Have NC for this. Someone help me figure out what's going on here and if there is any point my holding out any hope for this.
I've just come out of a six-year marriage which towards the end was abusive (financially and emotionally and adultery was involved on his part). Generally doing OK considering the circumstances but obviously wobbly and vulnerable. I have a 7 year-old daughter.
I have met someone through a hobby to whom I am very powerfully attracted and my feeling is that its mutual to a degree, if only sexual. I know this because we kissed a few months ago when I was still married. Yes I know it's bad, it was a drunken mistake when my marriage was coming to crisis point and was knocked on the head more or less immediately and hasn't been an issue since, we are friends and socialise together with others in a group but there's been nothing further.
I like this guy and get on with him and also really fancy him, I'm pretty sure he likes me and is attracted to me to a degree but I can't get a handle on whether this is just passing attraction on his part or something more. He has only very recently become aware that I'm single.
The big crunch point is this guy has a very close platonic female friend who is also a member of the hobby-based social circle (and increasingly a friend of mine). I'm sure they are not actually in an active romantic relationship but it feels to me as if they are not really emotionally available to others because of their relationship with one another -- they live in one another's pockets. Their relationship doesn't appear to have a romantic element, as far as I can tell, they spend a lot of it on hobby-related stuff and there's no obvious chemistry but they are clearly very close and I can't help wondering about the hidden dynamics, i.e. is one into the other but hasn't disclosed it etc.
In spite of this I get the feeling this guy is attracted to me but I'm also aware that I need to be very careful: a) I may very well be projecting this onto him because I like him b) I'm conscious that I'm probably not in a great place for a new relationship (I'm still technically married and its only in the past six or so months that my husband and I separated) and should not be rushing into anything at all, leave of all something as emotionally complicated as this and c) I really need this hobby for the moment for my sanity and I am very loathe to do anything to throw a spanner in the works which would make it less enjoyable.
I know the obvious response is "ask him how he feels", but I feel that if I asked and the answer was no it would be hard for me to continue doing this thing with my head high and it would hurt my recovering self-confidence a lot at a time when I really don't need it to be knocked.
The trouble is my feelings are already starting to overshadow the pleasure of the hobby.
Would I be better off just walking completely away from this situation and writing it off, even stopping the hobby? Or should I hang in there and see where it leads?