Confused and hurt by former work colleague’s mixed signals - Seeking unbiased perspectives and insights?

[Anonymous]

The situation with my [23] manager [31] was confusing & deeply distressing. When I was first hired, out of all of the other new employees, they showed immediate interest in me, giving me special attention, even during private moments. We became close & acted like best friends. This attention led me to develop an attachment to them. I looked up to them.

Months later, their behavior shifted to more personal comments like“I adore you,”“I love seeing your beautiful eyes,”“I really love how you look today”(we all wore the same uniform),“I love the way you smell”, etc. when we were alone. They also often touched & squeezed my shoulders, arms, hands, upper & mid-back,& sides when we passed each other.

In March 2020, I was furloughed due to COVID-19. When I returned in November 2020, their affectionate behavior stayed the same for a few months but gradually grew colder & more distant. This shift was confusing & hurtful. Despite being professional with others, their behavior with me swung between excessive affection & sudden coldness.

Their behavior took an emotional toll on me, leading me to question myself. On their last day, when I sought closure, they bluntly told me they wanted nothing to do with me & we would never be friends. This hurt me deeply.

I dont know if this can be related to my situation, but I want to include it just in case it can be. I learned they celebrated a young celebrity’s 18th birthday with a friend years prior, making inappropriate comments about them being their "future baby [parent]"& expressing relief they could now openly discuss their attraction because they are now legally an adult. This disturbed me & made me question their intentions towards me (Im the same age as this celebrity).

Im still unsure about if I was taken advantage of or misunderstood their intentions. The emotional distress I experienced led me to SH. Although I no longer have those thoughts, the memories still linger.

Please help me make sense of everything & ease my mind.

Updates

1 y

I also want to state that I posted about this before but didn't get many responses, so I'm sharing it again to get more outside perspective and advice.

[DoggyDude]

Okay, first off, I agree this guy sounds like he's not someone who is caring about you in good ways. Though, as a guy, I know sometimes a guys behaviour can be easily confused with "creepy" when its something else. So let me dig in a bit:

So, you said a lot about the other persons behaviour, but little about your reactions and responses to him (you where clear how this is affecting you overall though).

You mention "developing an attachment" which is unclear. For example, I was "quite attached"
to our family cat (now sadly not with us), but its certainly not any kind of romance. So your wording here suggests your either unclear yourself how your feeling (I mean towards this person, you clearly say your distressed) or maybe uncomfortable talking about how you feel generally (in specifics)?

You say then ended with : "they wanted nothing to do with me & we would never be friends."

There could be several explainations for this outcome... of the top of my head, I can think of the following possibilities (in order of likelyhood):

1) They have been trying to initiate a sexual relationship with you and have moved to high pressure tactics to manipulate your emotional state to hopefully cause that eventuallity (the player)

2) They genuinely found you attractive, sexy and developed feelings for you (at the outset) but maybe you remained professional with them neither encouraging or discouraging their advances; Over time they might have come to feel that you where not showing them interest and as an unstable personage (rather than deal with their own hurt at your relative rebufs), decide to "hurt you". Some guys are, well twats is the word i'd use, when hurt; Their parents attentions and natural good looks cause them an over inflated opinion of their self worth and also their parents told them stupid lines like "well if they don't like you, you shouldn't like them" and they learned to hurt others if they felt hurt. This is sadly all too common amoung guys who have always found it easy to attract girls (basicall, still someone your lucky to have escaped).

3) They never understood you, felt rejected over time and felt their advances where going nowhere (to their own negativity). They have weak minds and, again, rather than acknowledging their own feelings of hurt, they denied them and tried to pretend they wheren't hurt and got sulky and moody trying to convince themselves against you (Turning increasingly to fantasy ideals, or just boasting to friends about you rather than deal) [an ordinary jerk, feeling rejected, but maybe reformable]

2) Through your time together you've exhibited some kind of behaviour that has caused him to be feeling your behaviours are not ones he wants in his future. So think carefully if you've ever made situations difficult or possibly given confused signals yourself (e. g. off/on, or biting his head off for some behaviours and praising others; It sounds this is doubtful to me, but I include it for completeness and we always need to think 'am I the problem', but only as long as it takes to be sure where not)

My last comment here, is there are two ways that last departing remark might be taken (as the player knows and the decent guy laments he knows):

1) The guy can't be friends because he's sexually/romantically attracted to you and can't imagine a "friend only" relationship with you because he will always want you and a "just friends" would depress the HELL out of him. So he is communicating that in the hopes it will make clear he wants to be a boyfriend or partner not just some guy you like and come to to complain about the OTHER guys your dating (and his rebuttal is to show he's not a pushover and won't be treated as second) OR

2) It's just a COMPLETE player move designed to make you wonder if you shouldn't become involved with him romantically before he loses his interest and gives up (making you wonder if your less attractive now).

Hope that may help.

[Asker]

Sorry for an extremely late reply. I forgot I posted this on this app. Thanks for your thoughts, but I wanted to clarify a few things:

1. This person is a woman, not a man. I wanted to keep her as anonymous as possible by not using she/her or he/him pronouns, but given the context I think mentioning her gender might help clarify things (I hope). The situation involved my female manager, which changes the dynamic a bit. The main issue here was the power imbalance, as she was in charge of me, and her behavior may have crossed professional boundaries.

2. The attachment I developed was emotional but heavily influenced by her attention. She gave me personal compliments and touched me in ways that weren’t appropriate, which confused me and led to emotional distress. It wasn’t a typical manager-subordinate situation.

3. Her behavior shifted between warmth and coldness, and this made me question myself constantly. It wasn’t just about hurt feelings—it was about how her actions kept me emotionally dependent on her.

4. The comments she made about a young celebrity turning 18 made me really uncomfortable and raised concerns about her intentions toward me, since I was (and still am) the same age as that celebrity. This added another layer of confusion to what was already a difficult situation.

Ultimately, it wasn’t just about rejection—it was about being emotionally groomed by someone who had power over me, and that’s why it hurt so much.

Thanks again for your input, and I hope this helps explain my experience more clearly.

[MacDaddyRico]

They played you like a fiddle.
The price you pay for workplace romance.

[DeeDeeDeVour]

Like it or not, you were manipulated.

While it's easy to say, "put it in the past and move on", it's not but you have to try.

[Nikki1989]

It really sounds like you were played, sorry.

[Iron_Man]

Don’t ever mix business with pleasure