u/FarAcanthocephala859

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I genuinely need advice because I’m very confused about my feelings and what to do with them.

I’m a 27F doing my master’s at a research institute. There’s a PhD guy in my office (let’s call him F). We share an office with around 6 other people.

For context, I’ve dated before, but looking back I don’t think I ever experienced genuine emotional attraction or compatibility with the people I was with. Most of my past relationships were shaped more by people-pleasing and emotional attachment than real connection.

Now here’s the situation.

F and I have known each other for around 2 years. During most of that time, neither of us was single, and I never thought of him romantically. We had casual office conversations, and I’d sometimes bring homemade healthy snacks and share them with him, but nothing emotionally significant.

Then about a year ago, his best friend (S) joined our research center. I’m not completely sure, but I think S was interested in me. He’d ask me to go smoke together, start casual conversations, etc. I kept talking to him at first, but eventually realized we were on very different maturity levels. He felt emotionally immature, loud, and later I also noticed he talked about women in ways that really turned me off.

Around that same period, I got a serious back injury that completely flipped my life upside down. I was bedridden for 2 months and mentally devastated. Both F and S reached out to check on me, but I isolated myself completely and ignored almost everyone from school because I was overwhelmed and in denial about my health situation.

When I eventually returned, I apologized and explained what happened. Shortly after that, I disappeared again for a week because I still wasn’t doing well, and S reached out and invited me to his home for tea. I politely declined, and after that I slowly started distancing myself from him more and more.

And somewhere during all this, I accidentally started developing feelings for F.

The weird thing is that I genuinely think seeing the contrast between S and F is what triggered it. The more immature and chaotic S seemed, the more my brain suddenly noticed how grounded, emotionally intelligent, calm, self-aware, balanced, and safe F felt.

At first I didn’t even realize what was happening. Then I started getting nervous around F, forgetting words while talking to him, replaying conversations in my head, and becoming deeply interested in his thoughts and perspectives.

Talking to him feels effortless even though I’m generally socially anxious. He has this calm, emotionally mature energy that doesn’t feel performative at all. He just feels very settled within himself.

Now it’s been around 8 months, and my feelings have only gotten stronger.

The problem is that because S is his best friend, I became hyper-aware of the whole situation. I started avoiding interacting with F whenever S was around because I didn’t want things to look weird after distancing myself from S. Over time this made my interactions with F less frequent, even though I still see him almost every day.

And honestly, I think I accidentally created the impression that I’m uninterested.

Meanwhile internally I’m losing my mind. Every interaction with F becomes the highlight of my week. When he talks in the office, I can barely focus on my work because I just enjoy listening to him. If he mentions a topic he’s interested in, I start researching it later because it makes me feel closer to him somehow.

One month ago during Ramadan, we were talking and he casually mentioned that he’s interested in a girl who seems religious, and that he was waiting for Ramadan to end before talking to her. That completely crushed me. But at the same time, I realized I’ve never actually shown him any romantic interest. I always talked to him in a very neutral “bro” way.

Now I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Part of me wants to tell him how I feel because this is honestly the first time in my life I’ve felt deeply and authentically attracted to someone. He makes sense to both my brain and heart in a way I’ve never experienced before.

But I’m terrified.

What if he’s already with that girl?

What if he never saw me that way?

What if he thinks it’s weird because of S?

What if my distancing made him think I don’t value him?

What if I completely misread everything?

Now I genuinely don’t know how to handle this situation in a healthy and mature way.

I can’t tell whether I’ve accidentally hidden my feelings so well that he genuinely thinks I’m uninterested, or whether I’m romantically idealizing someone who only sees me platonically.

How would you approach this situation if you were in my place? How can I naturally show interest and create space for something to develop without making things awkward considering the situation with his best friend and our shared office environment?

​

I genuinely need advice because I’m very confused about my feelings and what to do with them.

I’m a 27F doing my master’s at a research institute. There’s a PhD guy in my office (let’s call him F). We share an office with around 6 other people.

For context, I’ve dated before, but looking back I don’t think I ever experienced genuine emotional attraction or compatibility with the people I was with. Most of my past relationships were shaped more by people-pleasing and emotional attachment than real connection.

Now here’s the situation.

F and I have known each other for around 2 years. During most of that time, neither of us was single, and I never thought of him romantically. We had casual office conversations, and I’d sometimes bring homemade healthy snacks and share them with him, but nothing emotionally significant.

