"You really just know how to push my buttons...."

Anonymous
I finally had it out with a guy who has apparently been flirting with me for four years now, always implying that things were leading to something till one afternoon when he realized I only saw him as a work colleague -- I mean, (1) I was separated, but still considered myself "married", (2) there are clear company rules in place about this sort of thing, and (3) I hadn't realized that he was actually flirting with me until recently, after a big blowout. I thought he was just engaging in friendly banter to pass the time during project assignments.

We had stopped talking for a while, until the next big office project came up. Things were a little tense between us at first, but then everything seemed to roll back into place and we were working together just fine.

He recently got married -- ironically, the same week I got divorced. Now that I felt I could sit and ask him about what had happened, it was too late; he's not available. The day he came over to congratulate me on my divorce I saw the ring and congratulated him as well... but he started trying to take the ring off right in front of me. Conversations got stilted again, and I had no idea why...

I just sat down with him yesterday to ask what was going on. He's such a quiet, private sort of guy that I tried to pick a time that was slow so we could meet in private. He said I was opening an old wound and wanted to dismiss it, but I wasn't sure what he meant, so I asked him to explain. He hollered at me to get out of his office, but when I reached for the doorknob, the tears clearly in my eyes since I felt I was about to lose a good colleague and friend, he hollered at me to shut the door. For the first time in the (10?) years that I've known him, he exploded into a strange sort of rant. "You're unbelievable, you know? You just never take 'No' for an answer. You never just give up on anything. You're ALWAYS just pushing my buttons." A vein started to peek-a-boo on his forehead. He was really upset.

I asked him how in the world I could possibly be pushing his buttons when he never lets anybody close enough to have access to the panel. He didn't answer.

We parted ways a bit later, once he had calmed down. He knows I'm not the sort of person to play around with a guy's feelings, so I'm not sure what he meant by that comment. Advice?
"You really just know how to push my buttons...."
3 Opinion