SHOCK! Does my married male friend have feelings for me?!

[stoopidgirl]

Duh its Stoopidgirl again with another possible no-brainer.. what do you think?

 

I met this guy at work. When I first met him I felt very attracted and suspect it was mutual. But I immediately put the thought out of my mind because he is married and he is such a nice guy I would never expect him to cheat. Also he has shown me photos of his wife and says he loves her. And a mutual friend tells me at his stag party he adamantly refused to go into a strip bar etc for fear of cheating on his now wife....not a cheater right?

 

So with that "safe" background, over the past couple of months we have become close friends. We get coffee together, share little private jokes and chats, email and text each other and spend time togeher with just the two of us etc. He helped me loads at work and always is very flattering to me, about my work, my life, says I look pretty or hot when I was dressed up to go out on a date one time. We have gotten quite close and told each other really personal stuff. I know other people in the office have noticed our close friendship and I wondered if they thought we were more than friends but I just dimissed that thought in my mind as ridiculous. It never crossed my mind that he was anything other than just my friend. I just thought of him as like a lovely gay friend, except straight and in love with his wife.

 

But a couple of things aren't quite right. Like he is only newly married 6 months ago but he talks like he has been married to his wife for years (to be fair they did date for years). He prefers to go out with his friends partying most nights rather than being home with her. And he has told me he didn't want to get married, but he married her because she wanted to and he wanted to please her. When I mentioned going overseas next year he tried to talk me out of it. He noticed when no-one else did that I had a bit of a harmless tiny crush on my married boss...(would never go there). In the context of discussing it he looked at me strangely and asked "would you ever have an affair with a married man?" I thought he was talking about my boss and I just laughed and said of course not. But my gut feeling was that it wasn't quite right? But what really has made me wonder if this - I recently got together with his single best friend and he has been uncharacteristically funny with me and a bit mean about him, as if he is hurt? But when I asked if anything was wrong he said no.

 

Maybe maybe maybe I am reading waaaay too much into things. But can I ask him about this? I'm scared it would jeopardise the friendship no matter what the outcome. I would never steal a married man so if he does have feelings for me I would have to stop being friends with him. And if he doesn't have feelings for me he might think twice about hanging out with me? But I also feel the curiosity is hanging over me and its going to drive me crazy! And I feel so dumb for not putting anything togeher before now and potentially being SO naieve. Agh!!!

 

Thoughts please.... thanks guys!!!

[soconfused01]

there's not much you can do without bringing some wierdness into your friendship. if he wants to have an affair with you, he'll bring it up. I would just wait for that to happen if it happens.

 

but I would not get drunk with him

 

EVER

[amymarieca]

DON"T be one of those women, ever, and you know who I am talking about. I saw your previous post about this and really think you need to stop meddling in someone else's marriage. It is really not your place. Just drop it. Period.

[norajane]

Shut down your curiosity, and do not bring this up.

 

You lose either way if you do. If he's not interested in you, then you'd make things awkward between you at work. Since he knows you have a crush on your married boss, his funny look may have been wondering whether you might have a crush on him as well, if that's why you are so close with him, or if it's really just friendly behavior that you're engaging in with him.

 

If he is interested, bringing it out into the open makes it that much more likely that one of you will get stupid and try to do something, like kiss during one of those evenings you are out drinking with your co-workers. Once the cat is out of the bag, you can't put it back in.

 

Since you are concerned, take steps to head off any potential discussion or action here. Back off all these personal discussions about his wife and his marriage. Don't have those kinds of discussions with any married men. Stop wondering about his personal life and why he goes out in the evenings instead of going home - for all you know, his wife may be out at her own work events or the gym or whatever, so he doesn't want be home alone. Stop speculating. That's not helping your curiosity - it's feeding it.

 

You're dating his friend, you work together, and you're getting too personal with him. Do not make the mistake of discussing what he thinks of you.