Then about a year ago, his best friend (S) joined our research center. I’m not completely sure, but I think S was interested in me. He’d ask me to go smoke together, start casual conversations, etc. I kept talking to him at first, but eventually realized we were on very different maturity levels. He felt emotionally immature, loud, and later I also noticed he talked about women in ways that really turned me off.

Around that same period, I got a serious back injury that completely flipped my life upside down. I was bedridden for 2 months and mentally devastated. Both F and S reached out to check on me, but I isolated myself completely and ignored almost everyone from school because I was overwhelmed and in denial about my health situation.

When I eventually returned, I apologized and explained what happened. Shortly after that, I disappeared again for a week because I still wasn’t doing well, and S reached out and invited me to his home for tea. I politely declined, and after that I slowly started distancing myself from him more and more.

And somewhere during all this, I accidentally started developing feelings for F.

The weird thing is that I genuinely think seeing the contrast between S and F is what triggered it. The more immature and chaotic S seemed, the more my brain suddenly noticed how grounded, emotionally intelligent, calm, self-aware, balanced, and safe F felt.

At first I didn’t even realize what was happening. Then I started getting nervous around F, forgetting words while talking to him, replaying conversations in my head, and becoming deeply interested in his thoughts and perspectives.

Talking to him feels effortless even though I’m generally socially anxious. He has this calm, emotionally mature energy that doesn’t feel performative at all. He just feels very settled within himself.

Now it’s been around 8 months, and my feelings have only gotten stronger.

The problem is that because S is his best friend, I became hyper-aware of the whole situation. I started avoiding interacting with F whenever S was around because I didn’t want things to look weird after distancing myself from S. Over time this made my interactions with F less frequent, even though I still see him almost every day.

And honestly, I think I accidentally created the impression that I’m uninterested.

Meanwhile internally I’m losing my mind. Every interaction with F becomes the highlight of my week. When he talks in the office, I can barely focus on my work because I just enjoy listening to him. If he mentions a topic he’s interested in, I start researching it later because it makes me feel closer to him somehow.

One month ago during Ramadan, we were talking and he casually mentioned that he’s interested in a girl who seems religious, and that he was waiting for Ramadan to end before talking to her. That completely crushed me. But at the same time, I realized I’ve never actually shown him any romantic interest. I always talked to him in a very neutral “bro” way.

Now I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Part of me wants to tell him how I feel because this is honestly the first time in my life I’ve felt deeply and authentically attracted to someone. He makes sense to both my brain and heart in a way I’ve never experienced before.

But I’m terrified.

What if he’s already with that girl?

What if he never saw me that way?

What if he thinks it’s weird because of S?

What if my distancing made him think I don’t value him?

What if I completely misread everything?

Now I genuinely don’t know how to handle this situation in a healthy and mature way.

I can’t tell whether I’ve accidentally hidden my feelings so well that he genuinely thinks I’m uninterested, or whether I’m romantically idealizing someone who only sees me platonically.

How would you approach this situation if you were in my place? How can I naturally show interest and create space for something to develop without making things awkward considering the situation with his best friend and our shared office environment?

​

I genuinely need advice because I’m very confused about my feelings and what to do with them.

I’m a 27F doing my master’s at a research institute. There’s a PhD guy in my office (let’s call him F). We share an office with around 6 other people.

For context, I’ve dated before, but looking back I don’t think I ever experienced genuine emotional attraction or compatibility with the people I was with. Most of my past relationships were shaped more by people-pleasing and emotional attachment than real connection.

Now here’s the situation.

F and I have known each other for around 2 years. During most of that time, neither of us was single, and I never thought of him romantically. We had casual office conversations, and I’d sometimes bring homemade healthy snacks and share them with him, but nothing emotionally significant.

Then about a year ago, his best friend (S) joined our research center. I’m not completely sure, but I think S was interested in me. He’d ask me to go smoke together, start casual conversations, etc. I kept talking to him at first, but eventually realized we were on very different maturity levels. He felt emotionally immature, loud, and later I also noticed he talked about women in ways that really turned me off.

Around that same period, I got a serious back injury that completely flipped my life upside down. I was bedridden for 2 months and mentally devastated. Both F and S reached out to check on me, but I isolated myself completely and ignored almost everyone from school because I was overwhelmed and in denial about my health situation.

