state to the thread of inappropriate conversational judgements.

Go fuck yourself. Seriously.

More fun when it's light-heartedly

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! DANGER!

http://www.healingtoday.com/lost_in_bass_files/image058.gif

^^^ actual gif of real-time ilx'ing

inappropriate robotic attachments

If somebody makes a thread to park their day-to-day feelings, the LEAST others should be able to manage is:

-don't come here just to shit on someone who's made the effort to isolate a narrative in a particular place so you're not troubled elsewhere;
-have the self-awareness to understand you'd be really cross if someone disrespected you in this way;
-people feeling conflicted happens in real time, so it's unfair to pretend that's not a thing for more than one person here.

That's all; it's been a stressy day so me/the internet parting company for the night lest I give myself a nervo watching Newsnight a la social media.

everyone otm

Suzy absolutely OTM.

I was always under the impression that this was a thread simply to describe workplaces crushes: do you have one, have you had one, share the awkward/cuteness.

That I have very much enjoyed reading other people's experiences, sharing their feelings and silliness. It makes me feel less of a freak, that I'm not alone, that other people go through this stuff, too, and we all somehow manage to deal and either enjoy/torture ourselves as appropriate. I thought the other day, after Aimless's first post, of stating explicitly "I can't speak for Rayuela or Hazel or Fizzles, but I'm not looking for advice. I'm just looking for other people's funny or awkward or charming stories and a place to share mine." But stupidly I chose to be nice instead of saying what I really thought.

If you are so sure of your infinite wisdom to turn it into a THREAD OF INAPPROPRIATE UNSOLICITED ADVICE anyway, be aware that your observations are worth the paper they are written on. That goes double if you are separated by gender, culture, age, etc. from the people you are so worthily attempting to ~advise~. A bunch of men telling a grown woman how she should experience her own emotions is really NAGL. If someone is repeatedly ignoring the ~helpful advice~ you were not asked for, but you were arrogant enough to presume was wanted anyway, it might *not* be a character flaw in the advisee. Especially if it is very clear that you are not "advising" or ~calling out for inattention~ any of the other people on the thread who are participating in the actual spirit of the thread.

Anyway. I think f.Hazel has entirely the right idea, of using outright bribery and flirtation as a way of diffusing inappropriate professional attachments. I might try this in the future, but this morning, I have rather hilariously (to the rest of the office, at least) managed to zing OfficeBoy into a grovelling mess of contrition due to a banter gone wrong. Twice.

the problem with advice, from my perspective anyway, is that it tends to assume that a person isn't aware of the weaknesses/options out/how other people wd do it. In fact, the people suffering (specifically me here - WCC seems to be having a blast) tend to be more acutely aware of their weaknesses and the potential solutions than the person offering the advice - they've been pored over endlessly, agonisingly. you know the goddam advice you just cant do anything about it. that's why they're weaknesses! it's therefore a question of personality or will, and there, I'm afraid, advice is at best inutile, and usually, being rather the perspective of differing personalities than any special clarity, unwelcome.

there's no hate in the point I give, I just want room to fuck up. yea, even that has its amusing side.

(and MW's advice made me laugh tho (in an amused way - its probably not bad advice as it goes) as it almost exactly describes what I did (right down to the hair). but I ballsed it up innit.

ditto with this being a space to vent my neuroses in an almost certainly futile attempt to expunge them in a space that is not in front of the lustworthy coworker in question, rather than seeking advice on how to ...what...not feel lustful feelings? to control them? to make it happen? (almost never a good idea!)

mw's advice made me laugh because that's something i would never be smooth enough to do, and would almost certainly make everything a gazillion times worse.

elaborating above that i don't think i can control my lustful feelings by sheer force of will but i congratulate and envy those who can

Well, that has backfired badly.

To everyone who said, this wouldn't end well, you were right, this has not ended well.

After being told that we should work together, and me making an effort to try and understand what he was doing and what he needed me to do (he is training to be one of the portfolio analysts, I am a SQL programmer who looks after the data and does data pulls)

I then find out yesterday that he 1) went to my boss and 2) went to my other, junior colleague to ask for SQL training. Essentially so he won't have to work with me. So yeah, he basically went to everyone else in my department - all the men, I notice - and I don't even know if it's just to cut me out of working with him, or if he is actually after *my* job (I wouldn't put it past anyone, I have had to deal with this shit in the past, from hotshot new young men who join, I get told "train them to do your stuff" and then a few months later, they have either cherry-picked all the fun and interesting stuff out of my role, or indeed cherry-picked me out of a job. This is the shit that happens when you work in finance.)

This on top of some stray comments yesterday that made it quite clear that he's one of those men who has quite specific ideas on what constitutes a ~lady~ - and that I don't measure up (quelle surprise.)

This is basically the sort of fucking stupid office politics shit that I LOATHE and would in any situation - the fact that it's him doing it, that basically makes it feel like double the betrayal.

But basically this has in one swoop changed him from "someone I thought I could have a laugh with" to "someone I will never trust, professionally or otherwise." Fuck this shit, seriously.

ah fuck, sorry to hear that WCC.

Well, it just completely justifies and reiterates my policy of never, ever, ever make friendships at work. This is why I have such a low opinion of general humanity - because whenever I let down my guard, or even think "hey, this could actually be OK" someone comes along to shit on me.

well I'm off on holiday now - maybe it's time to take this opportunity to destroy the crushes, feel the strength of independence from emotional attachments, and CRUSH instead our enemies.

just mustn't go anywhere near her eyes when I get back.

Oh! Exciting. Where are you going on holiday?

Perhaps there will be an ~holiday fling~ to take your mind off it?

I don't have much hope of experiencing Viking Lust (or Pictish. I'm not choosey) in the Orkneys but you never know.

(It goes without saying but: Aimless - don't think about offering any advice)

These have not as much to do with the coworker you like, as much as the fact that they're there with you every damn weekday. People are charming, so much so that it can hurt.

WCC that sucks, but maybe he was too proud or something to ask you for training, like he wants to impress you? Or at least be on your level to better 'battle' with? But yeah with the other stuff :/
Sounds like you're a good SQL trainer though, which believe me is not something many people can do well.
I still kind of want to see a picture of this guy...

Hmmm. I didn't think about that explanation. 20-something boys are weird in ways I guess I don't understand. I just really felt like he was going behind my back, I didn't think that he might be intimidated or proud.

The other stuff, like, out of context it might have been funny, but it was just the two things together.

We were kidding around before work - one of the directors is about to go on holiday, and there will be a new woman in the office to cover for him. And I said "I'm really glad that there's going to be another lady in the office." (Because it is really overly blokey at the moment.) At which OfficeBoy turns to me and says "Ooh, you best not let AnalystX hear you saying that" (AnalystX being a young, attractive, very ladylike female colleague, the only other full-time female in the office every day.) At first I said "I said *another* lady, not *A* lady" - then turned him and said "Why? Are you trying to say that *I'm* not ~a lady~?"

At which he turned beet red and started stuttering, then put his head down on the desk and covered it with his arms, going "argh I give up" or something really weird like that, instead of just laughing and saying sorry. And I tried to make a joke out of it but really... that was pretty clear to me. Young, attractive, feminine ColleagueX is ~a lady~ and I'm ... ????? Like, fuck that shit.

In general, I think it would really just be for the best if I didn't work with this lad at all.

On second thought, I probably do just scare the shit out of him. He is a child, basically.

Also, this thread is de-indexed, right? And if not, please can it be? thanks.

Oh hai, I have one of these now.

hey wcc, sorry to hear about that -- perhaps there's a perfectly reasonable explanation?

even if there isn't, you're better off, and at least now you know to be wary of him?

it sounds as if he thought you were counting yourself as a lady but not analystx, hence 'you'd best not let her hear you saying that', presumably because she might be offended, but then you were offended and he felt awkward about offending you and gave up.

Or he was dismayed that you were so ready to assume that he can't hear the difference between "a lady" and "another lady".

I read it the same way as estela.

No, those readings really don't match at all to what he said and how he acted. He really thought I said "a" and did not think through what he implied about me.

But this is not the issue, the issue is him going behind my back to my colleagues and that I am going to have to bite the bullet and talk to him about if I want work not to be unpleasant in a small office.

This should probably no longer be on this thread and now be on the "stupid annoying cow-orkers" thread.

So we went for a walk and ~talked~ about it and the whole thing was basically down to a complete misunderstanding based 90% on our office's terrible lack of communication between the home-workers and the people in the office.

Which is good because it means we're all friends again and the office isn't tense any more.

But it's also bad because for 3 days I thought my crush was over and I was really relieved, and now it's back worse than ever.

And it's so stupid because he is such a little gym-bunny that works out like 5 times a week and I hate that in a man, I normally find it a real turn off. But at the same time, today he was wearing a rather translucent white t-shirt today and he kept stretching and he does this thing where he rolls one shoulder blade and then the other and underneath the shirt he's just so fucking *lithe* and his shoulders go ripple-ripple-ripple and then he starts fondling his neck and I'm just a *mess*. Like, it's clear he doesn't even realise he's doing it, and he certainly doesn't know that it reduces me to jelly and takes away all my ability to work or even think about anything. Why are people even allowed to walk around being that hott? He was telling me about his physics degree at lunch yesterday and he was saying he wanted to get into modelling, and I thought to myself "yes, you're certainly hott enough, but you're a bit short to model?" for about half a minute until I realised duh, he was talking about data modelling, because we were talking about maths. Because he is not just hott but stupidly, annoyingly clever, too.

And I just uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I need this to go away again so I can concentrate on my job. Which has just got about a billion times harder this week because my boss is on holiday and I'm doing his job as well as mine own right now and argh.

