My [17M] Coworker’s [40sF] daughter [14F] has a very bad crush on me and gets in the way of my work. Rumors got started about us and my boss took me to a 1 on 1 lunch to discuss it. I’m not sure how to proceed.

I work as a maintenance worker for an office building in a large city, my job is to work on the 8th floor. Her mom is a prominent person on the 8th floor and regularly brings her daughter with her. She usually doesn’t have anything to do and does things to kill time. She’s always hanging around me, asking if she can help, asking me personal questions, and pretending not to understand simple stuff so that I can “explain it to her”. Sometimes she follows me around, always fixing her hair and smiling at me in a way that clearly shows how she feels. She likes to show herself off and she’s been somewhat flirty at times, and it sometimes is over the top.

Things have gotten to the point that the head of maintenance took me to lunch so we could discuss “your relationship with her”. Turns out that the office rumor mill (what a horrible thing that is) got churning with stories about us and it became a building gossip discussion. She’s kinda cute, but she’s 3 years younger so I haven’t even considered her as a romantic option, and I don’t consider her a good match for me anyways. She’s a little too urban for me. I told him that it’s all her doing and I haven’t done anything to egg her on, and that we aren’t in a romantic relationship. At first he seemed doubtful, but eventually he understood, which is a good thing because I could have gotten in deep trouble had I not talked my way out of that.

I don’t want to ruin her dream, and I want to be very careful with the situation considering that her mother is in a higher position and she’s a family friend. I feel really bad for the girl and I’ve been hoping she would move on to someone else but she hasn’t stopped. Considering she’s never confessed to me I feel it would be even more awkward to call that out to her. I’m not sure what to do now because if I tell her or her mom it could get awkward for us, my job, and maybe my family.

TL;DR My coworker’s daughter (who is younger than me, and not a good match) has a raging crush on me and won’t admit it, and this causes problems for me in the workplace.

Edit: Wow. Didn’t expect this to gain traction so fast. I will say that I have slightly altered some minor details to protect my identity (and hers) in case someone found this, but nothing that would affect the advice I have been getting. Thanks for all of your comments and suggestions. I’m already scheduled for a week off next week (family vacation), so I’ll have plenty of time to formulate what I’m going to do and say, I’ll post an update next time I have a chance to talk to her.

Submitted June 01, 2019 at 06:16AM by cyclonetoast http://bit.ly/2EKqQri