[Locke]

Like a lot of stories, this one starts with "so there's this girl at work..." and honestly I'm not exactly asking for advice on some sort of direct question but as my only friends know the girl in question, I don't really have anywhere to vent this so ch'yeah.

You see, the girl in question is older than me, not massively but older, she's also pretty important at my work and I'm...well not, so there is a certain barrier between us at work naturally anyway. So I quickly allowed myself to appreciate her as something pretty to look at, and didn't let feelings run into anything else. However, over the course of subsequent training sessions, talks during breaks and just the slow burn of budding a relationship entirely contained in a work place we got a lot closer, and started to get on a lot better. She started complimenting me a lot, especially my sense of humour and just how I am as a person. A girl should be allowed to compliment a guy, without the guy assuming they're into them but I was into her already, and once she started saying things like that I couldn't help but wonder in a way I'd managed to stop myself before.

But then there are other things. Firstly, she's not movie star gorgeous, but she's pretty in a girl next door way and she clearly knows it. She isn't slutty, or overtly flirtatious but she puts it on a bit, and as cute as the overall effect is, the fear of her being disingenuous is my main fear now.

We all put in on at work a bit, but higher up folks do ESPECIALLY as it's like half their job role. So right now I feel like I'd love to ask her out, worst she can say is no but at the same time I think it'd crush my soul a lot more if the no was then followed by the fact that she can't stand me at all and was putting it on for the sake of her job or that she was deliberately just generating this interest for her own amusement as she likes the attention.

I also get that this makes either her sound like a horrible person, or me like a total self privileged weirdo but I dunno pretty girls with a lot of male attention don't generally compliment me so readily, and seem to enjoy my company so much and whenever they have it's never ended well for me.