The Hot Girl From Work Seems Interested But She Lives With Her Boyfriend

What you should focus on when a female co-worker likes you but is taken.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who has noticed that his hot female co-worker seems to be interested in him. However, she lives with her boyfriend and he’s now her boss after a recent promotion. He’s trying not to get attached but already is. She once invited him to play pickle ball but canceled.

He is tortured having to see and work with her everyday. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

Well, that just seems to be the way things go.

So this is going to happen. If you’re going to work in the corporate world long enough, you’re going to work with other people, especially women, attractive women, remember, like attracts like. People that like the same things tend to like each other. So chemistry and interest is going to happen, but you find out she’s married, she lives with her boyfriend, like in this case.

So these guys work together in a medical facility. I think they’re like treatment and addiction and things of that nature. They literally sit next to each other, look at each other, and talk to each other all day long. Obviously there’s chemistry between the two of them. At one point she invited him to play pickle-ball because she knows he likes to play pickle-ball. Then she canceled because I would imagine she felt guilty because at the end of the day, she has a boyfriend. So she’s trying to control herself and her feelings. This guy is single, and he’s dating other women. He was recently on a date and hooked up with another girl. So obviously in the middle of having sex, he was thinking about her. I guess recently he also just got a promotion. So now he’s her boss, but the chemistry’s there. At the end of the day, she lives with her boyfriend.

So again, these things are going to happen. As a man, you’re just going to learn to have to deal with it. You have to focus and remember that you want somebody that’s ready, willing, able and open to dating. This is just kind of the way life tends to work. These things come along, and if you’re not careful, you can get hung up on somebody like this that you work with in hopes that eventually, because oftentimes what you hear is you get to know each other, you get close, and she complains about her boyfriend or her husband, how things aren’t going well. Then you think, “Oh well, maybe she’s going to break up with him and I’m going to get my shot.” Then what that does is it takes you out of the game. It takes you away from even looking or being open to other women who are ready, willing, able and open to dating you.

So it really is being disciplined, exercising self-control, just being rational about it, and looking at it and going, “There’s nothing I can do about this situation. I can enjoy your company,” but at the end of the day, flirting with her, especially in the corporate world, is not a good idea. It’s not a good idea to start gushing about it and talking about your feelings, especially if you’re single and she’s in a relationship, because you never know. She might decide to go to HR and report you. Just after the Me Too era, all women get believed and you basically get thrown out on your ass. You’re unemployed. She continues working there.

There are some things that you can do. A mindset that will help you, that I’ll go into as I go throughout this. In life, as I talk about in my second book, Mastering Yourself, something from the coaching profession is you got to control the controllables. At this point, if you’re in a situation like this, or you in the future, find yourself in a situation like this, the only thing you can really control is what it means to you and how you respond. If you’re a man of honor and character, you just recognize that if she cheats on him, she’s going to cheat on you eventually. I mean, that’s a 95% certainty that any relationship that comes from cheating usually ends in cheating.

I would suspect the reason why she backed out of pickle-ball is because she felt guilty and realized it wasn’t right. Or who knows? Maybe she told the boyfriend about that she’s gonna play pickle-ball with one of her male co-workers, and he probably said, “That’s not OK.” It’d be different if we’re like doing doubles, like me and you against him and whoever he’s dating or whatever, but just you and him alone, that’s kind of inappropriate. At the end of the day, for whatever reason, she didn’t meet up with him, which that is a good sign of character, whether it was her or her going home and confessing that to her boyfriend. He said, “No, that’s not good. I don’t want you doing that.” We don’t really know and you never really could know, and you shouldn’t ask either.

Viewer Email:

Hi Corey,

I have a question regarding a developing situation at work. I am a 34-year-old clinical director at a facility and I have developed an attraction to my co-manager. I always thought she was pretty and nice, but over the course of the last 5-6 months her behavior has caught my attention. She does a lot of classic things women do when they like you. Asks personal questions, tries to be near me, conversations linger on, extended eye contact, moments of warmth and connection, doing handstands in the office in front of me, telling me she loves talking to me.

Well, is she touching you? Bumping into you? Playing with her hair? Exposing her neck? All the other signs that are in the book? Because if she’s not doing those things, then you may just be getting all wrapped up in your desire. Remember, when we get hung up on somebody that’s unavailable, it’s a way to avoid a relationship. Especially if you have the mindset or the belief that I used to when I was younger, was that it always seems like the girls I wanted didn’t want me, and the girls I didn’t care about were all over me, or anytime I wanted somebody, they were unavailable, they were taken, or whatever it happens to be. So when you believe that, you’ll allow yourself to get caught up in things like this that just completely takes you out of the dating game, which fortunately for this guy, he’s not doing. He is dating other women, but it makes it really hard when you have so much chemistry and connection. Plus, you work with her.

