Superior/subordinate communication becoming crippled by crush

[anitaphalange]

I'm new here, so hi

 

Okay, so for the past two years, I've had a work-from-home job. The company is only me and four other people and I got referred for the job by a friend of mine. The company is 4 males... I am the only female employee.

 

We do about 95% of our work communication on the Internet through a private, central chatroom and e-mail. 4 of us all live in the same city, one of them lives in another state a few hundred miles away. Shortly after I started working there, I developed this weird crush on the guy who lives in another state. He is completely clueless about this as far as I know. I have never said anything inappropriate to him and vice versa. The crush is silly, nerdy, and intellectual. He is 40. I am 22. I have been in a relationship with a guy I live with for the past 2 years. Pretty sure this guy is also taken. This guy is not my boss but he plays a role in supervising my work. I also used to have an online journal and he regularly read it although he has never said anything to me about it. He used to acknowledge that he knew things about me that I've never mentioned to him (I enjoy playing video games and he said something about it) but never say that he knew this from reading my journal. None of my other coworkers, not even my friend, have ever read that journal because it is very personal and not something I would expect a coworker to read.

 

Anyway, last year, he had to evacuate for a hurricane and ended up coming to the city where our company is located and I met him for the first time. I'm really shy and well, I couldn't even look at him much less introduce myself to him formally. I considered after that to shoot him a quick e-mail and apologize for the whole thing and just explain that I am a naturally shy person but other people, including my coworker friend were telling me not to do this so I didn't.

 

Ever since then, things have grown increasingly more strained between him and I. He and my friend speak on a daily basis and my friend tells me that the guy has discussed me with him, mainly that he really wishes I would talk to him. On the contrary, he won't say this TO ME. I've been sort of afraid to talk to him. I should mention that despite how lame I acted toward him when I met him, I ended up getting a worse crush on him because I realized I found him to be physically attractive as well. So that's my reason. I have no idea what his reason for not talking to me is. I guess my friend asked about this as they were discussing me and he said that it's because I never respond to his e-mails (I do). I don't think that's the real reason. My friend is getting annoyed because this coworker is using him to relay messages to me instead of talking to me. Neither of us has any communication problems with anyone else in our company except each other. We will go days without saying a word to each other.

 

My friend is also aware that I have a crush on this guy. I don't know for sure that he hasn't said anything to him about it, but I trust that he would not do that to me.

 

I got rid of the public online journal shortly after I met the coworker and made a private one that is only accessible to me. I wrote a couple of months ago about my crush. While I wasn't home, my live-in boyfriend snooped around on my computer and found it. Now he's constantly talking about it and treating me like I have done something wrong. I've just written down practically everything that has happened... have I done something wrong? I don't know what to do. I still have this crush. Part of me think it's being self-propelled by the constant attention drawn to it by my boyfriend and the work-related drama that has stemmed from it. How do I fix things with the coworker? I've tried just being more involved with work, making him aware of what I am working on but I still feel something is not right between us. He describes me to my friend as being "secretive," but I don't really know how I am or what he wants from me.

 

I'm afraid to just be honest with him and talk about how affected I am by this communication problem because I think the crush I have is making me too emotionally invested in it and I might embarrass myself by making that obvious or worse, make things even more awkward between him and me. What is the correct way to handle this situation? I know it's by no means a common problem and is really weird, but it's happening and it bugs me a lot.

 

ETA: I have to apologize--I didn't realize when I wrote this out it'd be about as long as a book!