Bah, I hate young male gym-bunny coworkers who are goodlooking and get told they're clever. (transference of one hate-crush onto huge swathes of humanity)

If only there were a way to average my hate-crush with your crush-crush and have them cancel each other out.

(Speaking of opposites, apologies if this totally advice-free post was just as annoying as, well, y'know...)

(ha ha where is "thread of inappropriate professional detachments" ha)
(ok, it's the stupid annoying coworkers thread, but I liked the concept)

Ha ha, no, I totally relate to your post.

I should by all means really hate him, he's just really charming in a puppyish kind of way, as well as clever and stupidly good-looking. But this could very easily turn into a hate-crush because there is so much about him that would be irritating as fuck if I didn't like fancy him so much.

He doesn't look like a gym-bunny, he can actually put his arms down. Suspect from what he says that he's one of those super-weedy dudes who goes to the gym in a desperate attempt to bulk up, not realising that there are actually girls who really like super-weedy dudes. Sigh.

In case any super-weedy dudes get here by googling "super-weedy dudes how to bulk up", WCC is correct!

Including results for super-weed dudes how to bulk up
Search only for super-weedy dudes how to bulk up

Oh, there's more that I could say on this subject, but, um, it was stuff he's told me about his life. And this thread is for documenting my super-crepey and inappropriate crush, not for recording the minute details of his life, which would be creepier than I could stomach.

Dear super-weedy dudes of the UK: please don't feel obliged to bulk up. There are lots of ladies who like your body just fine the way it is. I wish I could say this to OfficeBoy but that would kind of give the game away about how attractive I think he is.

Hear hear and also lol @ the modelling mix-up

lol I too read the 'modelling' bit as 'male modelling' and was starting to go into full Michael-Elphick-in-Withnail-"you-want-working-on-boy" mode when I realised 'oh he meant data modelling'.

We work in Finance, we both deal with data analysis, so modelling in that context *always* means data modelling and mathematical projections. There was no reason for me to think "male model" except for the fact that he has the looks of one.

(Well, except for the height. He is actually shorter than me, which I am finding curiously adorable.)

God would this crush just go away already. It is warping my brain.

just to return to something upthread, let's not forget that a lot of people (nobody in particular) actually enjoy talking about how fucked up their lives are, and giving them unsolicited advice on how to fix things kinda fucks up that hobby

That was inflammatory and unnecessary.

Yes, agreed, and also I think it's more likely that some people have accepted their lives and the imperfections inherent in those lives, and the assumptions that random strangers have that 1) they understand those lives and imperfections better than the advisee and 2) have any right to comment on them or attempt to change them, are just really fucking arrogant, and can get tae fuck.

Let's not forget that a lot of people (nobody in particular) actually enjoy pissing on other people's chips, and people telling them "actually, we don't want you pissing on our chips" kinda fucks up that hobby, too.

nah it wasn't my intent to be inflammatory, i just think it's necessary to understanding the dynamic of threads like this

and why i generally stay off them nowadays

You are completely wrong, with regards to other people's motivations, and if you want to totally misunderstand the dynamic of this thread, that's your right. But it doesn't give you any special insight into what is going on here, and you're being a massive tit.

like some people might come on this thread and go "oh hey i should give some helpful advises" without actually realizing that's not the point, took me years to figure that out, incredibly dense as i am

so i thought i'd point it out to the n00bs

well, i am incredibly dense

"Threads like this" = what? Crush threads? Threads I'm posting on? Just fuck off with your condescending chip-pissing attitude. No one wants you here, least of all yourself, clearly.

Douche.

wow that was inflammatory

FUCK, OFF.

misplaced comma!

srsly i'll fuck off now, you're right this is not really my scene but i was just trying to be helpful in addressing your screed of Friday, September 7, 2012 1:29 AM

Thread really needed the DNRIYHM warning ;_;

http://skepchick.org/wp-content/uploads/girl-on-internet.gif

haha

meanwhile, back at the office: crushes worsen, imaginations run away, work does not get done

I just imagine f.Hazel working in an office filled with delightfully attractive young women in scanty outfits all trying to tempt him away from his spreadsheets. "No, you hussies, leave me be! I have Important Business!" he cries, until a hot chocolate appears at his desk. "Oh alright, just the once then..."

i usually go out of my way to be as boring as possible around co-workers in an effort to not develop any kind of relationship other than professional.

that said, the closest thing i have to a workplace crush is a Chinese national about the same age as me who speaks 4 languages and is charmingly awkward and cute and is always wearing something really smart and attractive. despite never really having "a thing" for Asian women, her accent kind of makes me melt.

she's married and is also a new mom so is obviously way off-limits but we have a kind of casual & sheepish mutual flirtation that is kept in check.

she's very good at her job-- which is a stressful one-- something i also find attractive. but at various points she's kind of let on that her current situation is the result of kind of getting cornered in to an unwanted marriage after finding out she was unexpectedly pregnant about this time last year, and that she might be content but probably isn't happy or fulfilled. this makes me a little sad when i think about it and causes me to daydream a little longer than i should some days.

2 anecdotes, regardless:

• a few weeks ago i changed into casual clothes in my office before grabbing my weekender bag and catching a ride to the airport. on my way out she stopped me in the hallway,grabbed my arm, and looked me up and down for a second or two before going "you look like.... Brad Pitt....or a movie star..." i said "thanks, i think" then we both had an awkward laugh and i left

• (tmi content) last week i heard her from around the corner exclaim "SHIT! I forgot to pump!!!" then run in to her office and slam the door. this caused a strange potpourri of reactions w/ me

anyway, thankfully i have IRL girl probs that keep this one nicely compartmentalized right where it belongs :)

that is an a++ workplace crush

literally right after posting that, another co-worker (who just found out his 2nd baby will be a boy) came by. the two of them got in to a discussion right outside my door about breastfeeding, conception, and the Chinese zodiac. at one point it turned to how old each of us were and she told me i look young "for a haole". *^_^*

new job finds me surrounded by bewildering arrays of beautiful bright young things temping, but it won't get even to crushing stage as we're all just hyperaware that permanent staff are so far above them that it could never be.

that just makes it sexier

oh man. i keep having embarrassing flashbacks to my last inappropriate workplace attachment.

and my new one looks v good today

he appears perfectly capable of having normal conversations/interactions with other people despite the fact that *our* encounters are always weird and awkward. ugh.

Maybe that means he ~likes~ you if he bumbles when he speaks to you.

otm

no, it's not that. i'm not the only one who's recognized that he is kind of weird, but no one else is inappropriately attracted to him, so they are capable of acting normally around him, which i think eases him into acting normally. I, however, seem to be incapable of smooth behavior when lust clouds my brain, so we just make each other act weirder by our own weirdness.

also he is married w/children, so even if it were mutual (which there is no way to know since we never actually talk), it's gotta stay an admiration thing

Ah, I see. Even more super highly inappropriate that way. (And probably more deliciously fun.)

ps am making a sign to post on my office door with this:

"No, you hussies, leave me be! I have Important Business!"

just need to find the right cat picture to use.

Whenever I try to be funny, it just comes out like I'm being rude.

Whenever I try to be friendly, it comes out accusatory in some way.

I basically fail at life. Woe.

(I am not actually sad before anyone jumps on me and tells me I shouldn't be posting things like this. Just full of PMT and self pity. And feeling sorry for myself because as I was leaving for lunch, OfficeBoy was reading XKCD and I went over and said "haha, you're not working, you're reading XKCD!" expecting him to go haha and tell me a funny physics joke. But instead he got slightly defensive and then OfficeGossip butted in on our conversation and started trying to talk to him about the work he was doing, even though we were both on our lunch, and now I feel miffed, and also, no physics joke. And I really want a funny physics joke because am feeling rub with PMT.)

BLAH.

And OfficeGossip keeps trying to drag him into conversations now, and it's just like... FFS. I am experiencing actual jealousy and annoyance and this is stupid.

Just going to put my headphones on and avoid fucking office chatter for the rest of time. I can't play these games, I hate them, and resent the fact that I've become even vaguely involved in them because of this inability to not pay attention to this idiot boy. :-(

new job finds me surrounded by bewildering arrays of beautiful bright young things temping, but it won't get even to crushing stage as we're all just hyperaware that permanent staff are so far above them that it could never be

But temp staff are like the work crushes it's socially acceptable to have.

seriously? ALL THESE MONTHS I'VE WASTED ;_;

Glasses. He is wearing glasses today. Ladyboner overdrive.

(Also, I gave him coded proof that he was right and OfficeGossip was wrong, in his argument with her, so we are friends again. I think.)

((God I am so fucking pathetic. But mostly bored.))

Physics makes us all its bitches.

i just read the "will be nice to have another lady around" (paraphrasing) incident - i read it like he thought you were saying you were only one around and when he said "dont let x hear you say that" he was implying that you didnt think SHE was a lady - i might be crazy tho

crush came in my office yesterday to talk about a client and i innocently and casually pointed out that she had some food crumbs on her lapel. i know that's negging 101 but i swear it wasn't my intent but holy shit that made her blush and get all self-conscious and act funny and i kind of had fun with it after that, telling her "don't come back in my office with food all over you ever again" as she was leaving.

:-]

haha oh grady bless your heart

have you considered 200 level negging, it sounds like you have what it takes

i was asking her about a meeting i wasn't in attendance at but my boss was. she kept saying that my boss had another colleague with him but she forgot the guy's name. i tried describing what my regional manager looks like, thinking it might have been him, but she said "i don't remember what he looked like... all i remember is he was not handsome."

:-]

I am trying to work out who it is in Gr8080's office that actually has the crush? It could be either of them.

