[Background]
I've recently moved abroad on a long-term project as an Xpat. One of the cutest girls in the office is ironically the HR. She's sexy, fun, super positive, great energy. She's been flirting with me lightly, but I didn’t take it personal as he kind of does it with a few people to an extent. It took one of my colleagues to highlight that she’s interested as she speaks to me and mentions me way too often. I started flirting back a bit more and eventually SHE invited me to hang out in a dinner with two other colleagues (2on2 basically). Obviously, this was framed as a work thing, but signals were too strong to take that seriously. Unfortunately, on the day of the meetup one of our colleagues announced he’s taking everyone for drinks and dinner as it’s his birthday - so our 2on2 dinner turned into a 30+ office party.
Key things here really are – we both work on the same floor, with the same people and we have positions that rely on having good reputation. I’ve always tried to avoid work flings, but given my temporary status, how amazing she is and the fact I’m on a rather long dry spell I thought I’d go ahead. However, in the circumstances, I played this very discrete and casual that night which might have been part of my mistake.
[Night out]
{BAR}
I head out to a bar next to the office – everyone is already there. Partially intentionally, partially by chance, I ignored her in the beginning. I chatted up with some colleagues, flirted with a few others. Everyone was getting quite drunk quite quickly. I think throughout the night she and I were the soberest ones (relatively). We chatted up a bit on very basic/work topics and eventually we were urged to head out to the restaurant. From here on we were literally inseparable for the next 9 hours or so…
On the way to the restaurant, we walked together – either 1on1 or with someone else. We talked about work and slowly transitioned it into more personal stuff and views.
{Restaurant}
In the restaurant, we sat together. We were around 15~ people at this point. She’ll act super nice, translate for me (xpat life.. people always switch to mother tongue when drunk), touch me in friendly ways... She gave a massage to one of her girlfriends from work on the table (weird stuff, but was funny) and I almost convinced her to give me one as well, but I think the ‘work environment’ stopped her. We started talking about local customs, recommendations. She started sending me places to go on my work email, so I used that to get her number – told her she can just message me and she gave me her phone to write my number in. Not the best effort, but it worked. The other highlight from here is when she told me:
-You’ve probably noticed, we touch everyone a lot when we talk around here.
Which kind of put me back a foot as I started thinking if I’m making up this connection and she’s just like that with everyone again.
{CLUB}
Eventually, we head out to a club with one of the locals. We are about 7-8 people at this point. We jump in 2 taxis, and again I sit next to her on a back of a taxi (she waved at me to go with her in her taxi..). In the club, nothing much happened. We danced a bit, chatted a bit (as much as possible really). I saved the only other girl left with us from this creep hitting on her a few times in a very suave way which I think helped as well. People started leaving, most asking my girl if she’d like to leave as well. She’d decline to everyone. We were about 4-5 people left when she told me "I’ll be leaving in 5-10minutes". My alarm started banging in my head so I pulled her in, put my hand behind her head and whispered in her ear "Lets leave now, its getting boring here". She agreed instantly. We said our goodbyes with the rest, I casually took her hand and lead her out of the club.
This is where things started turning bad slowly. Once we are outside, we find one of her best friends from work standing on a wall super drunk and looking at his phone. I joked whether we should say HI to him, but of course she did. I started testing the waters for a pull, and asked them both if they want to go for a nightcap at a nice rooftop (my house, but did not mention it). She didn’t disagree nor agree, however the guy threw me under the bus a bit by saying "No NO… Sell it to me… Nah sounds dull" … So anyhow, we put him in a taxi and sent him home. She said lets walk up to X and we’ll get cabs there and I agreed. During the way I did some deep diving… Tried for a pull again and this is where I fucked up properly I believe:
-"It’s not too late that we go for a last drink"
- "Ah but its so late (4am~).. And where would we go anyway?
- "This really cool bar on a rooftop"
- "Ah but that means we need to go there first.. then get another taxi home…"
- "Where do you live?"
- " Staying at my apartment at X tonight".
- "Well that is kind of on the way! It’s like a triangle to get there"
-"Triangle?!" looking at me confused
- "Yeah my house is near Y and then you go to X" // waving with my hands… Big mistake I mentioned I lived there – showed cards down
- "Ah no no, it’s too late, I’m too old" // she’s 28
Oh well! With a chicken pull like that you get a chicken result. We keep moving towards the taxis. When we get there I say:
- " Shall we even be getting two taxis?"
