I [27 M] asked out my coworker [24 F] while she was an intern and it has been an unmitigated disaster.

End of summer 2020: We had this intern join our engineering department at work. We each worked various different tasks but about 50% of both of our workloads involved working directly together as a duo. We met and we hit it off immediately. We had some very similar backgrounds that I felt we bonded over and it was common for us to spend hours a day just chatting and laughing about non-work related stuff. Keep in mind this was the first year of COVID and almost everybody was working from home, including her. So her interactions with others in the company were very limited and I think it would be accurate to say that I was her only friend at the company for a long time and it sometimes felt like I was a just personally a good friend of hers. I found her attractive but I never felt like I was into her until around the New Year.

Jan 2021: I really started to like her a lot more and I felt like there were signs that she might like me back. I was very unhappy with my role at work and a few opportunities in new departments started to open up. I thought a girl like her couldn't stay single for long so I wanted to act fast. I knew it would be unprofessional to ask her out while we both worked together, so I was kinda stuck until a new job opportunity materialized. I thought of an idea: I would ask her to be my Valentine. In my head, Valentine's Day isn't necessarily the most serious thing in the world; It could be just two friends hanging out for an afternoon. I figured that would be much less unprofessional. If she seemed interested, I would probably be leaving for a new department soon and maybe it could work out between us. If not, well - at least I gave it a shot.

I asked her to be my Valentine, gave her a box of chocolates, and she pressed me a bit about my intentions and I admitted that I really liked her a lot and wanted to be more than friends. This was not something I had planned to admit but in the moment, I did. I could tell she felt uncomfortable and I told her to get back to me when she felt ready to. Next day, she calls me and tells me she wants to keep things professional but doesn't definitively say no. Regardless, I decide to interpret her response to mean "No way in hell" because that's what her body language told me and I want to live with a definitive answer.

A couple of weeks of awkwardness go by and then we are right back to where we were before. Getting along fine, chatting, and laughing. She graduates in June and joins the team full-time. I'm still with the same group at this point. She invites me to be a part of certain extracurriculars she takes part in but I make excuses because I want her to expand her circle of colleagues/friends at work and do not want her to feel weird about this guy who was once into her still being around her even outside of regular job duties. We still seem to be on really good terms at this point.

She gradually becomes standoffish and by Nov/Dec 2021, I sense some really bad vibes. Before christmas break, I set up a meeting with her to discuss things that I could be doing better at work. She goes off on me about how inappropriate it was for me to ask her out, how she regrets not being more upfront in rejecting me, how she regrets giving me her number because I've been sending her stupid cat memes every once in a while, and how she felt like she lost her only ally at work. She also deflects some blame off of me by mentioning how the lack of diversity and females in the workplace has been a problem for her and I cannot reasonably be blamed for that making the situation worse. Regardless, I still felt like very shaken by this. I gave a sincere teary-eyed apology that I found difficult to even utter because we were both very emotional and asked what I could do to make things better. She accepted my apology gracefully. I ultimately asked if we could still be friends but it was a vehement no. She did apologize for that, stating that she is a very uptight person with trust issues, and is simply incapable of moving in the direction of being friends again. She remained rigid in her stance.

I've accepted her position but its really hard for me at this point to not beat myself up over making another person feel this way. She is somebody who I have the utmost respect for and once viewed as a true friend, one of my best friends even. And to think that I probably made her feel like she was just being befriended the whole time for a malicious motive, that I provided and uncomfortable work environment, that she bottled everything up for 10 months and pretended everything was fine, and I never once checked in on her to make sure things were right... that is something that I am finding hard to forgive myself for. I feel like a sexual harasser even though I know that I am not. I truly feel like a piece of crap even though I never felt I had bad intentions. I'm not sure if she'll ever see that but this guilt has caused me to be depressed for weeks. I am just now feeling a little bit better but I would like some input. How badly did I fuck up? I've left her alone since that situation and have only contacted her about work-related stuff, but deep down I still want to be friends someday. Is there any chance this could someday be salvaged? If not, I just want her to understand that I never had bad intentions.

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tl;dr: I asked out my coworker who I was very close with while she was an intern and she lost all trust in me. I provided an uncomfortable work environment for her and she bottled things up for 10 months. Now I feel like crap and want to know how badly I fucked up.

EDIT: If it means anything, I was also just one year removed from being an intern myself as well. That doesn't make what I did right but I think it helps explain why I never saw myself as much of a superior to her. We both had almost the same amount of work experience at that point.

Submitted January 26, 2022 at 07:34PM by Vondopoulos https://ift.tt/3o1OtSA