I think I have figured out what he meant in the "lady incident" because he made another, similar joke yesterday, which was clearer. It relied on a difference in category-level, rather than gender this time. That all the big, client-facing bosses were out yesterday, and for an hour, it was just the 3 of us in the office (me, OfficeBoy, OfficeCreep) and I made a joke saying "Me and a gang of 20 year old boys alone in the office, ugh, this is someone's wet dream, but not mine" and he laughed and said "but what about Lady3?" (this is confusing because she has the same name as him) and the joke is from group dynamics, because clearly he thinks of her as part of their social cohort, while I think of her as being part of the "group of big bosses that goes out on the client facing calls" because she has been there a lot longer and she is about 100x more mature than them, even though she is a similar age. And I think the Lady Incident was along the same lines.

I hate this situation and I love it.

Because when he is nice to me, it is the best thing in the world, and makes me feel so good. (He saw me on the street in Croydon during lunch hours and came running up to me with a big grin, waving a Sainsbury's bag saying "Look, I'm eating lunch!" in reference to a conversation that I had forgotten we had even had - he remembers bits of old conversations and jokes which is flattering and attentive, because he has good social skills or something.)

But when he is horrible to me, or worse still, ignores me, it just makes work awful and horrible and tense and I don't like having that atmosphere somewhere I'm supposed to be able to feel safe and competent. I flip back and forth between thinking "oh god he must ~know~ that I have such a ladyboner for him" and therefore he is avoiding me because I am so gross. And then thinking "oh god he is oblivious" and therefore thinks that I am sometimes joke-horrible or teasing/negging towards him because I hate his guts, or am just a negative, bitter person (though this is actually true) when I'm actually trying in my weird way to be nice to him, but I have such a massive warping crush on him that pigtail-pulling comes out all wrong because of fear.

Torture. And yet.

I am trying to work out who it is in Gr8080's office that actually has the crush? It could be either of them.

i used the phrase "mutual flirtation" in my first post!

Sorry didn't catch that. I have almost no experience of crushes that are not totally one-sided.

WCC, it's really cool to read someone going through something fraught and electric in such a thoughtful way, thanks.

I can't remember if the "Croydon is on the Hellmouth" discussion happened on this thread or the OKC thread, but in more exciting Croydon-related news, this morning we discovered that the telephone exchange for our office (which means probably this entire end of Croydon) is 666-. So this is very definitely on a Hellgate.

My inappropriate attachment at my first work experience job in 1995 lived in Tetbury, which shared Malmesbury's phone code of 0666 (now 01666).

Yes I looked up his emergency contact number from the list on the wall and remembered the area code (which I have never once had to ring) for 17.5 years, what of it? I don't think I memorised the rest of the number though, in case anyone is scoring my creepiness out of 10. The phone number was probably 10 digits so I guess four digits = 4/10.

See, creepiness used to be such hard work, actually memorising phone numbers and all that. Now it's just entirely too easy to crepe on Facebook or whatever.

(Not that I have a Facebook to crepe with.)

What I do not understand is: why is it, no matter what time I get to work, does he always appear to catch the lift with me?

she just came in my office and asked if she could ask me "an English question."

"i dont know, can you?"

Yesterday was full of all ARGH ooh ARGH moments.

Each day at work has become both delicious and fraught and beautiful and funny and painful and horrifying. And I find myself actually wanting to go to work in the morning, not to do my job, but to wait for those moments of delicious interaction. And this is STUPID, jobs are annoying places where you hate your life and waste your time trying to ignore it all, not where you spend your time flirting over standard deviations and helvetica neue. I keep waiting for the crash, and every crash is horrible, but every high is even nicer. And I can kid myself that he knows and goes along with it, when in truth he's probably ~oblivious~ and would be horrified at the time I spend fantasising that he could be the Harold to my Maude.

I know I am playing with fire, even my *Mum* has noticed that something is up with me ("you spent last weekend cursing his name and saying he was the worst thing to ever happen to your job, this week he's amazing, do you *have* to live your life as a character from Pride and Prejudice?") and tells me how dangerous this is, that I could lose a job I actually quite like over this. But what about the idea that his presence makes the job more enjoyable? Do these things always have to turn out badly? ("he is 24, yes, this will turn out badly, all men are bastards and they are even worse at that age" says my Mum, the cynic, to me.) No, they turn out badly because I'm me, and I overthink things instead of just enjoying them.

I think it will be good for me to get away from the office for a week next week, but the problem is now, I'm looking forward to getting away less than I was. This is absurd.

I will shut up now and go away.

No, today is just one of those days when I feel like a fool. An old fool.

I call those weekdays.

right. i have this problem, she's a recovering mormon, gayy, politically leftwing ferocious, a blood indian from south of lethbridge along the belly river. i like her and she'd say things about how no white dudes ever liked her before, and finally it's a weirdo like me. and it all started when i began flirting with her guiltfree because she had a girlfriend and dug it and it became like a sandbox for flirting gambits for me. then she told me about cheating on her girlfriend and there was a queer crackle in our fakeflirts and one night, we both worked late on canada day and she went to the roof of the building to watch the fireworks and i snuck up to and watched her watching them and when she came back down, i said to her, i knew that was my moment, i should have come over and put my arm around you and MADE MY MOVE, and she said, why didn't you, you pussy? i drove her home that night, and i drove her home the next night and i was going to vancouver for a week and she leaned across to hug me and then i ended up kissing her for a while and it was awesome. but i came back and she'd been transferred to another office and i responded to the situation by cutting off all contact with her.

he is 24, yes, this will turn out badly, all men are bastards and they are even worse at that age

as a 24-year-old I gotta say this is OTM. we leave trails of tears and ruined lives.

I knew better than to date 24 y.o. boys even when I was 24.

Just before leaving time today big boss owner called a special meeting with EVERYONE IN THE OFFICE EXCEPT ME and so now I am feeling really paranoid and butthurt.

I had a bit of a "wah no one appreciates me" earlier today and OfficeBoy did email me saying I was great but I think he was only buttering me up to get his hands on my data. Boo hoo.

dylannn u making me tear up

Oh god I touched him today. I forgot about that. Only his shoulder, nothing ~inappropriate~ but still it makes me feel dirty thinking about it.

to get his hands on my data

amirite?

dylannn bringing the raymond carver vibes.

our office is really close to the front desk office so we pass by them all the time and know some of the managers there. just now one of them handed me a cup of frozen yogurt topped with cherry slush (i think it came from an employee appreciation day thing they're having today).

i don't eat dairy but i took it anyway and seconds later was in crush's office dropping it on her desk and saying "i brought a present for you." and omg the look on her face its like i told her i was giving her a million dollars

but then it turned in to a conversation about how i don't eat dairy, general eating habits/diet, and Chinese cuisine, culminating in her enthusiastically stating her love of eating dog meat :-(

did you then tell her you knew that was your chance to MAKE YOUR MOVE?

Never try to talk about food with your crushee. Mine declares his love of protein shakes and bacon sarnies (despite the fact I've repeatedly told him I'm vegetarian.) I did ask him if he'd eaten anything odd like dog, as he recently lived in China, but he said he didn't ask what he was eating most of the time.

opposite problem: you and your crush love all the same foods but she is spoken for, yet insists on buying you said foods which you eat crying at your desk from loneliness*

*slight exaggeration

, culminating in her enthusiastically stating her love of eating dog meat :-(

God, how horrible.

"blood indian"?

crip indian

no joke iirc there were two big gangs in east berkeley, PANJABI BOYZ and the ALL INDIAN MOB

but they were sikhs

and neither crip nor blood

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=449

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kainai_Nation

they have the best trad indian names, ex. Kaistosinikyi Kill-For-Nothing

Stu-mick-o-súcks, Buffalo Bull's Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe

she has an equally cool name but it's unique enough that i won't mention it here. and this amazing nose. she wears her hair all combed up in a big ridge, half rockabilly half grand ole opry. i added one of her friends on facebook in the hopes that i could creep some pictures of her. she didn't accept my friend request.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_Woman

culminating in her enthusiastically stating her love of eating dog meat :-(

graduate-level negging

oic, i thought you were talking blood quantum not actual tribe name

i was ready to yell at u for it lol

Oh god full-on sex dream last night. This has gone too far. I'm going to blushing furiously and unable to speak to him today.

(of course I won't, I'll be sending him funny links from ClientsFromHell and FlowingData like always, but ARGH)

I am still really really annoyed at big boss, though. Don't know whether to make usual joking comments or say flat out that was uncool but still feeling kinda put out.

i've been thinking about her a lot recently and did stupid things like go to a bar that i know she goes to, a shitty gutterpunk sort of place in an old pawnshop where the signs for the defunct pawnshop are still bigger than the signs for the bar, and drank twins of budweiser/shot of jameson and didn't even see her because what are the chances that she's going to go there on the same tuesday evening that i decide to go there and i only ended up talking to a drunk that gave me a handful of loonies to put into the jukebox when i bought him a shot of jameson and then asked what fag chose this when gloria came on, which i played because i know it's sort of an important song to her and is her actual real name even though she goes by something completely different now but i remember her mentioning that it was a song about her when it came on her ipod one night at work, the night we ended up getting way too stoned at work for the first time and i saw her giggly for the first time. i don't know what's wrong with me, since i haven't been as timid and skulking behind the scenes with a girl for a long long time and this is like a throwback to my first year in university when a girl invited me to a movie (bill murray in japan) and i put my jacket between us and never talked to her again and just obsessed about her for a year until now i don't even remember her name. in a way, i find this sort of juvenile longing filtered through workplace social situation situation desirable after a recent history of cold hookups and emotionally tortured way too adult relationships.

Congratulations, you are a nightmare.

