I’m trying to build professional relationships at work but it keeps turning weird
I 24(F) have been working at this corporate company for almost 8 months now. I’m still early in my career and really wanted to prioritize networking. I’m normally introverted but have pushed myself to meet new people outside of my team and try to upkeep those relationship.
This looks like either stopping by their desk or running into them while walking around the office. Our conversations are the typical office chit chat of talking about nothing. I ask about how heavy their day is with meetings or ramble off about some random subject (ex. office bake club, sports, tv shows, etc…)
One of the people I would chat with regularly is M(21). We met on the first day of the job and I felt chill talking to him since we are both in relationships. A few weeks ago he invited me to watch a soccer game with him and some other colleagues after work. It was all going good till another colleague made a strange comment saying they knew that there was “something going on between us.” This really caught me off guard and I immediately said ”nahh” and mentioned my boyfriend. I was really bothered by this because I always thought our interactions were very platonic. I decided not to make it into a big deal and just tried to move on.
The next week M(21) invited me to go out with more colleagues to a soccer game after work. I said yes because I thought that meant things weren’t weird from the comment. I go to the game and I could feel the colleague that made the strange comment just watching us interact. I started to feel uncomfortable so I spent most of the night talking to someone else in the group. At the end of the night everyone broke off to their cars, so it was just M(21) walking together. He offered to walk with me or give me a ride to my car since the city we live in is sketchy. In the car I could feel the awkwardness radiating off from him so I was talking about my lunch plans I have with another colleague the next day to ease the tension. He abruptly stopped the car and was like okay bye in the middle of me talking. Then did like an awkward thumbs up? It was just realllly weird.
I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to go to this because I thought it was a good opportunity to network / make connections with other people in different departments. However, after this total fail of an attempt I decided it would probably be best to distance myself a little. I didn’t want to make it even weirded by just stop talking to them M(21) completely.
So there was a big work trip/ event M(21) went to the following week. I simply messaged them on teams and wished them luck with their presentation. We briefly chatted about the work event and things seemed normal? I went on PTO for a week after that, but saw their LinkedIn post about the event. I hype up all my coworkers LinkedIn post and left a generic comment saying like “Amazing work on the presentation.”
Then I returned from PTO and messaged them on teams to see if they were in the office. I said “I need a debrief of how the event was!!” and this was their response:
“The Linkedin post & not much more than that. I'll be in the office but I want to keep any personal conversations to a minimum going forward as coworkers. Thanks!”
I’m guessing their girlfriend maybe saw my comment and did not like it or something? IDK. I’m a very jealous girl as well so I can respect the boundary, but things in the office are so awkward now. I ran into him shortly after this and I just felt so uncomfortable like I did something wrong. We gave a brief normal smile and wave before my other coworker came in to save me.
I’m just really frustrated because this isn’t the first uncomfortable situation that has come from my attempt to “network.” I don’t understand what I am doing wrong and it’s really turning me off from speaking to anyone at work. Like we are in a professional setting I am confused why everyone’s mind keeps going to romantic interest or involvement if we have a handful of small talk conversations??