DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Not sure if you’ve gotten these sorts of questions before, just found your site – but I have what I think might be a slightly different question from most.
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I have a crush on someone at work, and I need to find a way to *stop* having it. Basically, there’s a woman my age in my department, and aside from being a really cool person in general, she’s one of those people that seems to just be naturally friendly and mildly flirty – nicknames and pet names over chats, leans on me sometimes when walking to lunch, asks me about my life outside of work, etc. I know this is mostly just how she acts, but the affection-starved mind goes “Maybe…?” And all of a sudden I find intrusive thoughts battering down the gates to my brain. This is inconvenient and undesirable for a few reasons.
First, I have to work with this girl near-daily in a small room with four other people. As much as our industry loves to present itself as having “laid back” company culture where we’re “all family” and whatever, I need to maintain at least some level of professionalism. Acting on any sort of feelings, mutual or not, would overcomplicate things, because real life isn’t an episode of the Office.
Second, I’m autistic – and while I’m pretty high functioning and high masking, I have a history of blowing these situations out of proportion or convincing myself I see possibilities that aren’t there. I’d rather not take that risk, even if I did think this was something more than just friendliness.
Third – I’m not even planning on being here much longer, as I have plans to go back to school in September in a different city, so what would the point even be?
All this to say, I would like to expunge these feelings. I’d like to avoid making my work life awkward and my social life embarrassing, because again, she’s a genuinely cool person I want to stay “work friends” with, but not so much I’d risk my job dynamic and my already fragile self-esteem, much less make her feel uncomfortable.
What’s your prescription?
Best,
Feelings F’in Suck
DEAR FEELINGS F’IN SUCK: Not gonna lie, FFS, this sounds like a “who’re you trying to convince, me or you?” kind of situation to me. The way you lay things out sound to me like it’s less of an objective “it would be better if I didn’t feel this way” or “these feelings are a problem” so much as “I would want this but I don’t think I deserve it/it would never work out for me because REASONS”.
I also wonder if part of the problem is that you spend a lot of time masking – and let’s be honest, masking is exhausting to maintain. A lot of times, I see autistic people who work themselves into knots trying to hide being autistic or trying to force themselves to operate like they’re neurotypical when it would be easier and better for them in the long run to stop and work with who they are. To be sure, there’s a lot of social pressure for neurodiverse folks to mask and perform as though their divergence didn’t exist… and I think that ends up contributing to the neurodivergent feeling that acknowledging their divergence as anything other than a negative is wrong somehow. Or that asking for accommodation is somehow worse or more taboo than needing to expend twice the effort to get the same results.
But hey, you know you and your life better than me, so what do you do about these inconvenient feelings? Well… the short version is that you treat her like a friend and let the rest be. The thing about inconvenient crushes and the like is that they’re like fire – if you feed them, they grow. If you just let them be, they burn down and eventually burn out. So a lot of dealing with a crush you’d rather not have is learning to not feed the crush – both with your effort but also your mental bandwidth.
Part of why a lot of people struggle with crushes and can’t get rid of them is that, as paradoxically as it sounds, they try to get rid of them. But what this does is have the opposite effect; trying to force those feelings away just makes them that much more present in front of mind. All you’re doing is the emotional equivalent of trying not to think of Rue McClanahan dressed as Bluey; actively trying to not think it means that it’s just going to pop up more and more.
If you keep trying to tell yourself it would never work for reasons X, Y, Z and Z3, then you’re ensuring that those feelings are going to stay right where they are. You’ll even have tasked part of your brain to start possibly trying to find a work-around for those feelings. But if, on the other hand, you just note and name those feelings – “ah, there’s my crush on $CO-WORKER” – and gently redirect your attention, you aren’t reinforcing them. You’re not shoving them away so much as just choosing to look elsewhere at something that actually needs your attention just then. That other thing will then take its rightful place and necessary bandwidth, which won’t be occupied by fifty different processes that all involve your coworker.
Now, another thing to pay attention to is how much you’re investing in the relationship – that is, how much time and effort you’re putting into your relationship with your coworker beyond what’s necessary for work. This includes reaching out to talk, make plans and so on… the sorts of behaviors one might have with a friend or partner, but not with someone who’s strictly a work friend.
One of the truisms of the human experience is that the more effort we put in for something, the more we end up wanting it. This is part of why, for example, online and service games will often emphasize the grind; the more you’re trying to grind for a specific reward or result, the more invested you’ll become in trying to get it. So while the game itself may have ceased to be fun for you, you’ll have sunk so much time and effort into it that you’ll have changed your priorities from “having fun” to “keep playing the game because I NEED this”.
The same is true for relationships. A lot of people ensure that they stay stuck in “The Friend Zone” (standard disclaimer: there is no Friend Zone) or in one-sided relationships because they keep watering a dead plant. The plant isn’t gonna grow, but they’ve invested so much time in watering it that they have a much harder time letting go of it or letting it not be a priority. If you’re putting a lot of effort in your relationship with her that goes beyond what you might for a casual friend or a coworker you don’t have a crush on, then you’re ultimately reinforcing your own emotional investment in her.
This is why another part of easing a crush is to dial things back and not put as much work into things. Now, this often can end up feeling like you’re pulling away from them and dialing back the connection you already have… and in fairness, that’s what you’re doing. But to someone who genuinely likes you and wants to be your friend… well, that can be hurtful. So it’s hard to do, on many levels. It takes a delicate hand, especially if you want to maintain an actual friendship with her.
But there’s one more thing about your letter that leapt out at me: you describe yourself as a “affection-starved mind”. I think that, in and of itself, is something that you really should be taking more of a look at for your own sake. I wonder, for example, if that this is another way you beat on yourself and tell yourself that you aren’t “allowed” to ponder the possibility or actually believe that maybe someone could actually be into you. While I don’t doubt that you feel starved for affection and connection – most men do, especially now – I wonder if that’s less of a symptom and more of you running yourself down instead.
I do think that, regardless of what ultimately happens here, you should pay attention to how you think of yourself and how you define yourself. There’re hints in your letter that make me think that you, like a lot of autistic folks, see the autism label as a demerit or disqualifier, rather than a neutral fact. It gets easy to say “no, I’m just being realistic”, but it’s a little like “brutal” honesty; the people who most pride themselves on being brutally honest tend to focus on the brutality rather than the honesty. Running yourself down and being relentlessly negative about yourself isn’t honesty or practicality or realism; it’s just good old-fashioned masochistic epistemology. So while you’re allowing this crush to fade… maybe it’s a good time to remind yourself that you’re allowed to have crushes and be attracted to people, to want to pursue relationships and to be open to the possibility that hey, sometimes people really do like you, and a relationship with them isn’t inherently a bad thing that you have to deny yourself.
Good luck.
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