Expert: RITA - 11/22/2004

Question
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Followup To
Question -
This may be too complicated a matter to offer advice in, but here it goes. I am a 27 year old male. I work full time with the developmentally disabled, and I am a full time student about to enter graduate school. I have a 20 year old female co-worker that have grown fond of over the past three months, and I have been feeling confident that these feelings were mutual. I will tell you a little about her first. She grew up in a very dysfunctional family, and actually bounced around foster homes much of her life. She actually moved out of her dad's house at 17, and lived on her own. She has always had a problem, according to her, with a negative self-image. She is very beautiful though. She didn't lose her virginity until she was 18, and the guys she was with would have sex with her and just leave her. She now has a 21 year old boyfriend, her first, which she lives with. Although she works fulltime now, she depends on him. If she ever broke up with him she would have to leave the apartment, her car would be gone because it is in his name, even though she pays the payments, and she would have no place to go. Here is the real story now:
Our job is to take care of three ladies in a residential home.
Me and the girl work very well together. At the least we enjoy each others company very much. This is how I see it. We are very comfortable around each other. She laughs at anything I say that is even mildly amusing, sometimes hysterically. When we are not able to be heard by the clients we work with, out conversations often get very sexual. It is usually her that starts them. We allow each other within that personal space that is generally reserved only for people we want to be close to. There is often extended eye contact following conversation. She has expressed interest at times about my personal life. Example: I drove another car to work one day because mine was being repaired. She was curious who it belonged to. Girlfriend, friend, etc… I actually teased her about this and have never told her who it belonged to. We have fun together! Big time! We find stupid things really fun. We took the ladies for a ride yesterday, and I pulled up next to a heard of cows so we could “moo” and make other stupid sounds at them. She loved it! She was laughing hysterically at the whole thing, and of course sex talk crept into the conversation. I could go on and on about all the signals, but I will move on.
I actually am her supervisor. The other day I was pulled aside by my manager, and talked to. It turns out that she has had two separate people come to her and express concern that there may be a romantic interest developing between me and this girl. I of course had to deny it because one of us would be transferred if anything ever did happen. I tried to pass it off as only two people working well together. She said that she definately sees a difference in how we interact, and that the girl has only started having problems with her boyfriend since I started working at the house, and that she verbalizes it so that everyone knows (to include me). This girl has told me a couple times that she needs to get her own apartment, and the car in her name so if she ever has any problems she can leave. The problem she has with this guy is that he very jealous and she always gets the third degree she leaves the house even to go to the store. This brings us up to yesterday. She mentioned to me that, as usual, she was not doing anything tomorrow because she has no life. I told her I was going to watch football. She said, well I will probably watch football too. This was in front of our clients, so I didn't want to ask her to join me. My car was getting brakes put on by a friend, so I asked if I could get a ride home after work. She had to come get me because she was pulled to another house for the evening. She picked me up and on the way home I asked if she would like to go with me tomorrow to a sports bar to watch the football games. She said she didn't think her boyfriend would be too happy about that. I told her not to tell him. She said it is the only day they both have off and she couldn't really hide the fact she was going out. I said she could bring him. She said no, he gets really crazy. I told her she needed to lose the guy (bad move probably), and she said she lives in his apartment, has her car in his name, and has no family in the area so where would she go? I then made another bad move and asked her if that was the only reason she was dating him. She said no I am not with him for his money (he doesn't have much anyway), I do love him, but I am hoping the jealousy thing will go away. I told her the offer was on the table to hang out tomorrow and if she changed her mind. She said okay and I told to have good night, and thanks for the ride. The end! I like this girl a lot, and I would love to get into a relationship with her. Any advice on whether I should pursue it from a different angle, or if she is a waste of time. Help! Please!
Answer -
HELLOOOO!!!
She has a boyfriend!!! I repeat...she has a boyfriend!!!
Not only did she tell you she's waiting for his jealously to end,hopefully, some day, but she also said that she loves him...period.
What signals besides her boyfriend showing up and ripping you a "new" one do you need. If she was all that interested in getting together with you she would tell you, or she would drop her boyfriend and get together with you.
Maybe she just likes to flirt...most chicks do, but don't read so much into it.
Sorry, can't tell you anything but what I'm seeing here
Good luck
Take care


I do appreciate the free advice, but your answer was very different from five others on this site that I asked.  As I said at the beginning, this is very complicated.  If you read the whole story you would have seen this girl has had issues with men commiting in the past, and she truly wss dependent on this guy for many basic needs.  I have never overtly expressed any romantic interest in this girl, so why would she jeopardize her job and her relationship for someone she may not be able to have a commited relationship with.  Couple that with her low self-esteem (which hurts me), and I can't understand how you can say she would make her feelings known to me and dump her boyfriend without even knowing how I feel.  I think the key here is not that she loves him.  I love my mom, but I dont want a romantic relationship with her.  The key is that he was only a boyfriend of less than a year.  Her first at that.  SHE WAS NOT MARRIED.   Thanks anyway though.

Answer
Here is my answer after I re-read your post.

"We are very comfortable around each other. She laughs at anything I say that is even mildly amusing, sometimes hysterically. When we are not able to be heard by the clients we work with, out conversations often get very sexual."
" She has expressed interest at times about my personal life. Example: I drove another car to work one day because mine was being repaired. She was curious who it belonged to. Girlfriend, friend, etc… I actually teased her about this and have never told her who it belonged to. We have fun together! Big time!"
" I told her she needed to lose the guy (bad move probably), and she said she lives in his apartment, has her car in his name, and has no family in the area so where would she go? I then made another bad move and asked her if that was the only reason she was dating him. She said no I am not with him for his money "...

"I like this girl a lot, and I would love to get into a relationship with her"....
My response:
You have "never overtly expressed any romantic interest in this girl"...???? What would you call it then..please explain it to me so that I understand better.

Another point(the main one here) I see is that this girl has so many issues with low self esteem that it affects every aspect of her life...for example her inability to leave her jealous boyfriend even though she wants to and has expressed it because of the car(why she didn't put a car in her name that she makes payments on is beyond me!!) and theres no where to go, ect...if she really wanted to get out of it she would, regardless of the circumstances, yet she doesn't.
Why? Because she doesn't feel good enough about herself to know that she can make it on her own. Any person who is confident about their abilities and "takes a chance" to go a different path, so to speak, is what makes a person stronger. It builds character and self esteem. She allows people to control her and her life, although, she hopes it would be different someday. But unless she takes that first step, she will always be a "victim", instead of one who has control of her life and it's decisions. You would only be "saving" her again, instead of letting her stand on her own two feet first. If you care enough about her you'll let her do that on her own first before anything else, otherwise you're only "crippling" this girl more.


Youre so right...this is a very complicated matter, the more I read into it....

Your post titled "Is there a chance" was an interesting one for me to give more thought to, and my answer is still no...not right now. It's not really about the boyfriend at all here..it's about this girls whole image of herself, and the baggage that she will no doubt bring into a relationship with should you and her get together at this point. Help her as a friend, and be there for her, just don't be her savior.
Take care and tell me how it goes.