There’s a fine, fine line between a lover and a friend.
Theres a fine, fine line between reality and pretend.
An you never know till you reach the top, if was worth the uphill climb.
There’s a fine, fine line between love and waste of time.
There’s a fine, fine line between together and not.
There’s a fine, fine line between what you wanted and what got.
And if someone doesn’t love you back, it isn’t such a crime.
There’s a fine, fine line between holding on and leaving it behind.
-Avenue Q
This is the question that almost every person has struggled with. Gay, Straight, Bi, Trangender, disabled or alien. I myself included. When I try to resolve my feelings, I find some solice by understanding the following:
When I realize that I love someone it is because of how I feel around the person, how I feel when I think about the person, how my feelings affect my daily life. Love for me is an action, not a state. An action of change. Love for me is a permanent change. I have been changed because this person. Now this doesn’t mean that the person loves me back, or that we are heading towards happily ever after. Infatuation is also an action. The action of greed, the action of self interest. Do you find yourself working towards making you happy or her. Just as Marrisa wrote… “if you truly want to see that person happy and you want what is best for them, even if what is best for them is being with someone else and not you.”
Now as to your specific situation of a workplace romance. As many here have advised…perhaps seeking alternate work may remove the concern about the appearance and the taboo of coworkers dating. Some companies offer HR help and require contracts for both parties to acknowldge thier relationship, but this is strickly to protect the company should one or both of your work suffer from outside of work struggles that accompany any relationship. As I think about any coworker relationship that I encountered that seemed to survive, many deal with persons who have short term “gigs” or assignments. This allows the joy of working together, however there is a pre-determined end date. If this job is both of yours lifeline, then your playing with fire…or actually playing with being fired. As her boss, this adds an additional level of conflict and taboo. Both men and women get into trouble often for doing things at work “privately”. I have a friend who found themselves in a similar situation, where by he and female coworker started a relationship outisde of the office. However once at work the attraction doesn’t go away (that’s natural… that’s human) and suddenly the girl became worried about appearance and found the affection/attention bothersome. People flip out, act irrationally, and easily go into self-preservation mode. Long story short, the girl didn’t know what to do and ended up creating a fake harrassment charge against my friend. This cause both of them a lot of unneeded stress. Additionally it murdered the attaction, which brings it own truck load of issues-including one of the hardest to overcome….self esteme bruises. Maybe you should sit down with a third coworker whom you both know and seek their advice. Someone outside of the relationship but fully understanding your particular work politics and culture may provide the best vision. Having a third person may also provide the unique opportunity to tell you (or her), each other, things that you may want to say but paralyzed because of fear of hurting feelings. What if this third person provides the opportunity to “AGREE” with someone elses opinion or suggestion… may take the sting out of what you may already know to be the solution.