Josie and the Pussycats: Classic or Dud

still a lame-ass bitch 11 years later

peace

Trying to put a positive spin on it ^^^^^ he at least makes me feel a bit healthier about my terrible relationship choices. :-/

OfficeBoy was in very early today, and I ended up having a massive go at him over messing up the kitchen saying "I'm not your mother" and him going "aaaawwww, but why not" and then me giving him a feminist rant after he tried to make out that girls were just more ~OCD~ about tidying than boys which was just the RONG thing to say to *me* of all people and I sent him off with a flea in his ear about gender roles and the etymology of the word "slut."

Why god why.

I told him not to act like he was 12 in making a giant mess and not cleaning it up, but I seem incapable of not acting like *I* am 12 when I'm around him, and pulling his pigtails and punching him in the shoulder because I can't handle the fact that I ~liiiiiiiike~ him.

Dear Inappropriate Professional Attachment,

it is far too cold this morning to wearing tops like that. I speak only in concern for your health and not because I forgot what I was doing for 5 minutes. *slaps self in face, drinks more coffee*

Yours,

Hype

aw i like dylann's story.

Congratulations, you are a nightmare.

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:24 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

congratulations, you're being a dick on a crush thread

hey andy, sorry for calling you a bad name

http://www.desicomments.com/dcpics/dc-605.jpg

And do you know what OfficeBoy did after being sent away with a feminist flea in his ear?

He cleaned up his mess, he said "actually, thinking about it, you're probably right" and he sat his sweet ass back down. From dealing with men his age on the internetz, I was expecting a "LOL Feminazi" and pushback and all kinds of defensiveness and accusations. But he just said he hadn't thought about it that way, and conceded the argument. And then my vagina exploded with delight. Why is he so lovely? Like, not just physically lovely, but everything I thought was going to be iffy with him, has just turned out to be *fine* because he's been thoroughly decent about things.

Why can't he be 20 years older? (I won't say "why can't I be 20 years younger" because you could not pay me enough money to be 21 again.)

I have gone from just wanting to bang him, to hating his guts to thinking he is Jesus within the space of about 3 weeks. I have got it BAAAAAAAAAD.

you're making me feel like I need to be trying harder with my office crushes.

I mean, not even talking to them, but developing them in my mind.

Oh, but we talk to each other entirely too much, as well. It is starting to attract comment.

My crushes are just so scarily full-on they even frighten me sometimes. There is no way that he can possibly live up to the crush. He is a fairly ordinary but rather clever South London boy with a slightly asymmetrical face. He is not the second coming of jesus christ. (Even if he does make me laugh, because 3 days ago I had to explain to him what Helvetica Neue is, and then 2 days later he decided he had ~mad design skillz~ enough to redesign the boss's business cards. I would hate him if he wasn't so pretty.) But we have had entire relationships in my mind during idle moments. I scare myself with my imagination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3L2lCxcl8

i keep thinking this thread is going to be able EXE files but it isn't.

'about' i mean, sigh

gong

probe him for weakness. see if he likes ayn rand or similar instant crush kill.

Doubt it. He's a Sarf London lad, he's into protein shakes and fixing his car at the weekend - if all that wasn't a crush killer (not to mention the terrible haircut) then nothing will be.

He could be a home counties Tory, though! The other two were discussing politics in a "LOL Boris"-Tory way but he didn't weigh in on that discussion.

Have you already forgotten the lesson of the "I love to eat dogs!" moment so recently taught to us?

Wait, what was the lesson?

Even disgusting information does not lessen crushes once they are properly established?

Just the other day I told a ravishing young beauty with whom I am smitten that I am convinced that it stems as much from the testosterone boost she surely gives me since I know strictly nothing will happen between us (mutually) but I simply cannot imagine having erotic dreams about someone and not teasing them about it, if only in a 'You've apparently carbonated my hormones' way. It's only stupid biology.

"A tough kid who sometimes swallows nails
Raised on Prisoner's Aid"

I would be *mortified* if someone found out that I'd had an erotic dream about them! It would not be a joking matter, it would be the last thing on earth I would tell someone!

(Especially since in my dream, he told me that he was actually gay, but that he would make an exception and get me off, just this once. He had better hair in the dream, though. In fact, he very specifically had Owen's old hair in this dream, which is ironic given that Owen has written songs about a character with his name and Owen has also done tragic things to his hair recently.)

ugh

Ugh is right. I would be TOTALLY CREPEED OUT if a random person I was not involved with told me that they had had erotic dreams about me.

(Then again, I am quite happy to tell and interweb forum full of strangers, so what does that make me?)

((There is a difference between telling strangers who will never ever meet the person and TELLING THAT PERSON THEMSELF.))

(((Oh god of course today was the day that my brain chose to remember the one time in recorded history that someone actually had a work crush on *me*. He wasn't an actual colleague, he was someone I worked closely with at a tech firm I did a lot of business with. He was also much younger than me, extremely hott, flirted insanely over email, and then one day actually asked me out - and I dated him for several months, until it became patently obvious that we had absolutely nothing in common except hottsex. So there is precedent, even though I must try my best to never, ever think of this again.)))

xp oh sorry. i was ughing at all tone of all this dog eating talk. maybe it's all in jest but unless someone is a vegetarian and reacts the same way upon learning that their love interest consumes any kind of meat at all, whether it's a cow, pig, or dog, i don't see why it's on the level of being a crush killer, much less an AYN RAND FAN.

speaking as someone who has no interest in eating dog or trying it. i just get annoyed when people are all like, oh gross!

i do think the erotic dreams thing would be on a case by case basis! if it were mutual, for example. i would find it weird if it were the situation MW described above, where there seems to be no real point to disclosing such information, and would certainly never voluntarily give up such information!

Well, I am a vegetarian, and meat is pretty much all of a level to me. I don't understand why someone would eat pig and cow and sheet, but not dog and horse and whatever. But if I reserved my crush list to "only vegans" that would leave me, well, Thom Yorke and that's it.

But, to me, drinking those disgusting protein shakes is way, way more disgusting than eating any kind of meat - dog or pig or whatever. And my crush does this every morning, and I have to smell it (and make rude comments about it) so that's kind of what I was talking about. That if you are deep enough in crush, even information that you find disturbing (like clearly the dogmeat thing was to Grady) will not actually dislodge the crush.

i almost accidentally submitted my earlier post with "whether it's a cat, pig, or dog". heh. same principle tho!

i agree generally that once you're in, you're in. i had a gazillion rational reasons to not like my last crush, including stuff he did that i thought was stupid/arrogant, but i couldn't help it. glad he's gone!

"Sheet"?

Sheep!

Sorry.

having erotic dreams about someone and not teasing them about it

I can only control my dreams to a certain extent so I don't really get why it's so bad. I also wouldn't go into any more detail than, "I had a rather steamy dream about you." She was skeeved so I'll never mention it again but it's hardly my fault for having a dream and since I would rather die than ever bring up the subject again and she's fine being my (more discreet) pal, I don't think there's any great harm done to either of us. I semi-chaperoned a semi-date she had last Friday. As I recall we all had a good time.

It's not bad HAVING said dream, it's bad TELLING said person about said dream!

That's like one step below telling someone you have wank-fantasies about them.

In fact, I'd probably be more likely to tell OfficeBoy I had wank-fantasies about him than that I had dreams about him, because at least I am semi in control of the former. NOT THAT I WOULD EVER TELL HIM EITHER. Because ugh.

AYN RAND FAN.

I remember laying in a rather amorous and enticing girl's bed once waiting for her to get out of the bathroom and come join me in her bed and seeing 'Atlas Shrugged' in her bookshelf. As much as I lusted after her and as compatible as we may have been at some animal shagging level, I knew the entire we would fcuk I'd be thinking, 'Dear God! Rand?! I can't do this'. I had to feign a malaise to get out of it and I felt rather poorly for her but, no!

we all have our own crush killers, rayuela, those were just some real-life examples. be accepting of our idiosyncratic preferences. it's a crush life for a working stiff.

it's bad TELLING said person about said dream!

It was a little tease not a précis. If she didn't know I half fancied her I'd say she was blithe and you can be sure I was anything but heavy-handed about it - detailed dream sescriptions are a certain bore.

It's not the level of detail, it's telling them AT ALL.

(Also, just because someone has a book on their bookshelf does not mean that they like it, agree with it, or indeed, have even read it.)

(Also, just because someone has a book on their bookshelf does not mean that they like it, agree with it, or indeed, have even read it.)

true, but it's hardly the domain of rational behaviors to begin with, so I have to go with it.

hang on, I'm going to go tell my boss I had an erotic dream about her and see how she reacts. and any faculty who are hanging out by the copier as a control.

I'm not like you WCC, I usually just tell ppl what I'm on about and go with it. If they feel like they need to avoid me ever after, so be it. I can't be bothered not telling ppl who I like or fancy. Gather ye rosebuds, etc.. I am conscientious about not being insistent or boorish about it. I might come across as flippant to ppl I like or admire but never indifferent.

(Also, just because someone has a book on their bookshelf does not mean that they like it, agree with it, or indeed, have even read it.)

I thoroughly agree but the mere presence of the book put me off. I genuinely felt bad since I thought we definitely had a mutual interest and a chemistry but in this case, I wasn't able to be as forthright, 'cause how do you tell a potential lover, "I'm as horny as a stoat right now but I won't be able to keep it up knowing there's a Rand book in the room"?

See, that is the most backwards thing in the world to me.

Like, I would have no problem asking anyone, if I saw a book on their shelf, "Um, do you actually like Rand, or did you just read that for High School?" What on earth would be the problem with saying something like that to someone?

But, you know, "By the way, my brain has totally imaged you naked and me shagging you!" is totally off limits and out of any sense of propriety at all!

