INTP coworker spent months pursuing my attention even though we can’t have a future together
Hey all. This isn’t my first time posting here, I posted a few months ago asking about the same coworker:
https://www.reddit.com/r/INTPrelationshipLab/s/hXTGquaWAT
He is 31M INTP and I am 22F INFJ.
Since my last post, we’ve gotten much more comfortable with each other and banter constantly. We text a little both during and outside work, usually accusing each other of being lazy, dumb, having no life, etc. We remember oddly specific things the other person has said and constantly make callbacks to old jokes.
We also notice each other’s absence. Sometimes one of us will ask where the other is when we haven’t seen each other, only to immediately disguise the tiny bit of affection with an insult.
Despite that, we actually know surprisingly little about each other’s private lives. We had maybe 2–3 deeper conversations months ago, including one about religion, values, and friendship, but otherwise there hasn’t been much vulnerable disclosure. Our workplace makes that difficult since it’s usually full of people, and those deeper conversations happened during very rare periods when we were alone in the building.
When we pass each other at work, we almost never simply walk by. We’ll stop what we’re doing, make eye contact, smile/laugh, or say something to each other.
There’s also this weird nervousness when we’re alone. Sometimes he will literally text asking where I am, come find me, throw out one mediocre insult, and then go right back to his work room. I can’t even say I’m any better. Once he followed me to the break room while I got water. After the work conversation ended, we were standing across the room silently making eye contact, and I suddenly realized I had absolutely nothing work-related left to say. My hand started trembling slightly while holding the cup, so I put it down and silently left. lol.
In some cases when we are interacting in a group of people, he singles me out a lot to tease me and sometimes basically shoves me into the middle of the conversation even if I didn’t necessarily want that, as a shy person lol. When others are talking to each other, I notice him looking at me instead. He’s even waved his hand near my face before (few times) when I was deliberately refusing to look at him or focused on something else.
We’re slightly bolder over text. Once I asked when he’d be switched back to my morning shift and he immediately replied, “Why, do you miss me?” Another time he claimed to be completely indifferent to my existence, and I replied, “Then I don’t think you’d put as much effort into replying and engaging with me as you do.” He replied with: “Touché.”
He also sought me out long before I was reciprocating much. Months ago, before he had really even registered to me as someone I was interested in, he repeatedly came into my work area to ask questions/start conversations. Sometimes he would go noticeably out of his way to find me in parts of the building where he had no reason to be, and it honestly had a social cost for him to be seen there with me. I was extremely reserved then and barely gave him anything back. He had to very slowly build the rapport we have now.
More recently, I gave him a birthday gift that was strangely intimate for our relationship: a memento mori calendar, where you mark off the weeks of your life as a reminder that your time is finite. It’s something meaningful to me, but naturally I disguised the sentimentality by telling him I hoped it would “bum him out” among other morbid jokes, lol. I was visibly nervous giving it to him though, and he seemed genuinely touched.
Later I also randomly gave him a tiny derpy-looking crochet turtle. He was extremely confused about why I was giving it to him, but accepted it. When he joked that he would “gift it to some girl,” I later texted him telling him he wasn’t allowed to regift it because it violated “the turtle code.” He replied, “Oh my God. I apologize commander 🥹.”
It was something that happened recently that really threw me off. During a conversation about the calendar, he said he definitely wanted to be alive in the near future, because he is getting married in about five months.
I was shocked and he began explaining something involving a religious ceremony (he is Indian and possibly an arranged marriage, although I am not sure, and he has said before he is far removed from his culture and religion, as he considers himself an atheist).
He didn’t finish explaining because he was interrupted by someone walking in.
I’m pretty sure my reaction showed. I became extremely subdued afterward. His usual attempts to poke me barely got a smile, and for the rest of that day I was noticeably different around him. I wasn’t doing this on purpose, just trying to keep my external reaction composed.
What confuses me is that he didn’t back off afterward… it has been a few days, and he still seeks me out repeatedly. He visits my work area several times a day, completely unnecessarily mind you, to roast me with whatever mediocre insults he can make up . He still asks where I am. Recently he came into my area three times within about an hour even though I was mostly serious, work-focused, and barely giving him anything back.
I’ve gradually returned to normal because I don’t resent him and genuinely want to respect his marriage.
I also find it very hard to believe he hasn’t picked up on my attachment by now. He has seen me become flustered, shy, nervous and giggly around him, avoid eye contact, look disappointed when interactions end, give him two personal little gifts, etc. My affection tends to leak out even though I usually hide it under deadpan humor and mock hostility. At other times my social battery is dead and I respond to him like he’s a hot-dog vendor who wandered into the control room and started bothering me, and yet it’s still clear that I want him there.
My time at the company ends in one week, and he knows the exact date.
Before learning about the marriage, part of me had genuinely wondered whether all of this was building toward one of us finally acknowledging the obvious tension, or whether he might ask to see me outside work once I left, or if our relationship could turn into something romantic. I no longer expect that.
So my question for other INTPs is: why would an INTP invest this much social energy into building a very specific relationship with someone, especially starting months before she was giving much back, if he already knew there probably wasn’t a future available? I understand that attraction doesn’t necessarily equal intention. I’m not asking whether he’s secretly going to abandon his marriage for me. I’m more curious about the psychology of repeatedly seeking someone out, working hard to get their attention, letting the relationship become emotionally charged/flirty, and continuing to seek them out even when their departure is imminent and the relationship seemingly has nowhere to go.
Please let me know your thoughts.