There's a girl I work with that I've been interested in basically as long as I've worked for my company (over 3 years). She's always shown at least some interest, so I've shown it back and it's slowly escalated over the last few years. I probably would have pushed the envelope a long time ago, but I work with her and I don't want to shit where I eat. That said, if she ever straight came on to me, I'd probably jump at the opportunity (which I understand is bad).

So I flirt with her a lot, which is a lot of fun. We've gotten pretty touchy and play-fighty. When she walks by, she gently punches me on the shoulder. It's very fun and I love the attention. I'm sure she does too. It's really good for me too, because I'm not really that used to touching people, and I need to get better at kino as well as just get used to touching people in general. It's only good and natural for me to flirt innocently with people at work.

However, I realize that I am going into this with the mindset of wanting something from her. I'm suprised I've gotten as far as I have really, because I know that I am being a little needy. At the very least, I want/need her attention to make me feel better about myself. I also want to be successful with flirting with her because I want to practice flirting in general. So, I do actually have a stake in flirting with her. Also, truth be told, I do want to fuck her. Even with that train of thought, I'm coming from the viewpoint of wanting to get sex from her, rather than wanting to please her sexually. I do think I could please her sexually, but I don't think I'm 100% confident. Finally, I have some pretty strong principals about not fucking people I work with. I feel that I would forgo these principals for a chance with this girl, and that's not good either. I need to stay strong to my principals and only use this girl for practice.

I want to continue to flirt with her because I think it's a good thing. It makes us both happy and it's something fun to break up work. However, I think I need to reframe how I think about it such that it's only coming from a place of fun and I'm not actually expecting anything. I need to detach myself from the outcome of my flirting. First, though, I think I need to detach myself from her. I'm not actually sure how to do that. I'm still working on my game, and I'm still coming from a scarcity mindset. I'm not yet able to create a lot of opportunities for myself, so when I am able to create one, I put too much stock in it. I know the standard suggestion is "fuck 10 other women", but right now I'm just not able to do that. I need to flirt with her in order to get to the point.

I find it hard to seperate what I want and what I think she wants in my mind. I might go out of my way to flirt with her because I think I need to maintain the flirting. I could probably go days without flirting with her, but I feel fear that interest would "drop off" if I did that. So I might do what's not best for me (flirting with her when I don't have time), simply because I think that what I need to do (and I'm probably wrong). I do understand that I need to do what's right for me, but I lose clarity some time. I might feel that I want to flirt with her, thinking that it might be fun, but really I'm coming from a needy place and I don't recognize it. These feelings about what I think I need to do in certain circumstances are so ingrained into me, I have trouble seperating them from what I really want or what's best for me.

I'm working on this. I'm not sure I need advice. Maybe I just needed to say out what I was feeling. However, if anyone has advice, I'm all ears.