Morning JHK,

Hope the rest of your day went well.

I’m not sure I understand what you are asking – it reads to me the same questions we have already discussed?

If it helps, this is where I think you are at.

You have developed a good friendship with this colleague at work, one where you became close and you helped her a lot with dealing with her last breakup. The friendship is mostly work-based with a lot of text/social media contact outside work, but not much meeting up by yourselves – correct?

At some point, about a year ago, you realised your feelings for her had developed into something more for her, something romantically inclined and not just friendship.  I assume what you call a crush means you would like to start to date her, become physically intimate with her, to evolve into a relationship if it went well.  However, as she was your good friend and your work colleague you felt these feelings were ‘wrong’ and tried to hide them for a while.

Then things get complicated when the two of you start discussing if you or her ‘have a crush’ on each other, by which I mean you are both trying to find out if the other likes you more than just a friend. From the conversations you have shared, I understand that you have confirmed your crush on her but she has said often she does not have a crush on you.

When your grandpa dies, you look to her for comfort, expecting her to be there for you. She is not. You have a big disagreement about this and the previous crush conversations, with your anger and disappointment in her coming out and you say some things you later regret.  You both eventually have a good conversation and clear the air on this, apologising to each other and accepting the apologies as honest, true.

The friendship carries on but becomes stagnant, mainly through multiple very frequent similar conversations. It does not feel as close as it has before to you. You do not accept the air has been cleared satisfactorily. You dig more and more and the conversations go from stagnant to draining, as they repeat heavy emotional based conversations.

This is the point you reach out for help on this website, as you notice she is becoming less and less responsive to your various ways of contacting her. You also want help understanding if she is interested in you as a romantic partner and what you should do about it.

We, and others, help you explore what has happened and through examining events as you share them with us, it seems clear that at this point in time, she is not interested in you romantically but does care about you as a good friend.  It is also clear that the friendship is being strained by the constant emotional contact/conversations, where you look for reassurance for your insecurities in the friendship.

She says clearly and correctly, “you do you, I’ll do me” – meaning as we have discussed a lot, you need to take care of your own emotional needs first. She is ok right now and does not need you to worry about her or your relationship. She wants you to focus on healing yourself from the loss of your grandpa and your own insecurities.

You begin to try this but find it very very difficult to not contact her with further emotion-based conversations. You are unable to accept or trust that the friendship is ok, feeling a need to continue to ask her, to reconfirm.  You have a strong tendency to over-analyse, creating issues where there are none currently.

And so this last is what the space is for, for you to get strength and heal, to focus on yourself. The space is emotional space only, in that it is not that you need to stop contacting her, it is that you need to change the communications. No communications where you are repeating of the old topics that you have both agreed are done and ok.  No stagnant or heavy conversations. This is why you need to do or read different things, so you can tell her about them – things that aren’t about your friendship or your hopes for a relationship.

Trust that helps for today. Take some time and think it over.

And no, I don’t think you are paranoid as such – just very over-anxious, especially about losing your friendship with this woman. By decreasing your emotional dependency on her, you will both be healthier/happier yourself as well as presenting yourself in a more positive light to her. All good.