- "We can take one and share !"
We get in the same taxi and head out. She asks me:
- "Where shall we go first?"
- "Lets drop you off first" I say // not sure why now..
During the trip we start deep diving and I try again to persuade her to come to mine:
- "It’s still not too late to get a night cap. I have a few crazy swiss neighbours, we might even crash their party"
- "No we’ll do it another time…"
- "But you are always busy, when we’ll we get another time really? I’m going back home next weekend for a week.." /// Think this was a very weak frame. When I think about it now it sounds a bit desperate.
- "We can go for a coffee one day, it doesn’t have to involve alcohol."
She then suddenly asks me:
- "You sure you don’t want to drop you off first?" // Was this a window to pull again?!
- "No, let’s drop you off"
Eventually we get there, she gives me a kiss on the cheek and gets off. I was considering going for a proper kiss in the taxi, but I’ve done this before where my pull fails and I go for the kiss which just destroys the interest completely and I never hear from them again. Before she leaves, we say our goodbye and I say:
- "You missed out on some cool last drinks
" // I think this was a poor ego-saving response. Can't remember exactly how she took it, but I don't think she was super impressed.
When I got home, I opened my phone and I had a message from her with 2 photos and a "Good night!" I replied with " Hehe awesome. No swiss on the roof so off to be indeed. Night"
Radio silence since.
[Recap]
Looking back now, I believe that had I pulled properly things would of went a different way. The thing is I was confused by this whole work environment social pressure thing - too much risks which made me lose it. I was always on the edge between “don’t shit where you eat” to “omg just do it”. Moreover, I was silly enough to get the idea in my head that she is not a ‘1night stand girl’ and that she would ‘probably not go home with me on the first night’. Both of these basically came out in my half-arsed attempts for pull.
Question now is what now? I’ll see her in the office on Wednesday … Do I ask her for a coffee? Do I drop her completely while shit still hasn’t hit the fan completely? Any advice? I’ve never dipped into a work fling before so I’m not quite sure what the etiquette is… I've obviously fucked it up a bit, but is this a point of no return?
I've recently moved abroad on a long-term project as an Xpat. One of the cutest girls in the office is ironically the HR. She's sexy, fun, super positive, great energy. She's been flirting with me lightly, but I didn’t take it personal as he kind of does it with a few people to an extent. It took one of my colleagues to highlight that she’s interested as she speaks to me and mentions me way too often. I started flirting back a bit more and eventually SHE invited me to hang out in a dinner with two other colleagues (2on2 basically). Obviously, this was framed as a work thing, but signals were too strong to take that seriously. Unfortunately, on the day of the meetup one of our colleagues announced he’s taking everyone for drinks and dinner as it’s his birthday - so our 2on2 dinner turned into a 30+ office party.
Key things here really are – we both work on the same floor, with the same people and we have positions that rely on having good reputation. I’ve always tried to avoid work flings, but given my temporary status, how amazing she is and the fact I’m on a rather long dry spell I thought I’d go ahead. However, in the circumstances, I played this very discrete and casual that night which might have been part of my mistake.
[Night out]
{BAR}
I head out to a bar next to the office – everyone is already there. Partially intentionally, partially by chance, I ignored her in the beginning. I chatted up with some colleagues, flirted with a few others. Everyone was getting quite drunk quite quickly. I think throughout the night she and I were the soberest ones (relatively). We chatted up a bit on very basic/work topics and eventually we were urged to head out to the restaurant. From here on we were literally inseparable for the next 9 hours or so…
On the way to the restaurant, we walked together – either 1on1 or with someone else. We talked about work and slowly transitioned it into more personal stuff and views.
{Restaurant}
In the restaurant, we sat together. We were around 15~ people at this point. She’ll act super nice, translate for me (xpat life.. people always switch to mother tongue when drunk), touch me in friendly ways... She gave a massage to one of her girlfriends from work on the table (weird stuff, but was funny) and I almost convinced her to give me one as well, but I think the ‘work environment’ stopped her. We started talking about local customs, recommendations. She started sending me places to go on my work email, so I used that to get her number – told her she can just message me and she gave me her phone to write my number in. Not the best effort, but it worked. The other highlight from here is when she told me:
-You’ve probably noticed, we touch everyone a lot when we talk around here.
