Who TF do I work with
Okay so I (24f) have a coworker (23f) let’s call her Val. I met her a year ago, before that I had seen her around at work and I’d seen her looking at me but didn’t think twice about her. We got scheduled together and got to talking, turns out I know a ton of people from her highschool, and even had a similar bad experience with a girl there . I felt drawn to her immediately. We started talking all the time at work. Then she asked for my number. She started texting me and invited me out to meet her boyfriend. He told me how they met, at work, and she was dating someone else but he felt like she was flirting with him even though she had a boyfriend and that he felt like he was going crazy. He ended up asking f her out and making a move on her, and she reciprocated and cheated. She left her ex boyfriend for him. Val told me that she’s cheated on every partner she’s ever been with. Val started buying me snacks and Starbucks all the time at work. She would go out of her way to help me all the time when I didn’t even need it. She’d offer to buy me lunch for the smallest things. She had a parking pass for a lot with a shuttle, but after finding out I walked to work, she started paying to park in the garage by our job, and offering to drive me home everytime. When she’d drive me home we’d talk for 1-2 hours in her car. We cliques really well. Her and I got closer and I eventually revealed my dating history and that I had talked to women recently. I am a woman btw. I had a bad experience with a girl and asked Val what she would do in my shoes if she was talking to a guy and something similar happened. After that she says “guy? Who said I wasn’t into girls? I’m bisexual”. I didn’t think much of it. We started texting 24/7. I started to get a vibe that she was into me romantically. She was always giggling, twirling her hair and seemed nervous around me. One time when we hungout she was sitting next to me on the couch, she kept laughing into my shoulder, reached over my lap to grab things. Seemed flirtatious. She would always make comparisons between me and her boyfriend. But she also talked about him a lot, their issues, etc. she would slide up on my locket posts, of selfies of myself, with comments like: “you might be stuck at work but you look really pretty 😫” “ughh your tan brings out your eyes 😫 so prettyyyy” “jaw DROPPED 🥵” “body is teaaaa 😩” “so gorgeous 🥰” … for my birthday she got me this expensive gift and said meeting me was the highlight of her year. After me being gone for 10 minutes she would tell coworkers she missed me. She even got written up for abandoning her job post to hangout with me for an hour. At this point I genuinely couldn’t tell if she was super excited to have a good friend or if she was into me romantically. But I started liking the attention and felt attracted to her. But I also got super attached because I had lost a close friendship right before meeting Val, and the other girl and I would text 24/7 so I latched onto Val . Sometimes, Val would not respond though. It would make my nervous system go on high mode and stress out when she didn’t. I was almost addicted to her attention. It started to feel like she maybe only wanted to talk when it was convenient or when her boyfriend wasn’t around (purely a hypothesis). But I was so attached and was like, maybe I’m wrong and the friendship is platonic. I wanted to make a genuine friendship. However she had a bad reputation. People from her highschool stopped associating with her, she had taken three people at work to HR and all of them denied her claims being true, and a lot of people had said she treated them poorly. One coworker told me Val said “girls don’t like me because their boyfriends want me.” Also Val who I had known as a raging atheist started asking me questions about God and my faith (I am Christian) and asked to come to church with me. Then later that same week told another coworker she’d never go to church. Then Val started bailing on plans ALL the time. Group plans, one on one etc. it started really getting to me. At one point I had her on life 360 and she said she couldn’t come to something because she had her aunts memorial but Life360 said she was at home. I got a cancer diagnosis, and I texted her an update at like 10am one day, and she didn’t respond for an entire day despite obviously being on her phone because she was posting on social media. I texted her again telling her people were talking about her at work and suddenly she responded immediately. I got really upset. She apologized for bailing and not responding to me. After that, these things didn’t happen again. Things were better. But I still was addicted to her attention. I tried pulling away several times but would constantly get sucked back in. She also got upset with another coworker for not showing up to her birthday party, and decided to handle it by ignoring this girl to her face and never saying she had an issue. Then one day acted normal like nothing happened. She developed a crush on our male coworker let’s call him Randy, despite having a boyfriend still, and I noticed because she started offering to buy Randy lunch at work, like she had done for me. One day I asked her about it and she admitted it. She said she thought he was attractive and that he was down to earth, had similar music taste, and liked his views on life. They started texting all the time. Randy eventually picked up on her crush and asked me about it. I told Val, I felt like texting someone you have feelings for while in a relationship is cheating and she agreed, but then later denied ever liking Randy past a physical attraction. She said the other stuff she mentioned was how her and him “connected as friends”. I had caught her in many lies at this point. There was such a power struggle in my opinion because she seemed to like me, but still kept a boyfriend. I would ask myself “why does she like me but not enough to choose me?” And it was detrimental to my self esteem. But again, I was still hanging onto hope that maybe I’m wrong and that there’s potential for a strong platonic friendship. Because I do like talking/ hanging out with her. Also we have all the same friends at work so it is such an entangled situation. But one day she says “I just don’t have any friends past surface level that are deep connections. I guess I haven’t met the right friend.” This felt like a slap in the face and hurt me. Not only did o feel like she couldn’t choose me romantically, but not even platonically! After investing a year of time, talking to her everyday, telling her everything about my life, for her to indirectly call our connection “surface level” hit hard. At that point I asked myself, why am I choosing her? I committed to distancing myself to avoid drama. However, she picked up immediately and started freaking out to me and our mutual friends about it. So then I decided to have an honest conversation and tell her that I felt like her behavior felt flirty to me, and I was uncomfortable pursuing a close friendship anymore. She denied any romantic intent, even laughed when I said it, seemed shocked that I said this, put her hands on her head then, said she bought stuff for all her friends and even name dropped our mutual friend Patricia. I had talked to Patricia a month prior and asked her if Val had bought her stuff ever and Patricia gave me a hard no in response. So I knew that wasn’t true. Val said she parked in the garage to avoid riding the shuttle bus alone since her other friend had quit prior, then ended up meeting new friends to ride it with, which is why she stopped parking on the garage as soon as I didn’t need rides anymore. Convenient. She denied getting written up. She then said she felt horrible because I was proving to her she could have close friendships but she felt like she “messed it all up.” And was getting emotional. Then she says “I don’t agree with what you’re saying but I trust your insights, if you were to tell me you’re a dinosaur I would hear you out”… it felt like a dig. But she accepted my decision. Then she told mutual friends I “projected onto her acts of kindness of friendship” and l “humiliated her in public.” She also said I’m like Regina George. She then blocked me on all social media. Then she started asking my two closest friends T work to hangout and texting them all the time. I haven’t spoken to her since then but see her at work. Now, she’s asking our mutual friends to relay messages to me and asking how I’m doing…. Genuinely it’s such a mind fuck and I don’t know what’s real or not or if I’m going crazy or what, and if I made the right choice in cutting her off. Am I crazy??? was she not flirting with me??? Obsessed with me under the guise of friendship??? It’s so uncomfortable with our mutual friends now since we’re not speaking and I feel like I disrupted the peace. I need advice and insight.