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Old Oct 21, 2019, 10:01 PM
peacelizard peacelizard is offline
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Member Since: Oct 2014
Location: Boston, MA
Posts: 257
Quote:
Originally Posted by crisscross712 View Post
I'm a software developer in my mid 20s. There is a girl I became interested in a couple months ago. Some context needed, I have serious anxiety and depression that I've been getting a handle on through therapy and medication since my nervous breakdown two years ago. Her and I come in and leave at similar times and park in the same garage in the city. In addition to those mental issues, I'm a short guy and (in my opinion) not particularly good looking so I have self esteem issues as well. I am as far as can be from confident. I've had no serious romantic relationships in my life. I finally got up the nerve to actually talk to her one day and have had a couple awkward interactions but was still trying to be hopeful. I've also seen her at meetings and things. In my last therapy appointment, I said I was overly fixating on it but I wasn't doing anything to follow her or manipulate things to get close to her. I got called into hr yesterday. She wasn't accusing me of anything but my prescence was being to make her uncomfortable. I wasn't in trouble but they made it clear that i should try to avoid her. I'm going to be doing this but this experience has been humilating and I feel guilty that I made her feel this way. I was worried I might be making her uncomfortable but I thought I was just being paranoid. Now I can't trust those instincts that my negative feelings are unfounded. Yesterday was the most unsafe I've felt in a long time and I still feel crappy. I suck socially in general(I explained this and they seemed to understand) so now I'm going to keep the personal seperate from the professional. I couldn't say anything to the colleagues I'm close to but they can tell something is up. Same with my friends and family. I didn't consciously do anything wrong but I feel rotten, dirty, ashamed of myself and like something in me is broken. Maybe I'm bad, like the harrasers you hear about being exposed on the news and who I always thought I was better than. Maybe I just deserve to be alone. HR made it clear that I wasn't in trouble but they told my boss and idk what his reaction will be. I've finally started to feel good about this job after a year and a half there and I can't bear to lose the one thing in my life I feel I'm good at.
First of all, as someone who's been there and done that, don't dip your pen in the company ink. Even when things develop into a relationship, the odds are not in your favor that they'll end happily ever after, nevermind end amicably.

You may have made her a little uncomfortable, but ultimately I think you're too hard on yourself. Assuming you head HR's advice, I think you can write this off as unintentional harm and hopefully you can try to work on this. Maybe talk to your therapist about working on social skills. Maybe try to work on them in general as opposed to strictly for dating purposes; attend a few Meetup groups to work on those skills.
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