Help me get over this ridiculous crush!

[Needtogetbackinthesack]

I'm newly divorced, haven't had sex since I conceived my 3 yo and I feel it's time to get back out there.

There's a guy I see every morning when dropping my kids off, he works in an office I walk by and his smile makes me weak at the knees. It's got so bad that I can't sleep at night for thinking about him but I'm generally too nervous to even make eye contact as I walk by. He does smile on the odd brave occasion, but he smiles at everyone who walks by.

His office isn't the kind where people off the street could walk in - no customers etc. I literally know nothing else about him, can't see if he's wearing a wedding ring etc. He also sees me walk by with my herd of out of control kids, hardly an attractive prospect. But I can't help but think about him.

How do people deal with such crushes when you're in your mid thirties? I think I need to get out there and meet a real life human and forget about him don't I? But that smile... 😍😆🙈

There’s still time for him to do that, or maybe he’s just processing it, or maybe he’s lost the note!!

Well done @RuffleCrow I didn't think you would do it before half term!!! Have you heard from him? Will you see him tomorrow?

@RuffleCrow hold your horses missus! Give him time to answer!! You're overthinking but so so well done!

If it makes you feel any better I saw mine earlier and thought 'Nah Mymble you're out of your mind, why on earth would he fancy YOU?' and I've never had a problem attracting men but age and a shit marriage have done a number on my confidence

Thanks everyone. Good to have you lovely people here to keep me sane

Those are the options i keep running through in my head too @Sharkyfan. I guess i may never know.

@Stillsexystillsingle - not if i have anything to do with it! I'm going to be walking a different route from now on. If i was to see him again any time soon, i think i'd either be thinking "so why are you still eyeing me up?" Or "you didn't have to cross the road to avoid me" depending on what he did. I think i'm best off taking a break for a while.

I know @mymbleclement - it seems we've both been through similar. It does shake the foundations of your confidence, doesn't it? I bet you're gorgeous and it's only a matter of time for you x. I suppose i'm just thinking a guy who was free and interested would get back to me more quickly. Especially as he's from a more open and friendly culture. Ah well. The positive i can take from this is that i'm feeling a lot calmer - weirdly enough. I'm still wondering, but it feels clearer that he couldn't have been feeling anything near what i was. And maybe that's ok - it's a free country!

@Rufflecrow it's great you can walk a different route but don't forget he might be busy, there are a million reasons he might not have answered yet!

It does, I don't know what your ex was like but I spent so long being put down I started to believe it myself

If I'm off the mark I can't avoid mine!
so I might wait till the end of the summer term and do a thank you card with my phone number in it - I thought I might say something like 'Thanks for all your help with the DS's, if you never made it to that gallery I'd like to go back' - then run away for six weeks and pretend it never happened

That's a good solution. I've been sinking in to a bit of a shame spiral since yesterday. Wouldn't wish it on you or anyone .

Although weirdly, i have an actual date with someone else coming up soon. Feel like i need to focus on that and on work and drag myself out of this pit i've created.

Also decided i'm not going to change my route. It's not like i've done anything wrong. I won't be making eyes at him any more, that's for sure, but why should i have to go into hiding? It's not like i offered him a blowjob in the street or something!

Exactly! You've nothing to be ashamed of at all! If you see him just give him a big confident smile. You'll feel worse if you try to avoid eye contact etc. Act a bit brazen and you'll feel better!

RuffleCrow So, So proud of you! Well done!

Doesn't matter if you get rejected, in one sense. You owned the moment and put yourself out there. That's courage, my friend.

And I second Mymble's advice - don't change, brazen it out ...and wink, if you know how.

If I wink, it just looks like Ive lost a contact lens.

Good point @mymblecat - it's been a long time coming. The ball has been knocked fairly and squarely into his court. If he chooses to ignore it, so what?!

And you're right, if i'm already a brazen hussy in his eyes I may as well have some fun with it.

Fuck it, life's too short to wear a hair shirt just becaus i'm a liberted woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it!

Sadly winking isn't a habit i've ever perfected, either, @rationalcat. I can nearly do it on one side

I never normally see him outside of the school run and was glad to miss him today, but then did just now coming along a different road with all his kids.

I didn't notice a wife/ partner but then I wasn't really looking and she may still be at work. I think he might have been taking his kids to a thing that's on in town tonight. Why is it always when you least want to see someone that bam there they are?! He really isn't worth all the energy i'm expending, is he?

I think my least preferred possibility is that he got the note, read it, discarded it but is actually single. He just doesn't want me. As you can see, my feelings on this are going up and down.

Other possibilities are that he does like me, but is such a doofus he genuinely thought i was just giving him a random bit of paper for the sake of it and didn't have the natural curiosity to open it. And would i really be interested in someone so passive and unthinking? Sorry for being a complete bore.

I was thinking of you today @RuffleCrow I was reading online about a woman who saw her crush every day on her commuter train it took her 11 attempts to hand him her note with her number on it as she was getting off the train but she did it and it led to them eventually getting married. Weird how he's not got back to you at all ? A bit rude as he's likely to bump into you? But what he does or doesn't do next is completely out of your control ...if pretending it didn't happen is his thing you'll style it out I'm sure so tell us more about your date! Who is he and where is he taking you on your date?