When I eventually returned, I apologized and explained what happened. Shortly after that, I disappeared again for a week because I still wasn’t doing well, and S reached out and invited me to his home for tea. I politely declined, and after that I slowly started distancing myself from him more and more.

And somewhere during all this, I accidentally started developing feelings for F.

The weird thing is that I genuinely think seeing the contrast between S and F is what triggered it. The more immature and chaotic S seemed, the more my brain suddenly noticed how grounded, emotionally intelligent, calm, self-aware, balanced, and safe F felt.

At first I didn’t even realize what was happening. Then I started getting nervous around F, forgetting words while talking to him, replaying conversations in my head, and becoming deeply interested in his thoughts and perspectives.

Talking to him feels effortless even though I’m generally socially anxious. He has this calm, emotionally mature energy that doesn’t feel performative at all. He just feels very settled within himself.

Now it’s been around 8 months, and my feelings have only gotten stronger.

The problem is that because S is his best friend, I became hyper-aware of the whole situation. I started avoiding interacting with F whenever S was around because I didn’t want things to look weird after distancing myself from S. Over time this made my interactions with F less frequent, even though I still see him almost every day.

And honestly, I think I accidentally created the impression that I’m uninterested.

Meanwhile internally I’m losing my mind. Every interaction with F becomes the highlight of my week. When he talks in the office, I can barely focus on my work because I just enjoy listening to him. If he mentions a topic he’s interested in, I start researching it later because it makes me feel closer to him somehow.

One month ago during Ramadan, we were talking and he casually mentioned that he’s interested in a girl who seems religious, and that he was waiting for Ramadan to end before talking to her. That completely crushed me. But at the same time, I realized I’ve never actually shown him any romantic interest. I always talked to him in a very neutral “bro” way.

Now I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Part of me wants to tell him how I feel because this is honestly the first time in my life I’ve felt deeply and authentically attracted to someone. He makes sense to both my brain and heart in a way I’ve never experienced before.

But I’m terrified.

What if he’s already with that girl?

What if he never saw me that way?

What if he thinks it’s weird because of S?

What if my distancing made him think I don’t value him?

What if I completely misread everything?

Now I genuinely don’t know how to handle this situation in a healthy and mature way.

I can’t tell whether I’ve accidentally hidden my feelings so well that he genuinely thinks I’m uninterested, or whether I’m romantically idealizing someone who only sees me platonically.

How would you approach this situation if you were in my place? How can I naturally show interest and create space for something to develop without making things awkward considering the situation with his best friend and our shared office environment?

Guys, i know there are tons of stories you have read here about people liking each other and dont know how to confess their feelings, but i am genuinly confused and don't know how to act based on my feelings. For context, i am a 27 YO f doing masters at a research institute. And there is this guy who is also doing phd at the same research institute as me and we are sharing the same office with me with other 6 people.

I just wanna give some background about me. I have been into a couple of relationships before but i never genuinly loved any of the guys i dated. I dated a guy for 3 years (my longest relationship, which ended one year ago) and i cared about his feelings more than loving him, and the reason is that, he was very ugly ( im genuinely sorry to say it but everyone has their reasons) and i tried to end the relationship in a kind way many times but he would always push me to keep dating him. And i know its not the right thing to do, but as a people pleaser at that time, i couldnt tell him my actual reason why i wanted to break up with him and ended up habing a relationship with him for three years. After 3 years, we were not able to walk things together as before so we broke up.

Now attention PLEASE!!

There is this guy (lets call him F) who is sharing the office with me. We used to have chats; general and random topics from time to time. And for 1.7 years i have never had any feelings towards him ( reasons: i was alreading in a relationship and he was also in a relationship. we used to have random chats that didnt carry any emotional weight or special meaning for me and i wasnt particularly attracted to his calm and grounded persona, but was more into intense, dramatic relationships). I was would always make healthy snacks and recipes and bring it over to the office and share some with him.

One year ago, his best friend (lets call him S) has joined our research center. Although i am not 100 percent sure of his feelings and intentions but he used to ask me to go for smoking together and approached me many times for casual chats etc, so i guess he was trying to see if we can work together. But honestly i realized that i am not into S as he was talking and thinking like teenagers and we were on different maturity levels but still i kept talking to him.

