advice on meeting men from high quality dating apps for low key coffee is well meant, but please take it with a moderate grain of salt

[czanclus]

If I may state my opinion: advice on meeting men from high quality dating apps for low key coffee is well meant, but please take it with a moderate grain of salt. It is very likely that the connection you've made with this unavailable man is rare. While there are numerous single men out there, a great number of them looking for an actual relationship or at least claiming they are, the likelihood of meeting someone compatible is not nearly as high as the prevalent advice seems to imply.

Continuing with my opinion, it could actually cause a person more heartache to blindly hope for that level of connection at the next or next handful of coffee-date encounters than to first acknowledge and reflect on their current entangled situation (ie. with an unavailable man), decide to what level a platonic relationship is possible, treat oneself with kindness for getting entangled to the point of catching feelings for an unavailable person, re-address comfort with staying single if nothing worthy comes along, and then take appropriate action.

Lastly, just because two people are married doesn't mean that they should stay married, and what seems to have happened so far between a married man and his coworker who is not his partner is a state that should be reflected on by everyone involved. In my opinion, the responsibility of the original poster is to protect herself from further hurt by not engaging in an affair, to be mindful and respectful of boundaries that the married man is setting by not expressing his feelings and not setting the stage for resolution of the situation by leaving the marriage or working on it, and to be honest with herself and if communication warrants with the man she's involved with on what she ultimately wants from this situation.