My coworker admitted to having a crush on me while I had a boyfriend, and expected me to be mournful of "the relationship that could have been." AIO?
I (25M) work at a restaurant with my coworker (35M). We’ll call him Willy for fun. I’ve been working at this restaurant for nearly 4 years now. Sometime last summer-ish, just under a year ago, a new guy, Willy, started working there too. I get along great with all of my coworkers, and Willy was no exception. We bonded a lot over the fact that we are two of only a few gay dudes on staff, with plenty of other shared interests.
Last December, a bunch of coworkers and I got together to go to a dinner and performance featuring one of our former managers, whom we all love and miss. There were about 10 of us there, including Willy. At the time, I had recently started seeing a new guy, and we had just one day before this dinner become boyfriends. This was a big deal for me, as I’m 25 and I’ve never really had a boyfriend, so obviously I wanted to share with my coworkers/friends. And so I did. Normal stuff. “Me and *partner* are boyfriends now, by the way.” “Sure, I’ll show you a picture.” “Yes, he does plan to come eat at the restaurant soon.” And that was about it. We enjoyed the night and the performance and went home.
The next day, I receive a text. It has no message, just a photo of a piece of novelty note paper with Top Secret Burn After Reading printed on it. It read, “Hi *my name*! I've had a crush on you for a while now, but didn't want to make things weird with work. Now you have a boyfriend, and it's made me sad LOL. My bad! Anyway, if I was weird last night, or if I'm weird when you see me, that's why! I will try to be as normal and supportive as possible. Ok. Take care! Willy.” My first reaction was confusion. Why was he telling me this? Why not just keep this to himself? What am I supposed to say? Sorry? Let me be clear. I like Willy. He’s cool, and he does his job well. However, never in our almost a year of working together have I had any romantic feelings for Willy. We don’t flirt, or at least I don’t flirt with him, and I don’t recognize his flirting with me. But I really don’t think he flirted with me. We honestly didn’t even talk as much as I do with a lot of my other coworkers. It seemed super out of nowhere and super unnecessary to make sure I knew afterward. He wasn’t acting weird that night, and I don’t think I knew him well enough to pick up on it if he was.
(Side note that’s kind of funny. I had actually accidentally saved his number under the wrong name, and was really confused why my female coworker was sending me this note. I’m very openly gay, and it wasn’t until I read his name signed at the bottom that I realized I had switched up the two coworkers' contacts. I had only received both of their numbers for the first time the night before in order to coordinate splitting the bill)
I sent a very neutral “oh no don’t worry, you weren’t being weird, see you at work” text back. It was kinda weird, mostly just awkward, but it didn’t end there. A few days later, I’m on Instagram, scrolling through stories, and I come across Willy’s story. It’s a video of him that starts with “ok guys, here’s an update on my crush”. I was immediately locked in. He goes on for two whole story slides giving the update. He says he’s doing better now, he talked to his therapist about it, and “I have him muted and I think he muted me”. I assume he's referring to me; it’s only been a few days. He talks about how this is a pattern for him, not telling boys he has crushes until it’s too late, then goes on to list the names of all the boys he has ever had a crush on and not told, ending it off with “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.” That is an important detail later. I was gagged; he doesn’t have a ton of followers on Instagram, and I would assume it’s mostly just his friends, but this still didn’t seem like the kind of thing you expect to see on a public story. I was sure it was an accidental post to public when it was meant to be a close friends only post. This was further corroborated by the fact that only about 10 minutes later, I went to watch it again, and it was gone. But it keeps going. A few days after the story, my roommate, who also worked at the restaurant at the time, told me that Willy had come up to him at work and asked if I had told him about the text he sent me. I had, and my roommate, who is very truthful all the time, admitted that he had seen the message. Willy wasn’t mad; all he had to say was, “Is he doing okay?”
I also heard from two of my other gay coworkers that Willy had gone to them, shown them the text he had sent to me, and seemed to expect pity. It was all so weird to me. “Is he doing okay?” “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” “I think he has me muted.” For some reason, Willy truly seems to believe that I should be upset by finding out he had a crush on me while I was still in the dating phase with my now boyfriend. It’s like he thinks I must have shared those feelings and would have been his boyfriend by now, had I known. It’s been a few months now, and things are still awkward, and not because of me. He has since made multiple remarks about “well, back when I was like omg I have a crush on *my name*” which always kills the vibe of the conversation, and has straight up said, “I know things have been awkward.” They weren’t. The first time I saw him in person after the whole deal was actually super normal, but he continues to make this a thing, even months later. AIO, or is this behavior kind of childish and uncomfortable?