Right, so if a colleague...

[Woozlebear]

At a Christmas party, sat you down and said you looked fantastic, and you always looked fantastic because you dress in a way that's true to yourself, and then had a long drunken heart to heart about various things, then vaguely suggested lunch, then kissed your hand before wandering off, would you think:

1. very drunk, forget it
2. eccentric kindred spirit
3. making a move

Hetero male colleague, I should add. And at pains to state he is in happy relationship. Knows I am married. We don't know each other that well but have worked together more closely recently and have had some random conversations about beliefs opinions etc in recent weeks. I think there's always been a sense that we're both a bit different in a similar way. But nothing more than that.

I genuinely don't know how to read it. I've had very nice friendships in the past with guys who everyone else dismissed as creepy or coming on to them, and where there has been nothing of the sort.

I'm lacking in faith in my judgment because I recently discovered that everyone thinks another male colleague who I thought I had a nice friendship with fancies me.

Part of me thinks I must just be really naive, part of me feels sad that it all has to be seen to boil down to sexual attraction.

Like I said I think my perception is being skewed by the fact that another guy I'm quite good friends with it work is deemed by everyone else to fancy me madly- despite no evidence whatsoever- and my having long conversations with him - which we do regularly because we enjoy chatting to each other- is received by everyone as if it was the height of scandal. Endless comments and knowing looks and giggles and lots of attempts to 'rescue' me from what they perceive as awkward situations. Ie a one-to-one conversation.

So I'm paranoid about ending up in the same sort of situation but this time with someone who has actually given out some clues that there is maybe something there.

Like I said, it's very teenagery, I know it is, but it's made me quite anxious about how I come across.

I'm intrigued by this way of dressing that is 'true to yourself'..... what is it you are wearing exactly?

sounds like you spend lots of time at work talking about personal things - try not to do that? try to talk about work things for 90% of time, and don't carry on long, long conversations?

gosh I don't miss offices

re party, it sounds like 2 to me, in a 'friends' kind of way, but with added drunkenness. Ignore it.

obviously you may not work in an office, but yes, can be difficult
anyway
2/1, friendly chap, bit odd, drunk - talk about non personal things with him, fine to be friends with him I think, when sober.

Reading between the rather transparent lines, it's immediately obvious to me that you fancy him.

A longish quite old fashioned lace dress. Very normal but maybe stood out in the sea of of very on-trend minidresses. I'm not a goth or anything- the comment sounds like it's referring to something far more significant than it is. It was either a way of just saying he thought I looked fantastic but trying to wrap it up somehow so it didn't sound so blatant, or it was a useful way in to a 'I recognise you as one of my tribe' thing, which is where he went the conversation later. Or a bit of both.

OK... so it's not that you go around in revealing outfits :) I know it's not very PC to talk about such things but, in an office environment, a bit too much decolletage or thigh on display and you've already got a significant number assuming that you're the flirty type before you've even opened your mouth.

Definitely not! Must have been in the very bottom percentile in that respect! He specifically referred to that as something he really liked.

Can anybody hear Noddy?

IT'S CHRIIIIISTMAAAAAAAS!!!

And thank god. I love having these daft, drunken connections at the office party. It reminds me I'm alive. My worst fear (not really) is that they change it and make it an 'invite partners' job. Which would totes ruin all the lovely festive flirting :)

But as you know, it's biz as usual the day after, and every day, until next year.

Abide by the rules and have fun.

This says EA to me. Totes.

I wouldn't read too much into it, people say all kinds of crap when drunk and personally, even if I was single I'd never mix business and pleasure, 1 because I'd hate the uncomfortableness and 2, office gossips.

Having read the OP again and thought more about it, I'm 100% certain it's 1) and the hand kiss was all part of being an eccentric kindred spirit. Offers of lunch, mean nothing. An offer of dinner on the other hand......

Nah, he likes (nb likes) you, probably fancies you, and enjoys your company and, being pissed, said all this maybe a little too emphatically.

Enjoy the compliment and the fact that you've got a friend at work.

I hope that's it Toby. And I like that. It's a good combination of amusing drunken silliness and a way of confirming that the fairly recent friendly feelings are mutual. And if there is a little bit more there then hopefully that's the most that it will ever manifest itself, and no reason not to be friends.

I keep remembering today that at one point he said 'that's just made me love you even more than I already loved you' (Been racking my brains to remember what this was in response to, but def something very inconsequential!!). It's soooo ott it can't possibly mean anything, surely??! My best best male work friend tells all of us he loves us every time he's drunk. Just in a genuine affection way. But I know him going back years so I know this is what he's like. Obviously it's like the hand kiss and not supposed to be taken seriously. But then that doesn't mean that there's absolutely no underlying message. And it wasn't said in a typical drunken gushy 'you're such a legend' kind of way. I don't remember saying anything in response, btw!! I think I just sat and waited for the next conversational gambit! We were sufficiently drunk for it not to feel remotely awkward at the time.

Gaaaaah. Just want to get it right in my head so I know how to play it (ie suitably non-encouraging without being unnecessarily ott and weird and stand offish).

This all starting to look a bit "mentionitis" to me

You fancy hiiiiiim < pokes Op and pulls her pigtails >

Seriously, what does your husband think?

I should add that the reason I'm fairly anxious about it is that I spend one day every fortnight working in a small room with him and two others. He's quite talkative and we've previously chatted a lot. There's a lot of scope for getting it wrong - either giving off the wrong signals and being too encouraging by being as friendly as before, or being quite hurtful and making things really awkward by being too distant.

I dunno OP methinks you protest too much. If you had no interest in this guy you would just dismiss it and not spend hours analysing what it all means.

Any fucker- definitely not!

I've added the reasons why I want to play it right. Any other man in a firm of many hundreds and it wouldn't even be an issue- it would be v easy to avoid much contact if necessary and just wait to see how things looked to be panning out.

i'd say "stop it you're embarrassing yourself now" but I'd be good humoured and firm. Don't try to be kindly receptive.

and that doesn't mean you can't be friends or whatever if you want to be but he shouldn't expect you to listen to his every thought, and then rearranged your face in to a composed expression.

I don't believe you

I experienced drunken confessions from work colleagues back in the day (it was a mainly male environment and went with the territory) and I couldn't care less what any of them meant.

One particular guy was extraordinarily smashed but the next day it was clear that he remembered at least some of what he'd said. He kept asking me about in a pointed way, I just said he had been so drunk that he was talking gibberish.

You can just blank the whole episode.

If you haven't taken a fancy to him you appear to have taken a fancy to the way his behaviour has made you feel. Nothing wrong with that, but not admitting it to yourself could be a slippery slope.

very wise, there is something powerful about making somebody FEEL beautiful, full of integrity, eccentric etc........... it could be mistaken for love.

Vivacia good question. I haven't mentioned it to him - seen him for about 5 mins since last night. I hadn't planned to though. I would expect it to result in a needlessly difficult conversation because dh has never drunk or attended - since I have known him at least - a work party. I would imagine that he would be so utterly oblivious to the general drunken dynamic that he'd read loads into it (ie interpret it as you would a sober daytime conversation) and possibly not understand why I even allowed the conversation to continue.

Any fucker probably quite true, and who wouldn't. It's nice to hear nice things from a nice person.

But I disagree with talking about how to deal with it professionally being interpreted as mentionitis. I'm on here because it's the only place to get a range of objective opinions about it. Everyone IRL would be silly abut it because they all want gossip.