I am sorry, but this is a long one.
Tldr: Seemingly interested, Cute coworker asks for my number a day and a half after meeting her, claims to want to learn Linux from me. We go out to do that supposedly, but she ends up expecting us to do separate things until she can’t for reasons. We chat the rest of the night. No Linux lessons learned, no separate work done, she doesn’t appear interested in me in that way from what I interpreted. It was a fun chat and she wants to do it again. What the fuck is going on?
Long version: I work in the tech industry and I have a cute coworker I just met who I for the life of me cannot tell what it is she wants.
Back story: my company has two buildings close by to each other that works with servers. I can’t say what exactly we do but it isn’t super relevant. However, she works at one building and I the other. I had to go over to her building and help out as we were limited on work to do at ours. She is in a technical/managing role and I am a step or two below her.
When helping out, I meet her and she seems enthusiastic to have my help. That’s normal. However, throughout the day she starts to ask me about the tasks and is seemingly testing my skills as well as asking questions she may not have the answer to. We work on completely different systems at the two buildings so there are things to learn from both sides. She is also newish to her role.
First of all, she is really cute/intelligent and of course I am interested in helping her with her little side projects when the main tasks are done/waiting. So she keeps asking me for help on two person tasks. Cool, no complaints there. I am good at my job and she can see that. She seems to be rather friendly after the first day. I go home and have my weekend.
As we are slow still at my building, I volunteer to go help her building because I kinda wanted to see her again. So I ask a manager on their side and they are happy to have my help. She saw my comment about coming over in our work chat and “Hearted” it. I go over and start to help.
She tells me “it is so great to have you here, you make my job so much easier” in what can only describe as an appreciative sigh. Her current staff is new and still missing the skills needed to properly troubleshoot all the types of errors we have. Now, me being a Lemmy user, I have almost a decade of Linux experience under my belt like we all do. I tell her this as it is a very useful skill set in our line of work. She seems surprised and impressed, she wants to learn Linux. I offer if she ever wants to learn, I would be happy to show her.
A few hours of helping later, she walks up to me in the most focused expression I have seen out of her and she asks for my number and if I wanted to get together one day at a library and show her how to use Linux. I was quite startled she asked for my number because I was going to ask her the same thing later in the day. So I said sure, went to lunch dumbfounded and came back with my number on a sheet of paper.
She was very friendly to me the rest of the day. We work out a choice between Monday and Wednesday but she kept using the plural form of days implying this would keep happening.
Cut to Monday and we get together but she seems to want to work on her own thing while I do my own in proximity of each other? She ends up not being able to do her thing for some reason and so we just chat for the next few hours. It was a great chat, some of the most fun I have had in a while. However, she clearly didn’t expect to be doing that and seemed to be disappointed we couldn’t work on our own things and apologized for it.
She had fun, I could see she enjoyed our talk. However, what I couldn’t see was interest in me. You can sometimes tell when someone is interested by how they look at you and respond to the things you do.
The thing that bothers me is that I don’t understand what her goal was. Did she use the excuse of Linux to get close to me? Did she actually only just want to learn Linux and assumed there was no other purpose to our meeting? If so, why didn’t we just do that instead? Why did she want to get together to work on entirely unrelated projects? Why is she interested in doing it again?
I don’t know if I am just stupid and missing something. Maybe she really only just wants to learn Linux so she can be better at her job, she is the type of person to do that. It just bothers me that I can’t see much rhyme or reason in her actions. If she was entirely self motivated to learn from me only, then why not just do that? Why ask me for my number if you didn’t want to do the thing you suggested in the first place? I am just so lost.
Edit: princessleiascat reminded me of something. A week prior to me meeting her, one of my coworkers was learning under her when he went to go help out. Apparently a guy came up to her while this happened and asked her out. She turned him down for the reason it would be inappropriate for her to date someone where there is this power dynamic.
My coworker told me this and that might be the nail in my coffin. However, it is also possible she just used it as an excuse to not have to deal with turning him down more harshly. I could believe both things. Hense more confusion, why make an exception to hang out with me then?
I’m a woman in an 80% male profession fwiw. I’m trying to put myself in her situation but obviously all I have to go on is what you’ve said here.
