I'm not comfortable making a thread about this since I don't like the attention of being an OP, and I never came into this thread before, but I really need somewhere to write my emotions out.
I know it is usually taboo to want to date/hookup with someone you work with, but I didn't care. I'm not going to say that cliche of love at first sight, but I was definitely infatuated the first time I met her. As I started working with her on an almost daily basis, I couldn't stop thinking about her. She is amazing--intelligent, sophisticated, ambitious, confident, outgoing, fun, sense of humor, etc. The list could go on... Her laugh and smile are so damn beautiful it hurts thinking about now.
With months of pent up emotions, today I finally decided to just invite her to lunch and then tell her my feelings. If I didn't do it, I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life wondering what if. She accepted my invitation and lunch went smooth from my perspective, and then I dropped the bombshell on the way back to the office. As you can already guess as of me writing this, she said she wasn't interested as she wanted to keep work and personal life separate. That is a totally valid and common response. She continued by saying she didn't view me in the same light as I do with her. Her immediate response wasn't that she was seeing someone else, but she eventually did say that a few minutes later, which leads me to think she is just lying to make me feel better.
However, I stayed strong and didn't show any negative emotions, telling her to even forget I said anything. After all, we are still colleagues and I didn't want to burden her with my emotions and feel bad when we worked together. Then, back in the office, it was status quo--it was like I really never told her (which in the back of my mind hurts despite telling her to do that exact thing). I feel like such a fool from reading so much into her emails, texts, and really any little action she did around me: every little playful tease/remark and every little personal message from the trust that I earned. This was just her personality. She can be friendly and fun with anyone but I was a damn idiot to think it was something different with me.
I expected the worse going in, and I invited this feeling because I figured I would finally have peace of mind just getting a response from her one way or another. I never expected it to hurt this much though, and now I will have to deal with it everytime I see her in the office. These build up of emotions over several months coming to a crashing end. I honestly don't know how to move on, or even meet another girl as amazing as her. I don't go on dating sites or go out to places to "pick up" girls, but if I met another girl I was interested in, I feel like all I would do is compare them to the girl I loved that rejected me.
TL;DR: How to deal with rejection? I just want to spend the rest of the weekend locked in a room crying.
If this type of post doesn't belong here, let me know and I'll delete it...
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