Dear Chechi:

I don’t agree that you are in a disadvantage for not having had a romantic relationship before (“since I never paid mind to  it when I was younger, I feel like I am at a disadvantage”). People often don’t get better at relationships with experience, over time. It is a good thing you focused on your career and purchased a home before getting into a relationship.

Now that you are ready, better operate wisely. In your job and as you purchased a home, you operated according to logic and reason, correct?

Don’t abandon the logic and reason that served you well so far. Romantic or love relationships are not about magic, really, something that just happens, and we have to let it happen because there is nothing we can do about such things… no,  we can operate logically and reasonably in this context  too, the context of love relationships.

You wrote that you blamed yourself for having feelings for your co worker- not logical, not reasonable! Since we don’t choose what we feel, because feelings just happen, it is not reasonable to blame ourselves for what we happen to feel.

What we do  have a choice about is what we do, not how we feel. So, what should you do regarding this “possible budding romance”- I say nothing. Because he told you he is not interested in anything serious and you are- this is a serious lack of compatibility.

If you get involved with him and “hope down the road he is ready to move forward with me”, you are inviting misery into your life, getting more attached to him and then wishing-and-hoping and trying, and getting discouraged, breaking up, missing him, trying again… and in all that misery you may not be able to do a good job and be able to pay the mortgage on the house you bought!

Better get into a relationship with a man who has the same goal as you do regarding the relationship, both being ready for something serious, not just you.

The feelings you feel  for  this guy, don’t worry, you can feel them later for another guy.

anita