Help...I've fallen in love and it's awful

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Hi guys,

I've had a rough few years and have been out of the dating game for some time (I'm 27 and female by the way). My life over the past year or so consists mainly of my ever increasingly demanding job which leaves me with hardly any time for my outside interests, and I've also got this low level depression thing hanging about that never goes away. Sometimes it peaks right up for a day or so where I just want to die, then it dies off again. So in brief, I get by with my daily routine of keeping my house/yard in order, looking after my cat, and going to work. Anything else on top of this is almost too much.

So 4 years ago, my high school boyfriend got back in touch with me. I'm pretty sure he has AS far, far worse than me (physically, all we ever really did was hold hands once when his friend told him he had to. I can do contact but I don't know how to initiate it). It was like we had never parted, and all my feelings for him came back. That day, I felt as if he would've kissed me goodbye I would've fainted. Anyway, because his special interests are very consuming and he gets overcrowded easily, we only ever catch up every couple of months. In 2015, when I finally built up the courage to ask him to be my boyfriend again, over the space of 3 months, I bought a house and my dad and my dog died, so I was coping with them instead. Recently we caught up again, and we went for a walk on the beach. I really like his company so I was talking to my brother and he said that I should ask him for a date on Valentine's Day. That was going to be my plan.

BUT. While all this is happening, I am at work 9 hours a day, and there is a guy a few levels up from me who is also single. He is just a manager of another department. The first time I saw him 4 years ago I thought he was attractive, but that's as far as it went. Because I've been burned badly in the past, I know when to recognise this feeling and let it go. In the past year I've noticed myself becoming more and more attracted to him though, and even found myself trying to get into a conversation to catch up with him outside work, although this is hard, because he is a manager and I am one of the few females at my workplace (a lot of them try to sleep with managers to get better jobs but this isn't my motivation). Anyway, this has been escalating, and the other day I asked him to pick up something for me for work from one of his department people (we have multiple sites in different towns). Yesterday he sent me a message just explaining that he had picked it up, and then we exchanged a few messages about what our plans were for the day off (it is Australia Day down here today). Apart from the fact that he has never sent me a message before (we usually just email), that was all the content was. So we joke around sometimes, but I can't tell if he likes me or not. I was so happy to get a message from him that I just suddenly fell like if he sends me another message or if we catch up outside work it will push me over the edge and I will fall completely in love with him. I've fallen in love with a manager because he sent me a few messages. The stupid thing is, my boss sends messages sometimes too, and we talk about our weekends, and I've even been over to his house. But he is married and has kids so I feel nothing towards him.

I'm completely freaking out. I am completely and suddenly in love with this guy I hardly know. He is probably over 10 years older than me, and he has kids, one of whom is 14 or 15 I think. The few things I know about him are the opposite of me (he is rich, has a huge car/house/boat - I don't care about money and my house is old and small) and he seems to have some serious anger issues. He swears all the time and some of the people from his depot think he's scary and mean. I feel sick and nervous, I can't sleep (and when I do all I dream about is him), I can't eat. I feel like he is eclipsing my tiny bit of energy I have for my special interests.

My brother says that me and the AS guy are much more suited and I agree. We both have our interests and both need lots of space. We are also the same age and childless. He doesn't care about money and having lots of things, and we've known each other since we were 12. My brother, who by the way is my best friend, says that the work guy is bad news and I should stay away.

I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown. Which one of the below do people think is true? I don't know what is real anymore...
1. This is normal for love to feel like, and I obviously love the work guy. Forget the other guy, my mind is only using him as an 'easy option' where I can be in a relationship without this overwhelming surge of emotion
2. It's not love for the work guy it is infatuation, and it's only happened because I'm at work all the time and around him all the time. Also relationships at work wouldn't really work...PS For some reason I have always been attracted to men in power/politicians/managers.

Oh and by the way, I've had boyfriends, but for the most part I never really felt anything for any of them, and some were abusive. I have fallen in love before, but none of the people I fell in love with reciprocated it.

If I was a woman, I wouldn't go out with a guy who has anger issues and curses all the time.

I certainly wouldn't go out with a woman like that!

What made you fall in love with him, anyway?