Which kind of put me back a foot as I started thinking if I’m making up this connection and she’s just like that with everyone again.
{CLUB}
Eventually, we head out to a club with one of the locals. We are about 7-8 people at this point. We jump in 2 taxis, and again I sit next to her on a back of a taxi (she waved at me to go with her in her taxi..). In the club, nothing much happened. We danced a bit, chatted a bit (as much as possible really). I saved the only other girl left with us from this creep hitting on her a few times in a very suave way which I think helped as well. People started leaving, most asking my girl if she’d like to leave as well. She’d decline to everyone. We were about 4-5 people left when she told me "I’ll be leaving in 5-10minutes". My alarm started banging in my head so I pulled her in, put my hand behind her head and whispered in her ear "Lets leave now, its getting boring here". She agreed instantly. We said our goodbyes with the rest, I casually took her hand and lead her out of the club.
This is where things started turning bad slowly. Once we are outside, we find one of her best friends from work standing on a wall super drunk and looking at his phone. I joked whether we should say HI to him, but of course she did. I started testing the waters for a pull, and asked them both if they want to go for a nightcap at a nice rooftop (my house, but did not mention it). She didn’t disagree nor agree, however the guy threw me under the bus a bit by saying "No NO… Sell it to me… Nah sounds dull" … So anyhow, we put him in a taxi and sent him home. She said lets walk up to X and we’ll get cabs there and I agreed. During the way I did some deep diving… Tried for a pull again and this is where I fucked up properly I believe:
-"It’s not too late that we go for a last drink"
- "Ah but its so late (4am~).. And where would we go anyway?
- "This really cool bar on a rooftop"
- "Ah but that means we need to go there first.. then get another taxi home…"
- "Where do you live?"
- " Staying at my apartment at X tonight".
- "Well that is kind of on the way! It’s like a triangle to get there"
-"Triangle?!" looking at me confused
- "Yeah my house is near Y and then you go to X" // waving with my hands… Big mistake I mentioned I lived there – showed cards down
- "Ah no no, it’s too late, I’m too old" // she’s 28
Oh well! With a chicken pull like that you get a chicken result. We keep moving towards the taxis. When we get there I say:
- " Shall we even be getting two taxis?"
- "We can take one and share !"
We get in the same taxi and head out. She asks me:
- "Where shall we go first?"
- "Lets drop you off first" I say // not sure why now..
During the trip we start deep diving and I try again to persuade her to come to mine:
- "It’s still not too late to get a night cap. I have a few crazy swiss neighbours, we might even crash their party"
- "No we’ll do it another time…"
- "But you are always busy, when we’ll we get another time really? I’m going back home next weekend for a week.." /// Think this was a very weak frame. When I think about it now it sounds a bit desperate.
- "We can go for a coffee one day, it doesn’t have to involve alcohol."
She then suddenly asks me:
- "You sure you don’t want to drop you off first?" // Was this a window to pull again?!
- "No, let’s drop you off"
Eventually we get there, she gives me a kiss on the cheek and gets off. I was considering going for a proper kiss in the taxi, but I’ve done this before where my pull fails and I go for the kiss which just destroys the interest completely and I never hear from them again. Before she leaves, we say our goodbye and I say:
- "You missed out on some cool last drinks
" // I think this was a poor ego-saving response. Can't remember exactly how she took it, but I don't think she was super impressed.When I got home, I opened my phone and I had a message from her with 2 photos and a "Good night!" I replied with " Hehe awesome. No swiss on the roof so off to be indeed. Night
"Radio silence since.
[Recap]
Looking back now, I believe that had I pulled properly things would of went a different way. The thing is I was confused by this whole work environment social pressure thing - too much risks which made me lose it. I was always on the edge between “don’t shit where you eat” to “omg just do it”. Moreover, I was silly enough to get the idea in my head that she is not a ‘1night stand girl’ and that she would ‘probably not go home with me on the first night’. Both of these basically came out in my half-arsed attempts for pull.
Question now is what now? I’ll see her in the office on Wednesday … Do I ask her for a coffee? Do I drop her completely while shit still hasn’t hit the fan completely? Any advice? I’ve never dipped into a work fling before so I’m not quite sure what the etiquette is… I've obviously fucked it up a bit, but is this a point of no return?
