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Its sad and verging on creepy for some of you
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this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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chapotraphouse
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To elaborate for those who are going to "but ackshwally," yes there's some nuance.
If you're in a very large org with different departments, that's different as long as there's not power dynamics. So if you're sales and they're part of quality assurance, ok, fine. Be normal ask them out and move on. Don't carry a torch, that's the one way to really make what could otherwise be a very normal interaction weird.
Don't date your boss, don't date your subordinate, don't date your peers in your part of the office. If you absolutely have to, then BE NORMAL and just ask them out to get over it quickly and remember that the longer and weirder you make it the more likely you could lose your job in a worst case.
You're not Jim and Pam in some slow burn romance. Crushes are for people under the age of 18 (in which case, all the not having sex with coworkers goes out the window if it's not a real job. The amount of kids who hooked up at the pizza place I worked at... It was high).
To spell it out: you're going to have to maintain a professional relationship with this person if they're not interested OR if you break up. Is it worth it? There are probably many people out there you're compatible with. Work crushes are inappropriate, especially since they can't just leave (like, say, some person you hit on in a bar or something). They aren't there for romance either, they're there to work.
P.S. I speak from the fact that I'm at least somewhat socially awkward and the very thought of having to see someone who rejected me or dumped me daily was so crushing I fully embraced don't shit where you eat mindset. There have been a few coworkers I found attractive, but I never carried a torch or crushed on them since I would never be able to act on it.
It's not ableism. Autism doesn't give license to act in a way that makes coworkers uncomfortable. I guess I could use more careful language comrade but I'm sorry, I'm not gonna sanction acting like a creep because you're autistic. Either ask someone out or find a dating pool where pining and stuff like that is acceptable. It's not work and it's not your org. Be professional.
I'll say tho, sorry for the "Be normal" - I recognize that normalcy is contingent, but in the workplace being normal is about respect to your fellow worker. If you build up this relationship for months in your mind, the denouement is likely going to be toxic. While there's places that can be fine, in a workplace you're putting your coworker in a position where she/he has to decide if they want to keep seeing the person who has been carrying a torch for them every day or not. Yes there's HR to smooth things over sometimes, but I think it's still just unfair to you and the other person if you involve them in a long and twisty psychic obsession at a place they need to work at to pay rent, etc. we don't live in communism where they can just get easily reassigned.
this also isn't universal. i know plenty of femme peeps who dislike being asked out cold by people they barely know, it makes it feel like they can't just Exist and that interest in them is purely based on physical attraction (because again, they hardly know the person), it feels closer to a boundary cross/sex pesty behavior than starting as friends in a low-to-no pressure way for them. different people are - shocker - different!! i'd also argue it's actually less appropriate in the workplace or in organizing because it gives the impression that the ask-outer is just there for that, and particularly in the latter space femmes really do struggle to feel like they can just exist as serious participants.
also completely out of the question for, say, demisexual people as well, simply not how they're wired.
It takes time and genuine chemistry to build up to the asking out part. Doing it purely based on looks is shallow and a sign you’ll burn out fast.
I actually agree on this point. Just flat asking someone out out of the blue can be just as creepy
Workplaces aside, sometimes you feel a bit of a something for someone and it's not the right call to make a move. If it's destroying you, you obviously have to get some space, but if not sometimes it just makes sense to ride it out. If you accept it, it can be kind of a sweet thing, and sometimes it can settle into a nice sort of platonic attraction.
To me, a crush requires a certain element of self-destruction that other kinds of attraction don't. A crush is also very selfish, it kind of objectifies the other person, and doesn't make them an active part of the relationship building process. I have friends to whom i'm attracted to/admire greatly, but at the same time wouldn't want to actually be in a relationship with, and I just try not to make my attraction everything about interacting with this person, there's the shaky ground imo. I've had some pretty bad crushes, and it ends up pretty badly for both of us, often with the relationship being poisoned by me allowing it to go unchecked.
Then, if you're using crush in a much more lighthearted way like some of my queer friends do, all power to you. Be histrionic and express your love/adoration as loud as you want and to the degree others consent to.
the thing is i think for most people a crush just means they feel a romantic attraction to someone to varying degrees, most people do not think about the word that deeply or have such negative connotations to it. that's not to say it's wrong to have a different internal definition of a word but you are maybe universalizing something that the good majority of people conceptualize differently.
It might be something the people I grew up around did, and plus that I'm translating a very local word for crush with a whole set of connotations into English, which isn't my first language. You're right, thanks!
I'm probably more in that latter camp, despite a contentious relationship with my queer identity. "Crush" in my circles doesn't really have quite as much of a negative connotation but more of an innocent one. A crush is usually new because it's an unstable position to be in - you either make the move or have to move on eventually.
I'm poly and pretty sympathetic to relationship anarchy, and I find the straight, monogamous conceptions that dominate our culture very difficult to interface with. It took me a while to put my finger on the reasons that romance in media (films, books, especially songs) very, very rarely tugs on any of my heartstrings.
Thanks for articulating this. Yeah just thinking someone is attractive is not a crush.
I dated an autistic coworker and while the relationship didn't work out afterwards things worked out just fine, so I'm giving everyone permission to take a chance on love at the workplace here. Absolutely nothing bad can happen, actually.