I (28M), a female co-worker (23F) of mine seems to be trying to push things forward. Unsure how I should respond.

I've known her around 8 months. When she started in I more or less put myself in charge of helping her settle in. We spent a lot of time together and I'd say got on very well. Initially it was fairly obvious to me she was becoming increasingly flirty. No physical contact, but everything else that you'd deem flirting she was doing. Long eye contact with lots of smiling, giggling, laughing, giving 'bedroom eyes' etc. About 3 months into knowing her she mentioned she had a boyfriend, prior to that she kept it quiet. Other than that one time she never mentioned it, which was a touch odd considering how well I know every other element of her life.

Recently she's started pushing into us communicating outside of work. We've hardly talked outside of it, but she called me the other week wanting advise on something unrelated to work and has since been encouraging we speak. However, she never contacts me, she just encourages me to contact her.

The thing is. I don't, which makes me feel really rude because I do consider her a friend of mine. But I'm not sure her interest is really in just being friends and I also don't know how that works with her having a boyfriend. If she just wanted us to chat outside of work, that's perfectly fine, but I don't want her thinking that if she left her boyfriend I'd take that role, as despite the fact I am fond of her, I don't want that kind of pressure on me, you may find you just don't get along after a few weeks and then you've impacted her life negatively.

The other thing is, my boss (and owner of the company) seems to have picked up on her behaviour and seems to be encouraging her by talking me up to her.

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tl'dr I feel a co worker is trying to progress things and I'm unsure if I'm being impolite to her.

Submitted May 26, 2019 at 06:23AM

I've known her around 8 months. When she started in I more or less put myself in charge of helping her settle in. We spent a lot of time together and I'd say got on very well. Initially it was fairly obvious to me she was becoming increasingly flirty. No physical contact, but everything else that you'd deem flirting she was doing. Long eye contact with lots of smiling, giggling, laughing, giving 'bedroom eyes' etc. About 3 months into knowing her she mentioned she had a boyfriend, prior to that she kept it quiet. Other than that one time she never mentioned it, which was a touch odd considering how well I know every other element of her life.Recently she's started pushing into us communicating outside of work. We've hardly talked outside of it, but she called me the other week wanting advise on something unrelated to work and has since been encouraging we speak. However, she never contacts me, she just encourages me to contact her.The thing is. I don't, which makes me feel really rude because I do consider her a friend of mine. But I'm not sure her interest is really in just being friends and I also don't know how that works with her having a boyfriend. If she just wanted us to chat outside of work, that's perfectly fine, but I don't want her thinking that if she left her boyfriend I'd take that role, as despite the fact I am fond of her, I don't want that kind of pressure on me, you may find you just don't get along after a few weeks and then you've impacted her life negatively.The other thing is, my boss (and owner of the company) seems to have picked up on her behaviour and seems to be encouraging her by talking me up to her.​tl'dr I feel a co worker is trying to progress things and I'm unsure if I'm being impolite to her.