This letter comes from Dear Prudence at Slate magazine, which you can find here.

This year, I met a new co-worker (I’ll call her Sara), whom I immediately had a crush on. We quickly became really good friends, and I didn’t want to mess up our friendship, so I crushed my crush. Skip to a few months later and I find out the feelings are reciprocated, but Sara has not been attracted to women before and is confused and cautious. At this point, we work together (not in the same division, fortunately), she’s one of my closest friends, and we hang out almost every day, but our friendship is filled with sexual tension and flirtation. She doesn’t know that I know how she feels, but I’m scared to act. I fear that our friendship will be hurt or that I’ll get hurt because she doesn’t want to act on these feelings. I know at this point I need to do something—what should I do?

Dear LW,

Um… this seems like a disaster waiting to happen.  I’m glad the two of you have a great friendship and all.  What will happen though if you two become intimate and then she decides she’s not really into women anymore? You will be devastated.  Things will get awkward around the water cooler at work. If she starts dating other people, you’ll get mad. These things happen when you 1) date people from work and 2) date people who are questioning their sexuality.  She may be a little curious about women, but not enough to pursue it at this time.

You say there is sexual tension. What sexual tension?  You didn’t name any.  This leads me to believe you maybe reading into something that is probably not there. Flirtation is fun and playful, but does not mean she is into you.  I flirt with my gay friends. It’s just something we do.  There is no secret meaning behind it.

Nurture the friendship instead.  If she is truly interested, let her make the first move.  Just be mindful, if things go south, your life will be hell at work.

Good luck to you.

~Jana Leigh

What do you guys think? Should she pursue her friend?

**Photo credit: lasionline.com