I cannot think of any way in which telling someone (with whom you have not already been intimate) that you had an actual dream, about having sex with them, would not be completely creepy.

Or completely endearing?

WCC, let me reiterate, I felt bad but Rand is like kryptonite to my libido.

x-post This is what terrifies me. That people - especially men - who do things which can legitimately be viewed as totally creepy, have ~no idea~ how actually creepy those things are.

On that note, I don't think I should contribute to this thread any more. I am probably being legitimately creepy to this poor lad, and don't realise I'm crossing lines, either.

fyi i'm vegetarian and think eating meat is p gross in general, tho i dont really get that judgmental abt it

but also that frowny face was kind of misplaced: being so unashamed about a stupid social moor actually kind of flipped itself and made me crush on her more :-)

I haven't been propositioned all that much but I've rarely been offended (male or female) though mostly flattered and as long as everyone conducts themselves like moderately civilized ppl I don't see the harm in candor or flirting. I'm a huge flirt so maybe ppl don't take offense 'cause they think I'm not serious. I used to flirt like mad with my gf's feue grandma and we had what she called a hoot.

I don't think it's a 'men thing' as much as I think it's about poise and social skills. Heavy-handed ppl and ppl w/no timing or sense of environment or occasion or regard for anybody but themselves are inevitably dull, but then are the eternally repressed and ppl who never take chances.

Jesus, if someone I worked with said 'I had a rather steamy dream about you' my skin would crawl. It'd be a little different if we were DEFINITELY, intentionally, flirting on both sides but still, you want to tread lightly with that...

we all have our own crush killers, rayuela, those were just some real-life examples. be accepting of our idiosyncratic preferences. it's a crush life for a working stiff.
--the girl from spirea x (f. hazel)

From many posts ago: Sorry but if ppl can express distaste for things, I can express distaste for their distaste, particularly when the distaste is directed at something that is largely culturally based/associated with different cultures.

On a diff note, the last time I told a guy that he was in my dream, he assumed I had a sex dream when I was just trying to tell him about whatever funny thing he did! So I generally do not share.

Michael, the fact that you have rarely been ~offended~ let alone felt creeped out or even made to feel uncomfortable or even UNSAFE by a proposition says a lot more about male privilege and Rape Culture than it does about anything else.

I've definitely been propositioned by men, WCC, many shady ones, too but as much as it says about male privilege and rape culture I think it also says something about slut-shaming that it's somehow unacceptable for a woman to flirt even daringly. I would NEVER offer this info out of a context that was mutually or at least conceivably flirtatious and never without a demeanor that implicitly denied perfect self-control and respect.

I always end up feeling like a troll talking to you, WCC, but I'm entirely in eanest, devoid of malice, and am trying to be as clever as my limited capacity allows. :(

So I guess I've learned not to do or say anything that could even be misconstrued as flirting at work in case some guy thought it was ok to tell me about *dreams*

"She was skeeved so I'll never mention it again but it's hardly my fault for having a dream"

I don't get it. Having a dream /= mentioning said dream to the dream's subject.

"I simply cannot imagine having erotic dreams about someone and not teasing them about it"

You need to learn to imagine this and put it into practice

This is really disheartening.

When a man brings up a behaviour which four women in a row (five, if you count the woman who was "skeeved" by it) say "That is definitely inappropriate, over the line and would make me uncomfortable." And the bloke who brought it up continues to represent that it's somehow *women* who should change, be more flirtatious and "daring." (I'm taking this to mean more open, receptive and providing flirtertainment for you, the male who thinks of himself as a Roué.)

When, the women on this thread are responding with increasing caution, at the horrifying knowledge that if you flirt, even in jest or to smooth a work situation, you will be opening yourself up to a situation where a man will feel justified in ~sharing~ his subconscious or conscious sexual fantasies about you AT you. And think that's OK.

And this is Rape Culture 101, this idea that even when women have explicitly stated their boundaries (it is *not* OK to tell a colleague you have had an erotic dream about them) a man will still feel justified in coming along pooh-poohing those boundaries and saying "oh no, it's OK, because I was ~respectful~ when I did it (even though she was skeeved out)" because you know what? Refusing to acknowledge and pooh-poohing women's stated boundaries is NOT respectful no matter how "implicit" you think your "self control" is.

When words and actions do not align, I take actions as the true representation, every time, in trying to establish whether this person and/or this situation is safe or not.

thread only got creepy when michael arrived, suuuure

There is being creepy in a safe space, where you can diffuse tension you are feeling, so that a work environment remains safe and does NOT become a "Hostile Work Environment" for anyone involved. And then there is non-consensually sharing your sex fantasies with someone you work with.

And if you can't tell the difference between those two things, you really shouldn't be working with other human beings.

Anyway, if it takes Michael's behaviour as a mirror to show me how disgusting and gross I am being about this boy, then it has worked. I feel disgusting and gross. I shall do my best to avoid any inappropriate personal conversation about him, or with him, in the future.

one time this girl I worked with told me she had a dream about me

and I was like "oh really"

and then suddenly, from the cheerful face with which she told me she had the dream, just like thinking about the dream, her face just got angrier and angrier, second by second

and she spluttered out "you stole me bicycle"

she walked away in a huff and I didn't see her again that day

I had a dream about a colleague the other night but it was about how she took me under her wing as an assistant. We moved the whole office to Irvine, California, then she sent me up to L.A. to ask David Lee Roth for a million dollars. Driving up the PCH was awesome. When I got to Roth's place, half of the public area was a kung fu studio/gym, the other half was an undergraduate economics program. I thought I saw Roth leave from the gym to hit the showers, but when someone finally emerged, it was a different guy done up like David Lee Roth. He robotically intoned "we understand you want to ask us for a million dollar gift." and then walked up the hall without saying anything more.

I told her about the dream.

I don't have steamy dreams very often and I don't know if I've ever had such a dream about someone who actually exists.

I don't have any workplace crushes. Being married/having children helps here for me, but ymmv. I have another colleague with whom I've developed a rapport. Snappy patter and the like. It's the happiest I've been interacting with another human being at work in years. I don't have a crush on her though, or anything like that. It's just such a change from the usual drab, glum, bitterness that I've been accustomed to encountering in the last 7-8 years of employment that I thought I'd mention it. It's weird, because I work in an office that's largely attractive young women but I haven't crushed on any of them.

she was a v nice girl working in a stem cell lab she would break mouse and rat spines and I would order the ketamine

My workplace friend used to work with lab rats!

Where do you all stand on flirting at work while in a long-term relationship? I'm in one while the IPA is married, and I have no desire to cheat. And I don't think he does either. But he's one of those guys who's been good-looking his whole life that he can't help but talk to women in this charming, flirty way. and sometimes I flirt back.

Same line of work but - perhaps, fortunately - he's in a different company, so I only see him once every few months or so. So cute though. Have had to stop myself from stalking him on FB.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Flirting-Without-Intention if both of you are involved with someone and you are both aware that there is no intention involved, and it's just for fun/flattery.

The problem is the asymmetrical situations - where one person is involved and the other isn't, especially if there's kind of a grey line about whether it's With-Intention or Without.

Actually, it's questionable if there's that grey line, it's just that it doesn't matter so long as it's symmetrical. It's where one person has intentions and the other doesn't. And think that's heightened by one person not having a solid relationship at home to reassure them that it's not with-intention.

(But I might just be speaking for myself there. Because I am really bad at flirting-without-intention.)

ARGH I said I was going to stop posting to this thread, but these kinds of questions intrigue me.

Yeah I think that grey line is what makes me a bit wary about this one - cause our whole flirtation started on a work trip, before we even knew about each other's relationship statuses (he doesn't wear a ring and says his wife doesn't either). And it didn't really stop when we did find out a little later on.

But yeah like I said, it's a good thing we don't work for the same company so I can basically avoid thinking about it most of the time. And I can't deny that it's been pretty fun, with- or without-intention.

Refusing to acknowledge and pooh-poohing women's stated boundaries

Huh? We had been flirting. I told her I'd had a racy dream. She didn't want to hear about it. I never brought it up again. We're still friends (we went out last week with a new beau of hers). We still flirt and "~respectful~"ly and with an implict understanding of no intentions I never bring up anything too skeeveworthy. Acknowledge that.

I also can't imagine having an erotic (it wasn't a sex dream btw, just steamy in a vague way) dream about someone with whom we didn't share some kind of erotic tension. Are there boundaries not to cross? Apparently there are. I get that but finding out where they are requires interaction. Different ppl have different boundaries. I knew someone at work once who flirted with me (also implictly in a platonic way) who gave me all sorts of details about her lovers that might have made some ppl blush but I listened half out of curiosity and half out of compassion 'cause she really seemed like she wanted a male perspective on something that was troubling her.

Look, you know what - please, just don't try to talk to me again. The more you speak, the more you reveal how little you actually "get it" WRT the things I am talking about. Like, you and I are just having completely different conversations. Or I should just install killfile on my work browser or something.

I think M. White is trying to engage with you and further explain the context for his comments. He appears to be acting in good faith.

imo

(coming from someone who could not imagine a situation in which I would tell a coworker about an erotic dream)

And as for people who attempt to ~explain~ conversations to me that I am involved in, seriously, please do us both a favour, and just don't.

I don't think it is a favor to anyone to leave you there looking like you need help understanding something.

a dream doesn't have to be overtly sexual to be inappropriate / over the line.

she has no control over what she does or did in your dream..

wcc, don't stop posting on this thread, your posts are really fun to read. i'm living vicariously through them because i have no crush. also this stuff is totally not a mirror to your behavior, it comes across that you've been extremely scrupulous to NOT be inappropriate!

I'll stop posting here. Y'all carry on.