I'd go with the Aspie guy, if I were you.

Oh, Kraftiekortie, I don't know!! People joke about how much this guy swears. Once he burnt his lunch and stormed down the hallway cursing his head off! Once he even got so mad at me for joking with some colleagues in a meeting that he shut the meeting down and stormed off. I'm just really attracted to him and I don't know why. I can bet that if we did get together he would hate so many things about me...I would be too hippie for him for a start, and I don't swear. The aspie guy is lovely but I don't know if either of them like me for sure anyway...

But you've gone for walks on the beach with him (the Aspie guy).

That's pretty romantic.

Do you feel something pleasurable in your body for him?

Ever see the movie called "Adam?"

It's about a "normal" woman who falls for an Aspie guy.

The other guy sounds like he might hit you, then apologize later.

No, haven't seen the movie, I'll have to look out for it. The other guy may like me, I'm not sure anymore though and I don't know how to ask without scaring him off (that's why my bro suggested Valentines day). We did date a few times in high school, but both aren't good with contact or talking about feelings so it just broke itself off.
Oh, edit, yes I do feel something pleasurable for him. He makes me laugh and I like sitting next to him/walking close to him. I find him attractive but just not at the 'blown away by a tornado' way of the other guy.

The work guy has come from a divorce so I just assumed that's where he gets the anger from. Or maybe it's just bravado. Maybe I'm just making excuses for it who knows. I have been with abusive people in the past though so maybe it's some weird psychology thing that I'm attracted to people like that

I'm guessing you're looking for adventure---which is natural, actually. I wouldn't criticize you for it.

It's "good cop, bad cop." Very classic. You like the good boy and the bad boy at the same time. I wouldn't criticize you for that, either. Because it's pretty "normal."

But....a guy who is angry at a divorce, and angry at women in general....will probably be more than you bargained for.

Moreover, he works for the same company.

This is not necessarily rare and is to be expected that you'd be attracted to his powerful confidence. However, unless you have a consistent way to be able to appease his anger and calm down his emotions, getting involved with him sounds like it could result in various disappointments or possible abuses (and angry people are generally and usually irrational in their decision-making; whether his anger resulted in a divorce or vice-versa is yet to be determined).

With as much «experience» I now have in the seduction-of-dozens-of-women-field, you could try testing the waters in reverse, broach the subject of how he seems to be full of stress and tension, then offer to give him a massage to help him ease his stress and tensions (but don't bother with this method/approach if you are not skilled at massage).

Either he will agree to schedule an appointment for one or will be too pre-occupied with various work-errands and responsibilities. Should he agree, you could try to gradually turn it into a full-body massage during the massage-session, and maybe it might help calm him down enough to not be such a fire-cracker, but if not, then his emotional-issues become his own responsibility, and you should still be aware of the fact that there are reasons for divorces.

Out of all of the 17+ different girls/women who have either wanted to marry me or fallen in love with me throughout my life... some of them were even already married or whatever (this is not counting the on-line interactions of course of additional girls who have interacted with me of course), wait, never-mind, this is irrelevant. Anyway, something seems to keep reminding you of him for some reason or another, and if I had to take a wild guess...

...that man reminds you in many ways of the former abusive bad-boys that you have boyfriended in the past, and whatever seemingly negative or abusive traits you see in this man, you probably think/believe that he will somehow be different than the previous boyfriends, whilst simultaneously imagining all manners of how he would give you all of those pleasures that you missed experiencing from your previous boyfriends when they seemed to know how to bring you to orgasm, whilst the AS guy does not seem to have a clue how to just simply grab you, and lick upon the side of your neck, and slide his hands up your blouse to fondle your breasts whilst rubbing his thumbs upon your nipples, basically you cannot picture yourself getting turned on nor aroused by the AS guy in your life, due to his apparently lack of sexual-expertise, but you somehow can «see» the rich man doing such things to you, and simply picturing it and imagining it brings you feelings of pleasure and arousal. I do not believe that I am incorrect in this assessment; logically, the AS guy makes more sense for a relationship, but field-experiences out in the world and in-practice tell your emotions something completely different.