Thanks @stillsexystillsingle Very true. I just need to accept the situation. And i was accepting it until i saw him when i was least expecting to - really threw me out.

Just someone i met through OLD. We're just meeting up for a drink, keeping things casual. I should be feeling more excited than i am. I'm very much in the Groucho Marx mould of "never wanting to be a member of any club that would have me", aren't i?!

I find it hard to get excited about these old first dates too but you should go because you never know

yeah he's likely to be married/partnered. Still a bit odd that he didn't just say that in a text but who knows, maybe scared of the wife
seeing any texts with another woman...

People advising to wink - do you think it's always a flirty or encouraging sign?
Just asking as I was on the receiving end of that, but I thought I was rejected previously.

I mean, rejected by the same man.

It is weird. I'm not sure whether to salvage what's left of my dignity by just letting it go, or whether it's worth a quick "just so i know, did you actually read the thing I gave you?" if we ever pass each other organically again and he's in a looky/smiley at me mood. Just for the sake of closure? Or is that inappropiate in front of the dcs? He'd only have to say yes or no and then i'd have my answer.

Yes ask him otherwise you'll be left wondering! Watch his body language too next time you see him face to face that will tell you if he read your note and how he feels about it if he's too chicken to tell you verbally!

I suppose i only have my own way of reacting to things to go on, but if it had been the other way round i would have been reading it immediately, putting his number in my phone and sending him a tentative text within a day, max. Because that's how i feel about him, and also being single helps.

I wonder if the way i did it was the problem? Because i was like "i think this is yours" as though i'd picked up something i thought he'd dropped. And if he's Aspie or just someone who takes things very literally he may have genuinely thought i'd mistaken a discarded lovesick teenager's note for something he'd dropped?!

But the way he was at that point (he must have seen me have an "oh, fuck it" moment and cross the road to speak to him) - he was eyes down, sort of shy, smiling to himself, deliberately not looking at me as i approached, i felt, until i said a very firm "hi!". Really different to how he'd been the day before when he was smiling, holding my gaze.

So he must have sensed i was about to do something stupid. I've never crossed the road to walk past him before and, trust me, never will again! I had to make up ficticious road works to convince the kids to cross with me . What a dick.

Or maybe it was my hitherto passivity that was appealing to him before, and when faced with a proactive, direct, grownup woman wanting some kind of resolution to the years of eye-fucking, his interest vanished? Because i have had unpleasant men in the past say it's my apparent passivity that was part of what drew them to me.

I think the most likely scenario is he's attached but was enjoying the fantasy but with no intention of ever acting on it although I could be wrong there's no way of really knowing what he was thinking and doing unless you ask him directly I hate the way these attached men play with us and our feelings like this so many of them do it you have every right to confront him and ask him what he thinks he's playing at especially if this has been going on for years!

Yes it's definitely the most likely.

You're right, i'm kind annoyed both for my own sake and on behalf of his probable wife/partner.

I mean, don't get me wrong, most of us look at ppl we find attractive whether we're in a relationship or not, but there's looking in an appreciative way and thinking "they're cute" and moving on, and then there's the long, drawn out smouldering looks towards the same person (and i haven't seen him look at anyone else that way) over a long period of time.

The only time i ever did that when i was in a relationship was when i was trying to find a way out.

@Rufflecrow there's a theme developing on this thread...will have to compare notes when I put myself on the line as my bloke is constantly staring at me to the point that at first I used to think maybe I had my skirt tucked into my tights/looked odd in some way...it took a while for me to even consider he might fancy me! If he blows me off I'm going to be even more

I think some men just enjoy the chase. Or they're perturbed by a woman taking initiative - in which case we are better off without! Otherwise what was the point of putting ourselves through the pain of extricating ourselves from lonely, unfulfilling marriages?

So true @mymbleclement. We deserve men (or women too in my case) who are as enthusiastic about cutting the crap and actually doing something about it as we are! Remember though, your guy's response could be different. It's a big 'could', admittedly!

In my crush's case there's the added complication that he may well be economically dependent on his wife, because, (if she exists), she's almost certainly the full time worker/ higher earner (i'm thinking a GP or solicitor or something else that means she's barely around) and he's the primary carer / part time worker.

If you imagine a fit, cool-looking version of the SAHD from Motherland you're most of the way there . Maybe it's as crude as money and dependence being a factor and him not wanting to do anything to jeopardise that. And one look at me will tell him i'm not in any position to support him, ever. Money talks - especially for those from the other side of the pond ime. (please excuse lazy cultural stereotyping)

and thats without even factoring in that he may only be allowed to reside here as long as they stay married! So many additional possible factors that could be contributing to his rather harsh silence.

@RuffleCrow completely, happily married men don't look at you like that. However, a lot of unhappily married men will also not end their unhappy marriages. Personally I find it really pathetic and I think they need to grow some! What's the male equivalent of a cock tease? That's what these men are doing to us acting all interested when in reality they're not!