So, I keep getting crushes on my managers.

[ImJustWingingThis]

Regular, name changed because this is both outing and a bit embarrassing.

I'm having a really amazing time at work. I'm being affirmed and encouraged by my managers to apply for promotion, which feels amazing. It's the first time in my life I feel like I've been seen as something other than a sex object.

But I am letting the side down hugely in a really trivial but big to me way. I keep getting crushes on male bosses. It happened in my last job too, and I've noticed it occuring in other settings in my life with men who have a certain amount of authority over me.

I feel totally ridiculous because it's such a schoolgirl, nonsense thing to be worried about, and I'm trying to understand the dynamics too. I have no intention of acting on any of this, because I want to do well in my career, but I would really rather not have to deal with this kind of crap and I'm hoping that maybe asking the wise women of FWR about what might be going on in my head from a feminist perspective, I might be able to adopt some strategies for rising above...

‘Why is this in the feminist section?’, translates to ‘we have much more important things to discuss. We’re real feminists!’

Some of you are so up your own arse. How can a woman worried about any kind of sexual dynamic at work not be worthy of a feminist perspective?

I think, OP, that you are fully in control here, no matter how silly it makes you feel right now. Accept that the thoughts are there, but that is all they are. Perhaps, as you now have a place of work where you may stay a while, they will fade with familiarity.

I used to have this issue in my 20s and early 30s. I found it horribly embarrassing and it definitely got in the way of my career and more importantly of my personal life (I just found I couldn’t fancy anyone who wasn’t older and in a position of power, though otherwise I’ve never had any submissive tendencies sexually or otherwise). I twice had such relationships, once in a work context and once outside but with someone older, powerful and charismatic. Both relationships ended up being very abusive.

I had quite a lot of therapy which helped me to see the roots of this tendency in a very messed up upbringing, including never being good enough or having the attention of my parents. This helped me understand it but didn’t make the feelings go away. I suppose it gave me choices in how I dealt with them though and I made much wiser decisions.

What seems to have cured it for me was simply time. As I’ve got older and more professionally powerful myself, my peers suddenly seem attractive too and I no longer am quite so anxiously looking for attention and reassurance. I currently work with a lovely boss with whom I have a great relationship of mutual respect with no sexual overtones whatsoever and it’s great.

I’m still single, however...

I am female, straight and had a huge crush on my female manager/mentor in my first professional workplace. No sexual element to it, but to me she was quite literally surrounded by a golden glow. . It eventually died away.

A few years later I had counselling for unrelated reasons and the counsellor said that when we feel like that about someone it is often because we want something of their characteristics for ourselves.

Yes, that too. I sometimes found it helpful to try to think rationally about my crushes and try to see what it is about them that I admire and whether I can learn from their behaviour in my own career.