Plot twist!! After that i got a serious back injury and laid down in bed for 2 months and wasnt able to go to school. I was extremely mentally devastated by my injury and xouldnt accept nor tolerate the fact that my life got upside-down. Both F and his bestie S reached out to me and asked if i am doing well, but i was in a denial time from everything and life felt like a shitty place and just cut connection with everyone from school ( i know its kinda awkward but i was constantly terribly updated about my health situation and that i would not be able to recover for years and as a very active and sports person, my brain gave an error and couldnt process at all so i didnt want to talk to anyone, i just isolated myself for that time).so i didnt answer both of them.

Ater two months, i satarted doing a bit beter and started attending school aagin and i apologized for not replying to anyone and made it clear how mentally damaged i was. Soon after that i didnt feel well and stopped going to school for a week. thats when S reached out and asked if i am ok and invited me to his home to have tea together and i kindly rejected his offer and shortly after after that i realized how childish and immature this guy was and he was talking about girls in a dirty way and i dont wanna interact with him anymore. so i just started ignoring him, and i am sure that he was sharing everything with his friend F. So F knew that his frined was trying to work things out with me but didnt work ( the reason i am giving these details is that F might not have been into me coz he knew that his bestis S couldnt work things out with me and that he is respecting his friend enough not to like me).

Well after that, i started getting confused and forgetting words and thoughts every time i talk to F and soon i realized that i started developing feelings towards him. So u might be wondering how did i develop feelings towards a guy whom i knew for 2 years and not have had any feelings towards him before but soon after rejecting his best friend, i am into him. I guess when i saw how childish, immature and loud his friend was, my brain kinda sparked and guided me into F.

I then would have chats with F about deep topics and thats when i started listening to him more than i talk and started to analyze his thoughts and arguments and i saw a very balanced, self aware, grounded, emotionally intelligent, wise, and safe person. He is one of those people who are just very settled within themselves. And talking to him feels effortless although i am a very socially anxious peraon. He has this calm and wise energy. He is a mature in a very genuine way, not in a forced way.

I started getting attracted into his aurora and charisma. Now since then ( its been almost 8 months). I am genuinely into this guy and imagine that i see him everyday at the office but rarely interact with him and i tried to suppress my feelings towards him coz i already kinda rejected his bestie and i even started not greeting his bestie and getting mean to his bestie. I guess i am so good at mistreating myslef. So his bestie S is also at our office, thats why i would only go and chat with F if his bestie is not there which rarely happens, so our interactions got less with time. One month ago, i was talking to F and it was ramadan ( the month where muslims fast) and although both of us dont fast and we both are atheists, but he told me that he is waiting for ramadan to finish coz he is into a girl and she seems religious and he is gonna talk to her after ramadan which broke me, but one thing about me is that, i have never showed F any sign of interest and always talked to him like a bro. Now i am already interacting with him less and less due to his bestie always being around him ( his bestie started dating a girl btw and i always see him with her together) so maybe F thinks i am not into him and i dont appreciate him enough to chat with him as frequently as i used to have in the past. And as i told about F previously, he is a very balanced and grounded person, while i am a moody and not always grounded perosn. So i am not sure if he can gues sthe reason i am not approaching him is him always being with bis bestie and the only time i chat with him is when his bestie is not there. But honestly everytime i talk to F, iget butterflies in my stomach and brain and i keep replaying our conversations . Basically our conversation becomes the main theme of my week if i happen tk interact with him. I always overhear him chatting with his bestie in the office and whenever i hear him talking, i cant focus on my work and just feel like listening to him talking, and whatever he says, it becomes so important to me that i start searching about it and watching videos about it. Like he is into supplements too much and i am more of a clean organic healthy lifestyle perosn, but i always watch videos about supplements coz it feeds my curiosity towards him. Now, i think i am more into him than any time previously. I just feel like confessing to him about my emotions, but i am so afraid of him being with that girl, or not taking me seriously coz his bestie has been rejected by me or maybe i am not his type or he might think thati am acting weird with him. I just cant stop daydreaming about him. And i usually dont do good at expressing myself, i get overly anxious and start forgetting words. The reason i cant stop thinking abou him is that i have never actually been attracted to any guy that much before. All the guys i dated were random to me. This guy just makes so much sense to my brain and heart