I am so nervous to post this here but elated to have stumbled on a community of people who are crushing/swooning/pining! 😂 I have a crush on a colleague and I am trying to figure out 2 things: 1) if he might also like me and 2) if I should be more frank about my interest at some point (like over the summer maybe). Backstory—I’m new junior faculty at a very large university and it’s been fairly hard to meet colleagues/make friends outside of my department. I’ve taken to just browsing a few faculty profiles and cold-emailing the people that sound cool to ask if I could stop by their office to say hi (the world can be a nice place--people have been very receptive to this!). I emailed this guy because the director of a program messaged us at the same time asking us to apply to be affiliate faculty and it dawned on me that I might have missed the chance to connect with another faculty member, so I followed up by messaging him separately. I asked if I could stop by his office to say hi in late January, and we chatted briefly for about 10 minutes then. At the end of the convo, he said I had “good energy” and, later that week, asked if we could write together. We missed each other several times over the next month or so but one day, he stopped by my office when I wasn't there and left a handwritten note under my door saying that he hoped we could meet soon.

Since then, we've met three times--twice to cowork and once to just get a drink/talk about life at the university! He's very cute and seems lovely in a lot of ways--smart, kind, and funny. I should also say that he initiated all of the meetups. I have lots of reservations about dating coworkers in academia (I swore it off years ago) but am wondering if I could be being a little silly by making that a rule. So what do you all think? Does it sound like he might be interested? If so, what can I do to make my interest clearer? I am terrible at flirting, terrible at reading other people's flirting, and generally do not like showing my hand in this way, lol.