I mean, at the end of the day, if you think about it, you spend more time with your co-workers than pretty much anybody in your family when you’re working 40, 60 hours a week, whatever happens to be. You’re not spending that much time around your girlfriend, your kids, your wife, your family. You spend it with your co-workers. So that makes it really hard and you got to exercise self control.

She walks out of the building with me everyday. One time she waited 45 extra minutes for me to leave.

That definitely seems like interest there, because nobody in their right mind is going to do that unless there’s something really important, work related, she’s got to talk to you about.

She noticed when a consultant was giving me the googly eyes and said, “Oh, she loves you!” She has since said unkind things about this woman’s appearance.

Well, at the end of the day, whether it’s a consultant or some kind of account executive that’s coming into your office, you should give your time and attention to women that are single and ready to mingle. Not the hot girl in the office who lives with her boyfriend, because if she’s really, deep down, unhappy with the boyfriend and you can control yourself and you give your attention to other women, even if she complains about it, say, “Well, you’re in a relationship. You live with your boyfriend. So that’s the way life is. If you were single, then that’d be a different situation, but it’s not.”

So the more she sees you talking to and giving attention to other women in the office, consultants, women in public, whatever happens to be, or she overhears about something you did over the weekend Involving one of your dates or whatever, at the end of the day, if she has a fear of losing you and she really is unhappy and miserable in a relationship, she’ll blow that relationship up and become single. If you make the mistake of getting hung up on her and waiting for her to become single, where you guys hang out and you go to lunch, you go to drinks, but nothing can really happen, maybe she’ll kiss you or make out a little bit, that’s another way you get kind of hung up and you become part of her Frankenstein Boyfriend project. She hangs out and goes on dates, day time dates when she’s away from her boyfriend or her husband or whatever. So you’re fulfilling that emotional and mental need that the boyfriend or husband is not. So you don’t want to get into those situations. That’s why it’s better to keep it professional. Doesn’t mean be rude or cold or ignore her. It just means give the majority of your attention to other women.

At the end of the day, competition has an amazing effect on women, especially if she really likes you, has developed a crush, she’s really unhappy and she starts to fear and worry that you’re going to meet somebody else and ride off into the sunset with them. It’ll cause her to resolve that situation, test the shit out of whoever the guy is that she’s with, he’ll flail, which will turn her off and make it easier for her to dump him. Then once she dumps him, she’ll let you know that she’s single and available, but the more you hang around and give her your attention, you make it easy for her to stay in the relationship and keep you around as part of the Frankenstein Boyfriend project. You just got to mentally control yourself to the point that you’re just not going to give extra attention to her that she hasn’t earned.

At the end of the day, she’s somebody else’s girl and they live together. You don’t want to be a home wrecker, and you don’t want to encourage that behavior, because even if you don’t hook up with her, you’re telling the universe, “Hey, I’m happy with a disloyal woman, so send me more of those.” Then the women that you are dating will turn out to be disloyal women, because you put the vibe in the energy out there. We live in an attraction based universe, and you’ll attract disloyal women because you’re open to disloyal women, but if you stick to a code of honor and just say, “I’m not getting involved with anybody that’s in a relationship. We can talk and keep it mostly professional.”

If she’s got something she wants to share, “I’m happy to listen, but other than that, I’m not going to lunches. I’m not trying to walk out together every day.” I’m not hanging on her every word. I’m not lingering around the office waiting to talk to her. Keep it professional. Less really is more. If she can feel that your romantic attention is elsewhere and she really does like you, and she’s really unhappy, she’ll make things unstable at home to create the conditions where to make it easier for her to leave. Then once she leaves, then she’ll be available, but don’t be the backup guy. Don’t be the guy trying to screw around with the girl at the office, thinking that it’s going to turn into some Disney happy ending because it just doesn’t. She cheats on him. She’ll cheat on you.

She even opened the door to set up a pickle-ball hang-out with me because she knows that’s what I like. She mentioned it, so I scheduled it. She ended up cancelling it but her behavior has persisted.

Yeah, when she canceled it, because if we look at her actions, it looks like she’s loyal to her boyfriend because she opened the door and you said, “Come on in,” and she thought, “Oh, wait a minute, I live with my boyfriend. That’s not a good thing.” So she backed out, which is the right thing to do. So that looks or appears like it’s a good thing.

Like I said in the beginning of the video, if the only reason she cancelled is because she happened to mention to her boyfriend, which women will often do, “Oh by the way, I’m gonna play pickle-ball with my boss because that’s something he really enjoys.” “Is he single?” “Yeah.” “When are you gonna play?” “Well, it’s 7:00, 8:00 at night.” “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

So maybe she said something to her boyfriend, because that’s how women tend to operate, is they talk about the nice guy from the office. “Oh, he dresses so nice. He’s so handsome. The girls really like him,” and talks about him that way. That’s kind of her way of absolving herself from any responsibility if something happens. It’s also possible she mentioned it to her boyfriend and he shot that down. If she did mention it to her boyfriend and she did it, then that means that she’s probably a loyal woman, which would be a good sign for her.

