Expert: Dr. Dennis W. Neder - 8/29/2007

Question
Myself and my dream girl are working in the same organization but in different departments. I am the head of my department. I am 43 and she 26. I am a very senior person in the organization and she a very junior person. She looks attractive and hence started staring at her.  Initially, there was no reaction, but in the past one month, she also started looking at me. Sometimes she even turns her head to see me. But one thing is that she does not look at my eyes, instead looks at my direction. Of course, there are times, when our eyes met. Couple of times, we have seen eye-to-eye for a long time but mostly either of us would turn away, when our eyes meet. We have neither smiled nor even talked. She is of course very friendly to people who are reporting to me. She invariably walks past my cabin (my office cabin has a glass window, hence she can watch me and I can also watch her) many a times in a day (may be because of official necessities) and some times she stands exactly in front of my cabin and talks to her colleagues, may be official. My question is

1.   Does she like me ?
2.   If she does not like me, wouldn’t she avoid coming and standing exactly in front of my cabin ?
3.   And definitely, wouldn’t she avoid making eye-to-eye contact, even if it were to be occasionally.
4.   Or is it that she is just elated that one of the Senior Person is just attracted towards her and she wants to enjoy it.

The signals are confusing and hence I am hesitating to initiate any talk with her.

May be you can help me.

John Smith


Answer
Hello John!

Oh John - where do I start with you????

First of all, you must not care very much about your job if you're willing to entertain a possible trist with someone so subordinate. I'll bet your employer would have more than a little problem with you dating this girl. Most companies of any size have policies against upper management dating subordinate employees.

Second, looking at you a few times and walking by your office means absolutely nothing other than the fact that she's probably aware that you're staring at her and that she has to pass by your office to get somewhere she has to go. Standing in front of your window doesn't mean anything either unless she's doing something active to get your attention.

On to your questions:

1) I don't know.
2) I don't know her, so I can't say what she'd do or what she wouldn't do. Standing in front of your cabin isn't exactly a flirting technique.
3) Making eye contact is a natual human action. By itself, it isn't indicative of anything. It would depend on the TYPE of eye contact, how long she holds it, how she breaks it and looks away and a bunch of other body-language.
4) I don't have any clue.

Women can be very subtle, but they aren't usually confusing. If you're this confused, it leads me to believe that there's nothing there.

Best regards...

Dr. Dennis W. Neder
President
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