I end up at 2 possible things:
She really wants to learn the work and do it on her own, but she’s still not confident enough to not have someone check her work. She can ask you questions and not feel judged in front of her co-workers at a new job. That’s huge - no telling what her experience there has been like so far. Additionally, while you’re there if any fires pop up, she can count on you to help while she’s genuinely trying to get better at the job herself.
This does not mean that she’s not interested in you - just that her #1 priority is her job performance right now and she’s doing what she has to do to make that happen. It doesn’t mean she’s using you in a malicious manner.
She does like you, and there could be some of #1 mixed in here too, but she doesn’t want to be too obvious in front of her new co-workers and/or have a relationship with a co-worker at a new job. It could make her look like she’s doing it solely to try and get ahead, something that women do get accused of. She probably feels awkward and doesn’t know how to behave…she’s afraid that the people she wants to impress will judge her.
My advice would be to continue to help her and be her friend, but also try to figure out what things are like for her at her job. Does she have any coworkers she likes? Dislikes? Find out why. Is her boss a demanding asshole? That could say a lot.
Don’t rush it and let her get settled in a bit. IMO she’ll appreciate it and it won’t be as jarring as “so are you into me or what?”…please do not do that, especially if she’s already insecure about her job.
This is a very good take. She had told me that she feels imposter syndrome and that she enjoys talking to me. It would also explain some of her behavior. As I work in the tech field, just about everyone has imposter syndrome, so I reassured her that she is great at her job and she’s got this. She really is good at it and I hope she knows it.
I don’t think she is using me in a malicious manner, I mean, I did technically offer that I would teach her. I was just surprised she took up the offer.
Although you reminded me of something. A week prior to me meeting her, one of my coworkers was learning under her when he went to go help out. Apparently a guy came up to her while this happened and asked her out. She turned him down for the reason it would be inappropriate for her to date someone where there is this power dynamic.
My coworker told me this and that might be the nail in my coffin. However, it is also possible she just used it as an excuse to not have to deal with turning him down more harshly. I could believe both things. Hense more confusion, why make an exception to hang out with me then?
That’s huge - so she’s already had a negative experience there because of what that guy did.
It’s not necessarily a nail in your coffin - I don’t know what your dynamic is like wrt your jobs, but there’s a chance the other guy appeared out of nowhere & did make her uncomfortable.
There’s also the chance that if he’s a manager or someone with authority, that yeah - that definitely isn’t great at work for her if things turn sour. It’s not an equal relationship.
Try to stop thinking of it like getting her to go out with you is your end goal. Make your goal to be to help her have a positive experience when you’re with her and as a result, at her job.
If you get to be friendly and joke around and find out that you naturally mesh well together, any potential relationship that develops would be more natural and equal. It would be “Hey I like hanging out with you, we should do this more” instead of “Hey girl, I don’t know you but wanna go out?” She wouldn’t be put on the spot in an uncomfortable situation while trying to maintain a good reputation among her coworkers.
She could also still be paranoid about what that guy did - “does he hate me? Does he talk bad about me because I turned him down? omg he’s higher up than me…what if he ends up being my boss one day?” etc etc etc
I know that’s what I would be doing because yay anxiety, but of course I’m just speculating there.
Just be cool and focus on making her feel comfortable around you for a time with no pressure. After that, feel things out and decide if you want to take the next step.
I would like to say you have been very helpful and I think have settled on taking your advice. No matter how this ends, I could still end up with a good friend. I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t be a bit disappointed though. However, that’s life and she has no obligation to me.
Also I have no idea who the guy was or what role he played to her. I assumed it was a lower level employee but you bring up a good point there.
My interpretation was:
She was working on some self assigned homework. So it was not work related.
Looks like you were right, she definitely feels frustrated about being doubted and made to feel stupid. Hasn’t given specifics yet, but I am sure I can get her talking at some point. She said she appreciates being able to bounce ideas off of me without worrying about the above. Good start I would say.
If this shit is what women have to deal with constantly, I am not surprised there are so few of them in my field. Why can’t we all just get along?
Because of the reasons she’s already told you:
I hope things work out :)
Edit: after a deep conversation with her I am beginning to think what I suggested is probably a bad move and I should just stick to the course you recommended. She told me she likes me because of how I act and the things I do and and most important to this conversation, the things I don’t. She doesn’t believe I have any ulterior motives. Which I am not sure that is the case as I am interested, but I guess I will not ask her. That seems like it would just kill our current relationship. If it happens at all, it will just be natural.