Dear Prudence,
I’m a twentysomething woman in my first real job, and I have a crush on a co-worker. I know it’s a bad idea—we work together, and he just started seeing another woman. I’m happy for him, but I feel like I’m still obviously displaying an interest in him. I laugh at his jokes, we always eat lunch together, and conversation just flows with us. I don’t want to become an office joke or seem like I’m fawning over him. I know it can hurt a woman’s career more than a man’s to have an office romance; I don’t want that getting around if I were to change jobs in the future. I confided about this to another friend I work with, and to my surprise she said she had no idea I was interested in him. I asked her to let me know if I was ever being embarrassingly flirtatious. Is there anything else I can do to keep me from becoming the office joke until I can crush this crush?
—Office Crush