if he’s not interested in me, why does he keep staring at me?
I (27F) have a crush on a colleague (26M). I’m creative, free and ambivert. He’s strategic, more rigid and introverted. I never noticed him until he spoke to me at our office coffee shop and after that I had a crush on him, he initiated conversation after we ordered the same thing and he came across as confident and calm.
After that I noticed him but I noticed how he’d always just be looking at me. I’d catch him staring at me and that felt like interest. My friends even noticed him turn around to look at me walk past if I walked past his desk. We would greet each other if we saw each other and it was so warm, and we ran into each other outside of work coincidentally one evening which sent my little romantic heart into orbit which made this crush escalate.
So I decided to make a move after he added me on LinkedIn (he’s not on other social media platforms & it felt intentional cause we have no mutuals and never work directly together). We messaged back and forth and he sent me his number and asked to move to whatsapp? cool! that felt like “this is it, we’re getting somewhere” we had been slow burning for MONTHS.
When we move to texting, he’s indirect and avoidant but tells me he’s “extremely introverted” but I’m very flirtatious and direct so it’s not going well, when I’m direct he retreats and drifts further and further away for example when I asked him why he gave me his number? (obviously flirting) he said “he likes to keep LinkedIn professional & I wanted to chat about personal stuff” like ok, we didn’t even have to move to private texting. He eventually started replying with one word texts so I decided to send him a thumbs up and deleted his number cause I’m not interested in wasting my time with unreciprocated energy. Mind you we don’t talk in person.
After that, I retreated in person. No more warm greetings, I’m trying to avoid him but we work in the same place and he’s still just staring. I see him at our local grocery store cause we live in the same area and my sister just sees him staring at us but he never comes and says anything. I re-open the text conversation (I have a crush on this guy, I obviously have his number saved in my notes), this time I’m more direct asking him to make plans and he says he’s out of town. Cool. that’s where it ends. He never said he’s not interested but he doesn’t initiate other plans or texts me first.
if he’s not interested in me, WHY does he stare at me? WHY does he respond? sometimes he flirts then quickly back tracks keeping me at a distance. I’m never going to initiate with him again but was I being delusional to think he had a crush on me or still does? a guy can be shy but I opened the door for him but he obviously doesn’t care enough to get to know me. What is this guys deal?
I’m mostly annoyed cause before he spoke to me at the coffee shop I didn’t even know he existed, and I wish I could go back to that but I also wish he was that guy who had the courage to speak to me then.
why is he like this?