Sorry, Rox, I don't think it's healthy at all for me to continue with this (or fair to him.)

Firstly, conversations here have been making me feel weird and gross about this, when formerly it had been a source of joy and fun. It now makes me feel icky and crepey. And secondly, if I found out that someone I was working with was essentially ~liveblogging their crush on me~ and detailing our interactions for the amusement of strangers, I would feel really REALLY grossed out.

On the same kind of level of grossedoutness as I would feel if someone at work started detailing erotic dreams that they said they had had about me, to my face. So in order not to be a total fucking hypocrite about my reactions here, I have to stop doing this.

understood

fair enough wcc. Personally, I think you don't have to talk about your own crushes here if it's weird, but you should feel free to chime with some general opinions on IPAs though. Seriously, some of us here do appreciate it, cause you're pretty thoughtful about this stuff.

Oh.

My.

God.

He is, actually, a Rand fan.

PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Now ask him what his favorite Rush song is!

oh nooooo!

Well when he saw my face, he tried to backtrack to "I like them as novels, I think Objectivism needs some modification..." but the damage was done. I got him to confess to being a LibDem not a Tory before (probably Tory) OfficeGossip separated us but the damage was done.

I think I am going to have a crush on my second year Cornish teacher instead, he is just as handsome but more age appropriate. Also Mebyon Kernow >>>>>>>> LibDem.

are you guys fully serious about not wanting to hook up with people with repulsive political views?

yes

wcc why are you awake

I have to catch a train to Scotland in an hour. It's like a 14 hour journey to Orkney

And yes. Noxious political views don't happen in a vacuum. They actually affect the lives of ppl in groups I am a member of. I could not share my vagina with a member of a political party that wants to pass legislation that would affect my control of my vagina. It's kind of an important thing for me.

"The personal is political" isn't just a catchy slogan; my politics are directly informed by how I think about and try to treat people on a daily basis. Only the safest members of society get to treat politics like its some meaningless tribal game because they're the ones who won't be directly affected by changes in policy.

So yeah, if someone is totally fine with my uncles not being able to get married or my mom not being able to get health insurance, I do not want to sleep with them, and that isn't particularly radical imo.

okay. what about a 9/11 truther, who believes the u.s. government blew up the towers? where do you draw the line?

who are these ridiculously ignorant yet hot ppl you can't resist dylann

examples, examples. last one was beautiful australian-chinese girl, who even chided me for mocking the nepalese accent of a mutual friend, but then made comments about aborigines that made me feel uncomfortable. she posted an image macro on her facebook profile of an old aborigine dude with the caption SNIFF PETROL / GOES TO DREAMTIME (check it out). i just mentally maneuvered around it (growing up in western canada, fucked up opinions from nowhere on first nations people are not exactly new to me). i can live with that kind of stuff.

Okay, I guess I'm telling you that I can't live with that stuff because too many people in my life, including me, are affected in a real way by people who act and vote like that. It's not abstract. It's real.

And maybe examine why you can live with it? Like, why doesn't it bother you enough to make you distance yourself from someone like that?

If it really is because you see the good in everyone, think you can do more good by engaging than by distancing, awesome! You're better at dealing with situations like this than I am and I think that's admirable.

Given that I am 1) the child of White South Africans and 2) spent much of my formative years in and around NYC, racial privilege was never something I got to just take for granted, or ignore, or pretend just didn't exist. When you see second hand the effect it has on the people being oppressed, and first hand, the ugly twisted effects it has on the oppressors, it stops being something you can just just give a free pass on. Shrugging and saying "oh I'm just kind of used to it" is not a constructive attitude. I don't know what, if anything, you can do to change the views or behaviour of ppl who say and do things like that. (I don't get to preach coz it's something I'm still working on.) But you know, ~not fucking them~ - letting them know that their repugnant views will have real world negative effects for them - is a start? If being racist spelled social death for ppl, they might think twice about at least expressing it?

Facetious, but also kinda not.

p weird that being from western canada doesn't make you less able to live with that kind of shit.since how badly fucked over the first nations here have been is something you really can't escape here.since,thankfully,it's acknowledged by officialdom.

important xposts x2

i DO get it. at the same time, though, i've had very close friends that were into ayn rand and we managed to get along with our lives and even discuss politics without hating each other, but there is definitely inexcusable territory.

23 year old girl aborigines sniff petrol facebook racism doesn't get there for me. because... it's a bit abstract due to geography/my own background? i cut her some slack because of poss crosscultural issues (she's an immigrant rather than a white australian) (living in asia for half a decade, you hear people, including ones you are trying to fuck, saying a lot of FUCKED UP shit. if i had to cross off my list every girl that told me to watch my bag because central asians are thieves, i'd be stuck fucking french exchange students, who probably think the same thing anyways)?

i guess i just wanted to hear an example that was extreme enough for me to get it (i know the petrol sniffing jokes are pushing it). i've never taken a girl home and had her suddenly say something inexcusably offensive. an affection for ayn rand is so innocent to me. i just can't picture myself happening upon a out-and-out racist or fascist chick...-- like, i think that i put myself out there in such a way that i would turn off most people with vile political views, if that doesn't sound fucking silly or nonsensical.

strangely, it's a very different situation closer to home, where racial shit is very much alive and real to me. i'm not going to get down with ANYONE that dares pull some gas huffing jokes type shit. i will make it very clear to them that they're fucked. but this seemed different. i am aware that that's wrong. but getting back to the original thing, i can't see a conversation with someone on an even subtle white supremacist getting past the five minute mark.

(living in asia for half a decade, you hear people, including ones you are trying to fuck, saying a lot of FUCKED UP shit

ok this sort of makes more sense now. my experiences with the racial prejudices of, otherwise pretty egalitarian, people in latin america has been p eye opening :/

like a wonderfully warm and intelligent anarchist who "finds it hard to look at asian people".

massive thread-derail.

actually, after writing all that contradictory shit, i have gotten the point. so, i guess my final question is: before you find the ayn rand book or hear he's a tory, you don't get that certain vibe? i think i do!

andy, how am i doing here?

I probably shouldn't be the one in this discussion to say this, but, girls and chicks and stuck fucking french exchange students? There's your examples extreme enough to me to not want to go home with you right there.

Yup.

is there a better way to express the last part or is the entire sentiment just bad?

the use of phrases like "chicks" and "stuck fucking french exchange students" are fairly egregiously misogynistic.

thread of inappropriate professional attachments

sometimes when a date is going well and comes back to my apartment for a nightcap, I like to stand in front of the record player and ask if they like the novels of ayn rand specifically so I can drag the needle across the record if they say yes, then whip around and stare gaping-mouthed at them until they sheepishly back out the front door.

i automatically repel tories by being both scottish and the son of a refugee so this never comes up for me.

What are these "dates" you speak of?

Anyway, the whole "not being a Tory" thing is something I establish while still in the crush stage. (not that it ever gets any further.) This isn't a dating thread anyway, it's a "people you can never date because work complications" thread so I dunno where this derail came from. I think being ~hot for teacher~ probably has its own thread of complications somewhere.

well, part of inappropriate professional attachment is that you can get to know someone in a very narrow work context and crush out without really knowing anything about them. then in the midst of your sexual reverie you run full steam onto jagged rocks like well-thumbed paperback copy of the fountainhead on their desk with tickets to a phish concert used as a bookmark.

Well, not exactly. It was more whether they think of workfare as a horrifying exploitation of the most vulnerable segments of society at the expense of decently paid roles, or whether you think it is "maximising efficiency." (while coming from a class that enabled you to take a 3 month unpaid internship in China at no personal expense.)

Going for drinks with my IPA and a few other work colleagues tomorrow night. There is NO WAY that this might be awkward, oh no not at all...

At my old job, which was also in publishing, one person had a friendship with, like, a minor public figure (tv news twat). Then when not everyone wanted to socialize with the editor and their friend, everyone's job was threatened. I mean I really think that people in publishing shouldn't socialize with people they might criticize in print.

So then one of the fellow staff was obviously hooking up with this public figure, which pissed us all off because the guy was kind of a bimbo and we don't need that shit in our workplace.

When I left that job, one of my beefs was, "I'm not here to hobnob with celebrities, I take my job very seriously."

absolutely stunning girl beside me spent all day elaborating on the catwoman outfit she's wearing for halloween, now pls lady i gotta concentrate on this thing i'm doin

I have been told that OfficeBoy was ~pining~ for me in my absence, and he looked at me entreatingly and said "aw, but no one has been giving me hassle all week, can you send me a nasty email or something?" So I told him he was rubbish and he had done something stupid with his hair, and he grinned and went "Yay!" Haha, he is v v funny and sweet.

Every time this thread revives, a part of me thinks "it's happened, hasn't it?"

Sorry, but..

So I've either done a really brave thing or a really stupid thing.

I had a really big blow-up this morning at work. (Over something totally unrelated, and with someone completely different - which was actually fine because everyone has had occasional issues with this person, and he and they all recognise that it can be difficult.) But I had a long talk with my boss about stuff I'm finding difficult to cope with at work. And I brought up the fact that I was finding it hard to cope with the banter sometimes, not to take it personally, and he said, yeah, it's always been a really banter-heavy office, especially X and Y, and he couldn't deal with being in the office 5 days a week, which is why he works from home, but he said he will talk to X.

But anyway, that wasn't the stupid thing. This all means that we're going to have a meeting with HR and sort some of the stressy stuff out.

The stupid thing was this:

After talking about banter, I emailed OfficeBoy and said, look, the banter between you and me is getting out of hand. Saying, it's been fun and flirty, but it's starting to rattle me, and I'm worried that we're developing a really weird dynamic which I'm not sure I am comfortable with and I'm worried I'm harassing him. And he emailed back and said, no, it's fine, banter is fun and healthy, he isn't bothered by it at all, he likes me.

