It’s a bit of a long story, but bear with me.
Without giving away too many details about my job, I basically go away to work for two days a month, or for longer for special training. Recently I went for a week long course, and I was catching a certain vibe from one of the instructors, who works with me… Like at one point I thought he was flirting but I wasn’t sure, and he asked me about my relationship status (I’m married with a young child, which I told him.)
At the beginning of the week, he’d sent me a friend request, which I accepted. The service/Wi-Fi was spotty, so I didn’t get his subsequent message there until the last day of the course, when we were testing out. (Thankfully, he wasn’t the one scoring my test. We are equals, at least, but I wanted to be sure I actually earned my certification in the skill he was teaching, you know?) The message basically asked what would I do if a certain coworker matching his description might possibly be attracted to me. But then…
Let me stress to you that I regret my reply, but at the risk of being crucified on here, I’m gonna share it anyway… I told him that if that was the case, it might possibly be mutual, but that nothing could ever come of it (given my marital status.) I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have said that.
He wrote back, essentially, that he understood and respects that, but that he’d “be there” if I ever changed my mind, winky face. The conversation then turned back to work related things. I thought that was the end of it. Nope.
He’s started flirting with me at work. I should be angry that he’s not being respectful, but honestly I’m such a slut for attention that I can’t help but enjoy it. I’m being strictly polite and professional back, but it’s good, smooth flirting, if I’m being honest, and I think he can tell it gets me flustered. It doesn’t help that I’m having intrusive thoughts about how I’m put up in my own hotel room on the occasions we work, and how easy it would be to find an excuse to invite him in… (I’m NOT going to do it. But I’m having trouble not thinking about it, and I have a lot of guilt.)
The worst part is, the day I read that initial message, DH texted me that I was being quiet. I screen-shotted Coworker’s message (cropping out my reply) and sent it to him, and told him I was wondering if I had really earned my certification. We had a mini shit-talking session about how unprofessional it was, and DH made fun of the phrasing. I didn’t mention my response, and deleted it from my phone. It’s been eating at me.
And the thing is, DH and I aren’t even strictly sexually monogamous… though we do have limitations for one another. One of his is that I can’t have extramarital sex with the same man more than once, and it can’t be anyone I interact with on a regular basis (to prevent emotional connections from forming.) I have zero desire to go out and get some strange, but this limitation makes it so Coworker is out of bounds, so to speak…
And I already know the hypothetical, forbidden sex isn’t even likely to be as good as what I have at home— I’ve been with a LOT of men, and very few of them were good at it, and none as good as DH… I guess the idea of doing it with Coworker is alluring because of the taboo-ness of a workplace affair.
Also, I’m thinking maybe it’s that I miss feeling desired, and experiencing New Relationship Energy, like I did when I was younger and dating/sleeping around? I’m not sure how to go about asking DH to help me feel desired like that again, though. Like, I “flirt” with DH at home, and I’m always the one initiating the sex, but he rarely initiates with me, and he never flirts first…(Even if I did field that request/express that feeling tactfully, I would question if he really desired me when he did those things, or if he was just trying to placate me… is that insane ?) I feel loved. Just not particularly sexy, if you know what I mean?
Anyway, I’m just struggling with these feelings, and I just needed to get this off my chest. Thanks for listening, if you’ve read this far.