In the service, not everyone is busy only with work. There is still time to joke over a cup of tea, discuss personal issues, and sometimes even start an office romance. Serious relationships usually begin when one of your colleagues begins to show close interest in you. However, showing sympathy at work is usually not accepted, which makes “diagnosis” much more difficult. How can you be sure that a male colleague likes you? We suggest you find out the signs that will allow you to determine whether a co-worker is sincerely interested in you. Additionally, we will tell the readers of our website “Career Woman” how to behave with a colleague who clearly sympathizes with you and, perhaps, is even in love.
Showing sincere sympathy for a male colleague
An unsuccessful office romance is a real punishment.
The sincere feeling of a colleague, especially when he is also attractive to a woman, is pleasant, but people rarely decide to have an office romance. According to statistics, such relationships end quickly and badly.
Important! An unsuccessful office romance is a real punishment, especially when former lovers are forced to continue their joint professional activities.
On the other hand, where else can a single lady find a reliable man’s shoulder if not at work, because many people spend most of their time there. In addition, it is much easier to form an opinion about a man with whom you are constantly close.
You can detect manifestations of sincere sympathy in a male colleague based on several signs:
- Control your movement. A lover constantly keeps the woman he likes in his field of vision; he needs to be nearby. He searches for an object with his eyes, needing eye contact.
- Invasion of personal space. An enthusiastic colleague unconsciously tries to stand closer to a woman he likes in order to “accidentally” touch her.
- Engaging in conversation. A man often turns to a colleague he likes, asks for advice, and asks for his opinion on the most trivial matters.
- Non-verbal communication. To hide his desire to touch, a man uses his hands: touches his hair, fingering something on the table, twirling a keychain or pen in his fingers. Psychologists consider the first sign of sympathy in a man to be when he keeps his hands in his pocket in front of a woman, unconsciously hiding the desire to touch her.
When a lover appeals to sympathy, the timbre of his voice changes to a softer one. He gets nervous when talking, allows strange pauses when choosing his words. He will be the first to notice the slightest change in a woman and give her a compliment.
Common female mistakes in interpreting male behavior
Why do you want to start such a big topic with this question? Because we often pass off what we want as reality... Some men just emanate courtesy and charm. And although women usually feel well liked towards themselves, in some cases this feeling is still deceptive. How to avoid getting into trouble and correctly determine whether a male colleague at work sincerely likes you or is this a typical manifestation of his behavior?
So, what situations or signs of attention should be studied in more detail:
- Frequent compliments, emphasizing your strengths, ambiguous hints, playful jokes addressed to you. Typically, true seducers behave this way, for whom such communication with the opposite sex is the norm. You just need to observe his behavior with other female colleagues in order to understand his nature and think about your further actions.
- He opens the door for you, runs in to say hello, carries a heavy package, and helps with work matters. This may be regarded as sympathy from the outside, but no one has canceled the good upbringing of a man.
- The colleague is pleasant to talk to, listens with understanding, listens to every word, empathizes, and gets emotionally involved in your conversation. Despite the fact that women usually have higher emotional intelligence, such men exist too! This is nothing more than a combination of character with developed communication skills.
- Regular invitations to a cup of tea during a lunch break, where work matters are discussed, more often indicate the manifestation of ordinary business etiquette. As a rule, such tea parties and joint dinners do not have a hint of further development.
To understand whether a male colleague sincerely likes you or whether it’s just good human upbringing, you need observation. Do not immediately react by expressing your feelings, otherwise you risk ending up in an unpleasant situation. Take compliments calmly, respond to gallantry tactfully, accept invitations with restraint. This is especially true if you have been working in this team recently and have not yet fully understood the employees.
You need to take an extremely close look at your colleague’s behavior if you work in a male team. Often men display the usual rivalry among themselves, where the target (it just so happens that it is you) is pursued for the sake of the goal, and not to achieve the final result. Clicking your opponent on the nose - what could be more enjoyable?
Showing sympathy depending on the type of temperament
However, a man’s demonstration of interest depends on his psychotype:
- The choleric person will be happy to help with work, showing feelings with a bit of assertiveness, but the development of events will happen very slowly. He will not show violent emotions; he will constantly monitor the situation around the object of sympathy.
- The phlegmatic will demonstrate his special attitude with the help of secret glances and sighs. He will choose a way to be closer to himself, becoming his best friend and assistant, but he is unlikely to admit his tender feelings or will not do so soon.
- A sanguine person with an active lifestyle will prefer movement. A sign of his sympathy is cute signs of attention, childishness. He will constantly try to make the girl he likes laugh. Lost from embarrassment, he will speak and gesture even more actively than usual.
- A melancholic person will behave as secretly as possible, but his emotions (unnatural facial expressions during a conversation, nervous movements of his fingers, trembling in his voice) will give him away.
By correspondence: 7 reliable signs of his interest in you
You can find out everything about a guy if you ask him 100 questions and see his reaction. It’s much more difficult to figure everything out when it comes to virtual reality – correspondence on dating sites, social networks, via SMS. There are no gestures. The view is out of reach. And words, as we know, cannot be trusted. And yet, there are at least 7 reliable signs of his concern. A man is definitely interested in you if...
- you have been communicating for more than a week and can’t stop talking;
- you communicate every day, and he is the initiator;
- he is interested in you and asks you questions;
- answers your questions in detail and thoroughly;
- responds to your messages almost immediately;
- almost never ends a conversation first;
- unobtrusively, but insists on a real meeting.
By the way, about meetings - agree. Don't wait until the last minute. An unimaginable number of passionate virtual novels ended after the first date. Alas, what is desired does not always coincide with reality.
How a work colleague shows his sympathy in an informal setting
If a lady is tired of understatement and games, a man can be provoked into openly showing interest.
A joint business trip, corporate event, or other time spent in an informal setting outside of work can encourage frankness:
- Outside the office, in the company of a girl he likes, a man demonstrates his feelings more openly and boldly.
- When talking to her, he tilts his head to his shoulder, turning his whole body towards his interlocutor.
- He doesn’t look away, and if he gets even bolder, he looks at his neck - this is a clear sign of sympathy.
- He tries to touch the woman, a cautious, unobtrusive gesture.
- Smiles, fusses, jokes inappropriately.
If in public a man is a flint, his true feelings cannot be guessed, but in a non-work environment he behaves as described, then he is definitely in love.
Nonverbal cues
A conversation between people is not based on speech and the sound of the voice alone. The conversation is supported by gestures, facial expressions and postures, which, in turn, carries additional information at the time of communication.
