Dear Prudence,
I’m a graduate student who just wrapped up my summer job, where I spent a lot of time with a co-worker. I’ve fallen head over heels in love with her. She has a long-distance boyfriend that she’s been with for one and a half years. Because he lives near where we worked, she stayed with him for the first time. On several occasions, she told me she wasn’t loving it. Their schedules hardly overlap, but even so, she wishes he’d give her more space. She said part of her is looking forward to going back to long distance. She also told me she began to date with the expectation of getting married; that they have a trip to his family’s home country planned for the winter; that she’s upset he said she shouldn’t meet his grandparents, because they’d interpret that to mean he was going to propose; and that if he didn’t propose during the trip, she’d break up with him.
Meanwhile, she thinks I have a girlfriend. I don’t really, though I gave her that impression. I’m sleeping with a close friend who opened up her relationship with her boyfriend because he couldn’t meet her needs. At that friend’s request, I’ve been going with “She’s my girlfriend” as a simplified cover story. Do I say anything to my co-worker? I don’t think she knows how I feel. She’s staying in town while her boyfriend is traveling for work to spend a little more time with me and a mutual friend before we all return to school. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.