Why, I have half a mind to go over to Australia right now, just to seduce you (like as-if I were some sort of sex-addicted womanizer), because you really wouldn't be able to resist (and I know this because you do not have control of your emotions, and if you do not have control of your emotions, then your emotions will be in control, and you would end up wanting even more advances to feel even more pleasures that you may have never felt before). Sorry, did not mean to put in any seemingly inappropriate paragraphs (okay, actually, they really are on purpose), but it's simply to illustrate what seems to be happening to you (or maybe it's some of that womanizer-stuff that I can't control ). Bah, never-mind, I am probably not actually helping any more at this point, but feelings are generally illogical anyway (get past the stage of whatever you need to experience then try to move on if something isn't working out for whatever reason; P.S.: YOU generally need to be the «initiator» when it comes to most AS men, and if you want a «relationship» with the AS man, you probably need to lead him beyond hand-holding if you want more from him than just mere hand-holding, such as taking his hand and literally placing it upon whichever part of your body you want him to touch you, and move it in the manner of how you want him to touch you, and «demonstrate» what else you want him to do, such as if you want him to nibble upon your ear-lobe, you do that to him first, followed by giving him your own ear-lobe to his lips, assuming of course that such interactions are not somehow too much too far too fast for him at this stage in his life...)

Wow, I have to really pat myself on the back, I am truly a seduction-expert, even for having been diagnosed AS.

Ooo - anger issues are not good at all. Never get involved with guys like that because eventually they direct that anger at you.

This isn't love - it's lust. It's perfectly normal - just be aware you don't have to ACT upon it. And in his case, it's probably better that you don't.

Thank you for the replies and help guys. I'll have a go at initiating the AS guy... but that is rather hard because I too am hopeless at initiating anything. I can follow anything no worries but no initiating haha. I also have the problem of coming across extremely confident, but I'm a theatre person so it's all just learned from being on stage. I also have trouble separating love and lust.

Ban Dodger, you made me laugh!

OMG ! Yes ! I am score ! You know you like me ! Let's see, now I am supposed to react in a manner like «yeah , you see the kind of attention that I'm getting on this forum from such a lovely lady, fellow ASD men of these forums ? I am like a total stud... (whilst buffing my knuckles upon my torso of course ) » and do some strutting around (done in such a manner where I imagine all of the ASD guys on here are cheering me on of course), followed by attempting to exchange phone-numbers with you (done in a possibly ASD manner where I then go on to create a thread/post about how do I get your phone-number whilst simultaneously forgetting by accident about all of those long-distance charges and the fact that we ASD-types are not big on phone-use).

(Insert expression of rubbing chin here...) Hmm, yes, you would totally fall in love with me, you know you would ! Why, you might even already be having thoughts of what it might be like to be in a relationship with me, I mean, I am such hot stuff after all, like the Alpha-Type of the ASD-world ! Man, I even impress myself, sometimes !

Oups... I might be going over-board with my expressions self-narcissism. I am stop it at this for now. =)

First off in a serious note, even though it's already been said, to the OP, please, stay clear of this angry manager guy. I've known these types, and they are no good. They are narcissistic, abusive, controlling, and you will have a hard time leaving someone like that once you get in with them. They will build you up at first, just to break you down. Believe me. I would just stick to your Aspie guy. Take Kraftiekortie's advice. Believe me, he knows his stuff. On a not so serious note: Ban-dodger, you should write irotica. LOL. That's all. I need to go turn the heat down now.

Sometimes people (usually women, thanks misogyny) will confuse fear for attraction because society/media tells us that "butterflies in your stomach" (aka nausea), sweaty palms, blushing, etc are signs of attraction. But they can also be signs of fear or discomfort. I've had to talk myself through "no, you are not attracted to that kid who used to hit you, you are scared of him, terror and nausea at the sight of him are not signs of attraction." It sounds like you might be scared of the work guy on some level and mistaking that for attraction due to messed-up societal messages.
Either way work guy sounds like a bad idea, the anger issues and potential abusive tendencies plus the fact that he's a coworker plus the fact that you think he'd dislike you as a person would not make for a good situation.

Hate to break it to you but no one needs a pretentious prick who wastes half the page with nonsense.

I agree this is lust not love.