Thank you for your kind comments everyone.
Below is a copy of an email I've just sent her (names removed to protect the guilty).
Probably bloody stupid of me but that's just me.
Your comments are welcome.
'Dear xxx
I guess that you will only read the first couple of lines of this and then instantly delete it, and furthermore the chances of you actually replying are next to zero, but I beg you to read on.
I have never written anything like this before and it is just SO hard for me.
Please accept my apologies for acting like a stupid love-struck teenager.
I can assure you there will be no more messages/gifts etc. I never meant to upset you, quite the opposite.
I don’t think you realise quite how deeply I’ve fallen for you over the last few weeks, and I am wracked with guilt and self-loathing because of it.
Firstly I knew that you have so much going on at the moment, what with the impending house move, the new school etc. that you have very little spare time and are frequently very tired. How you manage to achieve all you do never ceases to amaze me. You truly are a ‘wonder woman’!
Secondly I surmised that if I were to just ask you out then you would instantly reject me, perhaps even laugh at me. (And I’ve never been good at handling rejections) After all, why would the most attractive woman in the office (I just have to look into your oh-so-pretty eyes and I melt) want anything at all to do with a big ugly fat bastard like myself?
So I decided to try and woo you with small ‘romantic’ gestures, whilst trying to be as discreet as possible. You said once (as have many people) that I was ‘generous’. Well yes, I can be VERY generous to those I care about, as my late parents left me very well provided-for so that I don’t really have to worry about money. (I could easily afford to pay for your Maldives trip for example). But now I can see that you are not interested whatsoever, which is a shame for me as I have SO MUCH love to give, and would have treated you like a princess.
As well as ‘caring and generous’, in the past I have been told that I am kind, gentle, considerate, and it may surprise you to learn that I’ve even been told that I’m good in bed, understanding and fulfilling a woman’s needs, but there you go.
You said that I looked ‘sad’ when I apologised for making you jump with my toy insect, and you were right. I added ‘for everything’ as my way of apologising for my infatuation with you.
The day after my birthday, we went down in the lift together, and I sensed you felt awkward, and I felt awkward too, for when we got to the alleyway it was then that I was going to tell you that I was hopelessly in love with you. It was at that precise moment that you said you had to rush off to pick xxx up. I think deep down you sensed what I was going to say, but just did not want to hear me say it.
What particularly hurts me though is not just your rejection, but the way salt is being rubbed into the wound by your outrageous flirting with xxx. Yes, it’s just plain old-fashioned jealousy on my part, but let me tell you I am not the only one to notice, and a couple of other people have made comments behind your back, seeing as xxx has a partner. (I defended you by the way). I have seen the way you look at him, and it’s clear that you fancy him.
However, whilst one part of me is seething with jealousy, the old catholic guilt part is saying “If you love her, then you ultimately want her to be happy, no matter what. And if flirting with this attached guy under your nose is what makes her happy then so be it. After all she is a modern independent woman, free to make her own choices, so let her carry on, accept her happiness, and move on”
It is THIS that is tearing me apart.
You said that my discreet little romantic gestures were ‘inappropriate for a colleague and for the work environment’ (I went out of my way to be ultra-discreet when giving you the ‘Amelie’ DVD for example, not only carefully wrapping it in pink paper but even swapping the HMV bag for a plain one, and covertly slipping it to just as you left, with minimal words. No one even notice me do it). Yet what do think your behaviour with xxx is? What would his partner say if she witnessed what I do, every day you’re both in? Do you think that she would find your behaviour with him and the things you say to him ‘appropriate for the work environment’?
Things came to a head for me yesterday, when I noticed that you were quiet all morning, hardly saying a word to xxx, which I put down to you being tired as you were constantly yawning.
However as soon as xxx rolled in a 12.00 you brightened up considerably, and by 12.05 you were all over him again (and almost every 20 minutes thereafter). Later on, when you were eating the lollipop that xxx had given you, I saw the look in your eye as you were watching xxx over by xxx's desk, and I knew then that I had no chance, despite writing (discretely in French, so no-one else could read it) ‘Come with me to the Maldives, I will pay for us both’ in the holiday brochure I gave you.
Of course then I went home and read your cold, emotionless email to me, whilst imagining you and xxx laughing at me. (God I’m so pathetic!)
Being on a late today I wrote the first part of this before I went to work going over it in my mind on the way, and was very surprised to have a sort of mini-breakdown very shortly after my arrival, bursting into tears and cursing myself for being so stupid and weak willed. I felt so ashamed. I was comforted by xxx, xxx and xxx, all of whom asked me what was up, xxx even asking if it was someone at work who had upset me, but to save YOU from any further embarrassment I refused to tell them anything.
xxx asked if I wanted to go home or talk to her in private about it but I declined both. Instead I was taken off the phones and just given some light admin. I asked that people leave me alone, as I was acutely embarrassed to have worked myself up into such a pathetic and ridiculous state.
In conclusion, we are both intelligent adults (one of the things that attracted me to you was your keen brain, as well as your beauty) and there is no reason why after the weekend and I’ve calmed down and cleared my mind, that we cannot ‘reset’ and carry on as prior to that ‘lightning bolt’ of infatuation striking me.
I would ask however, that even if you have the merest hint of humanity and shred of compassion within you, to PLEASE tone down the flirting with xxx in front of me, if only for the next couple of weeks, whilst I try to get you out of my system, so to speak.
In the medium term, xxx leaves in a few weeks, so it might be an idea for me to move to his desk. That way you don’t have to look at my face and I don’t have to witness your flirting with xxx. I just need to come up with some cover-story to explain the request to move without embarrassing you.
Perhaps if you have managed to read to the bottom of this you may feel that you wish to complain to xxx or even xxx that I’m holding you to emotional blackmail or harassing you.
I would ask you not to do this (not because I need the job for the money) but for the fact that I am willing to put this behind me and move on. It’s been a roller-coaster ride over the last few weeks for me, but roller-coaster rides do come to a stop, and this is most definitely it.
Wishing you all the happiness for the future,
xxx.'