To which, I could only write back and say, well, no, that's not it. *I* am taking it too seriously. And said, p much flat out, I am worried that my feelings are becoming inappropriate, and if we carry on flirting, I will start taking it in earnest. (A bit too late for that, obviously, but he doesn't need to know that.) And could we please stop.

Which is killing me, and half of me thinks that was the grown-up thing to do, because this became really quite unhealthy some time ago, and it is interfering with my ability to do my job and probably reached the point where the obsession is not good for my mental health. And the other half of me thinks that this is the stupidest thing I've ever done because I've now destroyed something which was sometimes quite fun and positive and enjoyable and potentially made work even more awkward than it was before. But I don't think he'll be horrible about it. I hope. I just hope I can not be horrible about it.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO COMPLICATED AND STUPID. WHY CAN'T I BE NORMAL, EVER. Don't answer that.

And could we please stop.

Very workplace appropriate and brave, too.

Well, wow!

This will go one of two ways. Either things will get slightly less flirty and more friendly/civil, or well, um..

Let's call it a shot to nothing. I think you definitely took a while to pick the 'better moment' which means he will either say "OK, fair enough, will calm things down" or

oh, xx it.

Anyway, things will definitely not get nasty.

Over and out, I gues.

It took a couple of rounds but we got to the "I understand, let's be more professional" option in the end.

Which is kinda :-( but mostly :-/ because I had to spell out "I think I am taking this somewhat more seriously than you may be" which is just embarrassing but I didn't really want to give him any room to say "oh xx it."

you were both courageous and professional imo

I'm not feeling it right now.

We had to work together quite a lot today and I couldn't even look him in the eye. I just felt really awkward though he was trying his best to be professional and friendly and it was all actually OK.

I also really miss the mood-enhancing kick of having a crush. Life feels pretty chilly and unfun without one now.

the defining trait of a crush is that it's short-lived

well, one of them anyway

share with me crush songs to get this stupid NIN song out of my head

YEAHHHH. hugglez bomb WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE love that nick btw. so brave to send that email. if i was him, id respect u 4 being so professional and it's NOT CRAZY AT ALL. u should have a co-meeting with HR to discuss it still i think.

f hazel i prescribe 10 ccs of ALICIA KEYS stat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srMBZiqNMaM

This is p much the best crush song in the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaEpd-DZZU

The Fun and Games - The Grooviest Girl In the World

(At least, the high, happy wheeeeeeeee! part of the crush.)

(I have never been a NIN fan in any way, but watching that Closer video always makes me happy and excited in a terrible sort of way.)

((I disagree, though, that crushes are inherently short-lived. Some of mine have ached for years.))

This experience has really driven home something kind of awful about sexuality which I kind of knew as folk-wisdom but had never really grokked as a personal experience.

That finding someone physically attractive and liking/respecting them is nowhere near as powerful an aphrodisiac as finding someone physically attractive and being annoyed/irritated/wound up by them. That the combination of the two things is actually deadly, in that attraction and annoyance both feed one another in this synergistic way that spirals out of proportion. And also that the whole thing picks up an element of competitiveness, whereby wanting to sleep with that person takes on an element of competitiveness, and becomes like scoring a goal in a game, that the object is "getting one over on one's opponent" by tricking or pushing them into sleeping with you. Which is an awful, awful way to think about sexuality when it comes down to it. And I hate myself for feeing that way about sex, and yet I still sometimes do.

Eh I've had that kind of sex, though, and it's not very good? Because there's no intimacy, the impulse on both sides is basically selfish, to "win." I understand the compulsion, believe me, but the finale doesn't really appeal anymore.

For me, it's really the only kind of sex that *is* any good, because intimacy is a distracting thing that kind of gets in the way of a good shag.

Not that I'd remember or anything :-(

that fun and games song <3

I have a crush on Alicia Keys who has superpowers of product endorsement and dog reviving

we would be a great team because I like to buy things and pet cats

wcc breaking down the "she's annoying" truth bomb to an extent

Yeeeeah I was going to say!

pretty distracting cleavage situation today :-/

need to go through the many updates in this thread since last I looked, but just a quick update:

Holiday worked! coupled with no longer working with her so much. The painful relinquishment of cathexis, the gradual acceptance of the dulness of quotidian office life, were slowly taking their sad but necessary progress, greeting out my soul (<--strong factor of IPA is clearly boredom - this has probably been already mentioned.)

But I've just had a train journey after work with my IPA, ("6Are you getting the train? Cool! Let's get it together!") who was just -*melts* - and I was a stammering incompetent fool (I've got this thing - I can't speak properly around her and her only, it's like some kind of verbal apraxia).

And now I'm spinning it all out into insane reinforcement of those relinquished psychological habits of attachment.

Actually I'm not. I'm doing the sensible thing and sitting in a pub posting to ilx. DO NOT THINK OF THE IPA. She's a cool person, yes. You are an adult male who can both handle that and understand the requirement, important for everyone not just you but her as well, not to build internal worlds around people and then project them from the inside to the out. Unfair. Unhealthy.

Another beer I think.

Another beer I think.

Perhaps you'd fancy an IPA (India Pale Ale)?

ha! I did think of that when I wrote it.

but they don't do IPA in this pub, so I ordered Pride Indtead.

Call me Fizzles Bunyan.

Christ, don't. it sounds like a medical condition.

*instead.

where's f'ing iPhone autocorrect when you need it.

I have always preferred to call you Rubber Lips.

Wait. No. I was thinking of another Fizzles. You I call Mr. Fizzles.

Unfair. Unhealthy, and yet almost impossible not to perpetuate, once those habits have been established.

the dream is better

Last night has reminded me that my IPA is neither ginger nor Cornish nor has a ponytail so really this entire thing is absurd and I should stop being stupid about it. I have always had a very clear type, he isn't it. I should pull myself together and direct my lusts elsewhere.

(These things are easy to remember when in a decent mood and of a clear mind, and almost impossible to stick to when my brain is misfiring as it has been lately.)

wcc, you have such a clear type. the other day i saw a guy on the bus that was so your type i would have snapped a pic if was a creepy person. you would have flipped

Yeah, I saw one of those too...

he had a thom yorke-like face but a bigger nose and very red hair. he was dressed in a suit that was slightly too small inc. highwaters and was carrying some huge old book.

Mixture of "Thom Yorke" and "very red hair" sounds almost irresistible.

Oh, gingers, you are too delectable. Except after last night, I think I am rather more excited about Richard D James than Thom Yorke again. He has ginger arm hair. It is rather too much in the universe of ssexy.

I just wish I could stop feeling horrible and conflicted about OfficeBoy.

But then again, I have really been feeling ~this~ a lot, lately:

http://media-cache-ec5.pinterest.com/upload/184506915954135371_8AX0sWx1_b.jpg

None of these people work in my office, though, so this is an inappropriate thread to be discussing this on.

I'm gonna go look at pictures of St Kilda now.

some well-timed teasing got me put in a playful headlock for a few brief, blissful seconds this afternoon

that description has got an humbert humbert ring to it.

(i'm not comparing you with him, just the wording)

i just watched that on saturday so...

i've only read the book, but anyway i'm glad i put in that sincere disclaimer.

Can inappropriate professional attachments apply to friendships or acquaintanceships?

A former manager got fired for having an "inappropriate friendship"...with me. I mean, we went out to dinner after work and stuff. I suppose that was wrong though, and what are the ethics? I later apologized to co-workers because some of them didn't get along with that person.

Also, what about when you shouldn't participate in or contribute to something because of a conflict of interest or bias?

Like, um, cos, a family member of mine has an acquaintance who wants discounts on services and stuff. Just because he went to the same high school. My relative frankly can't stand this person or his circle and is kind of bitter about high school in general and told the receptionist to just screen out all phone calls.

I mean, sure - they are losing business, but I think your business ethics are compromised when you open the doors for toxic people.

barista messed up my order and so i got an extra beverage today. i stopped off at her office and placed it on her desk and told her it was for her. she got up to hug me-- hands already in the air-- and a fellow co-worker actually stepped right in between us to grab something in the most comically timed way imaginable. we high-fived over her and i walked back to my office, looool.

my professor wrote IPA on the blackboard today and asked if we knew what it stood for and I thought of this thread.

did it mean india pale ale?

was it a beer professor? do you go to beer university???

hahaha, he actually said that when no-one spoke up. but in this context it stood for international phonetic alphabet.

haven't talked to her this year. freed myself of the shackles. feeling good. looking forward to independence, thoughts no longer obsessively turning over one subject, and making all other subjects attendant upon that main subject or chucking them out if not.

three things recently felt like they had relevance to this however:

1) an interview with George Saunders where the interviewer says at one point

We’d been on the subject of death for a while. A friend I loved very much died recently, and I was trying to describe the state I sometimes still found myself in — not quite of this world, but each day a little less removed — and how I knew it was a good thing, the re-entry, but I regretted it too, because it meant the dimming of a kind of awareness that doesn’t get lit up very much.

the fact this relates to death is probably a good example exemplary of the greedy melodramatic bathos of the lovelorn - co-opting the genuinely moving or tragic in language or moments to the cause of self dramatisation. not sure it's a bad thing - can look rather absurd from the outside. but anyway, yes, that dimming. (after all part of the dangerous seduction of the IPA is the excitement (nascent love) it brings to the dull (monotonous work).)

2) Taylor Swift singing 'I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to' - a version of Elvis' I Forgot To Remember to Forget You, I guess, but I like the recursive sense in T Swift's version: you think you're ok enough not to worry about falling back into thinking about them and seeing them, and if you're still thinking that you're still enmeshed. An addictive mentality. That line's from All Too Well, a song that also contains the line 'I might be OK, but I'm not fine at all' - a very good description of maintaining day-to-day life amidst the unimportant foolish misery of IPA heartbreak).