There is some pulling back on her part but it seems to mostly match when I pull back or go into professional mode. 

Well, if it was me, I’d stay in professional mode. Doesn’t mean you can’t ever joke around with her, but it’s clear you’re giving her too much attention and too much of your mental energy. To this woman, it’s just not healthy.

Remember, control the controllables. You have the ability to control yourself. Also it helps you remain a challenge and she has to work to get you.

Here is the thing. I have developed an attachment that I manage well. No escalation, no asking, “What is this?”

Which would just be a bad way to go. I would not do that. I would not be asking her, “What is this? What are we doing?” Never, ever, even if she’s single, never talk like that to a woman.

I’m just focused on work and experiencing these daily moments with her. However, when alone I feel tortured by this situation.

That’s why you need some other choices and other options.

I like her, her behavior indicates she likes me, BUT she has a boyfriend she has lived with for several years, Also, I was recently promoted to her superior. Nothing comes between me and my purpose, yet this situation feels like torture because there is so much complexity and tension.

Well, at the end of the day, you can’t control the fact that she’s in a relationship with another man. You can control how you respond. At the end of the day, she’s an unavailable woman. So minimize the amount of energy and attention you’re giving her and don’t give her anything that’s unnecessary because it’s not good for her and it’s not good for you.

We share an office and sit facing  each other all day, just the two of us. We are therapists and work together all day to solve interpersonal relationship issues. She sees me leading and solving high level problems confidently on a daily basis. The proximity makes it harder to pull back if I need to focus on my purpose. But I have maintained, it’s been totally clean up to this point. Thanks to work like yours. 

My question for you is: Do I continue to sit back and observe her behavior while trying to stay cool and maintain a masculine frame? Or to save myself from this emotional torture? Do I communicate my experience?

No, you don’t communicate anything. It’s a bad way to go, dude. She’s taken and you’re her boss, and one slip up a couple of sentences and you could be out of a job.

Am I crazy?

Well, I don’t know. I don’t know you. I haven’t talked to you.

Am I projecting?

Yes. You’re paying a little too much attention to your feelings and your interests. While you ignore the fact she lives with her boyfriend.

(These things go through my mind). Sometimes it feels a little unfair…

Because at the end of the day, she knows you like her, but you telling her you like her is just going to confirm to her you’re going to validate her, you’re going to give her attention, and that’s not something that causes her to resolve the situation with the guy she’s with. If she’s unhappy, if she knows you like her and you’re waiting around and lingering for her to become single, she’ll never become single. She’ll stay with him, and she’ll use you as her emotional tampon. So don’t do that. That’s why you should focus your attention on the other women who are actually available.

…That I go through this.

Well, congratulations. This is the way life is. There’s a lot of things that happen like this in the world. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it. The only thing you can do is control how you respond.

Am I her emotional outlet?

Well, yeah. You’re opening yourself up to that.

Something I am working on is having a full dating life outside of work.

That is the right thing to do. Good job.

I’m on vacation and got laid last night, but during the bedroom Olympics I thought about her and felt that I was not aligned with the man I want to be (Family man father).

Well, at the end of the day, I mean, you’re human. It’s like you work with a hot girl, she looks good, you’re going to be having impure thoughts about it. That’s just the way life is, and they’re not always going to be available.

I feel like I’m doing things right but I am still tortured. 

Well again, this is a good exercise in self-control. What happens if 10 years from now you’re in a similar situation? You have a girlfriend, a wife, whatever, you got kids, a family, and a hot younger woman who’s 10 or 15 years younger and hotter, is really into you and you’re tempted, now the situation is flipped and you’re on the other side of it. She’s coming on to you, trying to get you to act upon it. Are you going to have the self-control to do that or not? You made a commitment and you need to keep your commitments. She made a commitment to somebody else, and it’s your job as a man to hold her accountable and make sure she honors the commitment to her boyfriend that she lives with.

Even if she were to come on to you, you’d have to stop her and say, “Look, you live with your boyfriend. I’m not getting involved. If you were single, we’d be all over each other, but you’re with your boyfriend, and I’m not going to get in a complicated situation like that. I don’t want you leaving him for me. I want you to leave him if you’re really, truly unhappy, but I’m not getting involved, and I won’t be the reason for that.”

I have read your book 15 times since 2021. I jump from chapter to chapter as needed. I’m very driven and successful. With the help of a personal trainer, I have lost 46 pounds so far. I am very muscular and attractive. I even authored my own book called Riding the Pink Cloud about addiction treatment which is my profession and purpose. I am so grateful for all your help and I’m curious if your response to my situation can help others. Your book changed my life. Thank you. 

Bob

Well, like I said, focus on the controllables. Focus on women that are actually available, single and ready to mingle because there’s nothing you can do about this. The reality is, any energy you give her in the situation is not helpful to you and your purpose, your mission, or your romantic and personal life. That’s something to think about.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly.

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