3) A line in James Merrill's The Book of Ephraim (I posted about it here)... well, it's the final line from this bit anyway:

Lodeizen, Hans, 1924-50,
Dutch poet. Author of Het Innerlijk
Behang, &c. Studies in America.
Clever, goodnatured, solitary, blond,
All to a disquieting degree.
Plays a recording of the "Spring" Sonata
One May night when JM has a fever;
Unspoken things divide them from then on.

That description of an unbroachable silence growing between people, until they become alien to each other who once had each other so well known - of losing people through silence - is great. There's also a feeling that 'unspoken things' is representative not just of silence, but of 'dark unnatural things', malign entities - unspoken because we must not speak of them - that come between people, populating the space between them and muffling the human desire to communicate, sowing death and sadness (after all the last time you speak to someone is a kind of death, the last time you properly speak to them).

Anyway, there was a rapprochement today, 'How are you?! are you busy?! thanks for the cd! (now you thank me, he said darkly. but there can be no backsliding. IPA is for drinking. Or a handy tool for analysis of and instruction in a læẽgwəd͡ʒɪz sound system.

~*Our Last Day Together*~

;_;

:(

but there can be no backsliding

correction: there can be some backsliding.

grady, i have a feeling some of us possibly including me are half-hoping you say/said something enigmatic with a pleasant but slightly dodgy undertone on your way out the door and that if you do/did you will make a full and frank report.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyg1tw3ATW1qb7modo1_500.png

estela otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=temGFM84c4A

Fizzles needs thread to initiate professional rapprochements

xpost oops it's in spanish lol, oh well

fizzles, did i briefly meet the subject of this attachment? my visual memory has faded but i can recall that there was definitely cause for distraction

Italian, actually.

which is the Italian title of Love, Actually.

grady, i have a feeling some of us possibly including me are half-hoping you say/said something enigmatic with a pleasant but slightly dodgy undertone on your way out the door and that if you do/did you will make a full and frank report.

she kind of beat me to this tbh!! all I had to do was give a knowing smile and nod, which was more than enough.

she took me out to lunch btw

<3 grady shows us how to leave

nice

did i briefly meet the subject of this attachment? my visual memory has faded but i can recall that there was definitely cause for distraction

I don't think that would have been possible tbh (tho it is possible you briefly met an appropriate and perfectly sanctified attachment, who I also knew in a professional capacity - not quite such a catchy thread title).

Need to practice grady's nod and smile. way things have gone generally I'd look like a yokel with a twitch.

but there can be no backsliding

correction: there can be some backsliding.

― Say Bo to a (Fizzles), Tuesday, 5 February 2013 21:37 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.joethorn.net/wp-content/themes/editorial/functions/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/ezra-prays-600x315.png&w=606&h=0&zc=1&q=90

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5e/Bruegel%2C_Pieter_de_Oude_-_De_val_van_icarus_-_hi_res.jpg

The sun is hot stuff, fizzles. Next time epoxy yr feathers.

she is nothing like the sun. more like a quasar.

need wings of elemental adamant from the core of Pluto.

and to flap very hard.

Damn bro that's a hell of a pedestal you're building

yeah, tell me about it. rest assured she's just a v nice person who I like a lot. not, idk, Cleopatra or anything, nor am I on some self-destructive jag like Bob in Hamilton's The Midnight Bell. but we're close professionally and like elliptical orbits seem to have times of great closeness and at other times for us to be distant from each other.

distance is safest and easiest to either envisage escaping from, or having escaped from, or in the process of escaping from the attachment, but is a lot less fun than the closeness.

basically I'm happier in her company than out of it, and I've resigned myself to being hooked until I'm unhooked. and well, you never know - we do have a ball from time to time.

in fact both Ezra and Icarus were chosen as much for their portrayals of indifference or embarrassment of the rest of the world (idk the story behind the durer - but that's what it looks like). obv such things are v important to the person going thru them - the most important thing - but to the outside world there is at best a bafflement. think Kipling's a rag a bone and a hank of hair.

I shd probably shut up rly, as it's been veering twds 77 territory for a while, but there is a large part of me that finds it not unamusing or without interest.

we do have a ball from time to time

if ever further clarification were needed

(please answer in pictorial form)

Just starting to experience this for the first time. Not sure I'd find my crush remotely attractive outside of the workplace environment, but I'm curiously unmoved by this realisation. If anything it adds a slight air of mystique to the attraction.

Fortunately I'm spared all the awkwardness that's supposed to be attendant on this sort of situation by the fact that she's married and a decade older than me, and I'm kinda viewed as the baby in the office. I'm not sure anyone takes me very seriously yet. To that extent I suppose this is more like crushing on a teacher than a colleague, even though she is the person in the office who's nearest me in age. Still, it's quite nice though. Again, as with teachers at school, I suspect it'd be near impossible to work in a office with more than a couple of members of the opposite sex and not fancy any of them even a little bit.

In fact, upon reflection, this is EXACTLY like fancying the teacher at school - the fact that she's married and unattainable is the whole point I think. Never really thought about it in those terms though

Miss Fenwick. I must have been about five or six. Distraught when she married a German. Genuinely felt the barriers were not insuperable. Feel WD describes appropriate inappropriate professional attachment and I shd listen and learn.

imago - ill have a think about a pictorial representation of our hi-jinks, but in the meantime you did remind me that I have a... inappropriate er... something attachment to the grouping of women at the far left front of Poussin's Triumph of David, that is at least partially informed by my IPA tho largely in spirit and deportment than featural resemblance:

http://iamled.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/triumph-of-david.jpg

I always figured lj would return, i forgot about the rules of the sequel- add spawn

Aliens in Dulwich Picture Gallery. Examining catalogue nos etc. Ah balls, anyway. it's the thread for it after all.

xpost and, ah, easy there fella. I may leave trails but I prefer them of breadcrumbs than actual ID parades.

Miss Fenwick. I must have been about five or six. Distraught when she married a German. Genuinely felt the barriers were not insuperable. Feel WD describes appropriate inappropriate professional attachment and I shd listen and learn.

We should probably hang fire on this sort of judgement at least until I've got through a Christmas party or a leaving do or something. I may turn out to have feet of clay yet, definitely have previous with hugely inappropriate declarations of, if not love, then certainly affection/lust on these sorts of occasions.

Oh and how's N.5. getting on? Has he gone full Ralf Hutter yet? Never seen a man so preternaturally suited to his work - I think witnessing his neophyte mastery was what discouraged me from really trying

actually, sorry to be self-important, esp after the self-important garrulousness itt, but do you mind if I get mods to redact the post? it's not so much g00gling as the fact that there are other people I know who go on the site from time to time.

And so.

Ah it's not quite a triple handjob but for nununuilx its enough to be going on with

oh my god the women at my new workplace

Otm

no joke one of the "br4nd's thr33 c0r3 v4lu3s" is "flir7y"

lol

I dream of staying at a flirty hotel.

developing IPA from grad student who keeps coming into my office to hang out/get away from studies (many of them do this, so not necessarily a sign of interest)

Your posts are invalid unless you write them in IPA http://ipa.typeit.org/full/

does your glottal stop when walks in the room?

appropriate bar crush is go

this shit sucks ;_;

will 2015 be the year I stop having IPAs? no, it will not.

oh God. Don't even want to write exactly how I am connected to this person, but I'm a grad student. Not my supervisor, at least.

^my sympathy

as student had liaison with one prof but rationalized it bc i only audited his class & he was not in my department (though in related/overlapping field, advisor to some of my friends)

eventually i broke it off but it remained awkward situation

yeah, if anything were to come of it it would require... some re-jigging of my current formal dissertation arrangements. Best/worst is that I have an inkling it may be reciprocated. Could be extremely wrong about that though.

that does sound complicated

every case/ decision is unique & individual; but for me felt prudent to maintain strict boundary bw personal entanglement & direct academic relationship (in which one party has direct power/ influence re other's work), though in academia that can be v fine line

it's romantic until it isn't

e.g. consider possibility of stalkery prof :( or having to work on high-stress longterm project with (or relying on) someone you don't want to see or who evokes bad feelings

That's why it would require some re-jigging of my current formal dissertation arrangements! But yeah, even if that were to happen, there are risks...

I am more and more certain that this person is not interested in me and also not interested in my gender in general. So far this hasn't diminished my inappropriate attachment.

had two of these in my training class. usually just repeat gibberish in my head and distract myself with images of dead elephants and move on with training....

but it does make the situation safer, if not less painful?

new hire in my dept is non-native speaker and emailed me about having coffee, called it "sharing zips" = instant IPA

you're right.

Eeeeesh. I'll say that one of the values of a committed relationship is increasing the risk of even thinking about this stuff. Lord knows.

Two reasons to shut the fuck up and never post to this thread again, to self:

1. You work with many attractive people of the gender that you're into, jackass, and you have HAD THOUGHTS

2. You are a dad and you have other things to think about and that does not give you any privilege or perspective to advise or even RELATE to people posting on this thread who are LFLIATWP

3. You said TWO, are you ready to STFU? OK good let's go to bed

Man I am glad I am around to talk to myself

I don't know how I ended up back here but here we are.

We both have like 3 weeks off over Christmas so hopefully it will just die down and go away.

It's not even lust it's just "you are the best person ever".

is it the same person?

Oh god no. This is like 2 workplaces later.

(Thank goodness, because the place where I had the original IPA was such a messed up an unhealthy environment for me that I do now think that the IPA was a symptom of how badly that place messed my head up.)