This guy is weird. The lady should watch out. He's total weird stalker material.

I'm going to go with the "troll" vote... the giveaways being the "for some reason" and the descriptions of things he makes himself think about (smelly dirty backsides??!?!).

Ha ha. Nice joke, LW.

If he is honest with his supervisor, I'm sure his place of employment will be only too happy to arrange it pronto to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.

For some months a male colleague has been pestering me to go out with him for "just a drink" sometimes when we've met at the grocery store, etc. It's never just a drink, however. He's very dear to me as a colleague, someone from a very different walk of life whom I would be unlikely to have met otherwise. But I don't want to jeopardize that by going out even though there's nothing stopping us since we are both free agents.

Nonetheless, you gotta think about whether it's worth mixing business with pleasure. If you value your job, it may not be worth it.

Cary, I'm so sorry about your losing your mother.

Ok. So you've found a hot chick that will talk to you, which for a horny and socially awkward guy is a rare and precious thing. But like a monkey in a lab, you can't quite figure out how to arrange the blocks and get the banana.

The answer is, the banana comes out of a different slot. Tell work-girl you're very lonely and want some female company, and would be delighted if it was her but know that's impossible since she's married. But will she please help you meet other more available women. You'll buy all the drinks. This will pay off because if you work it right, it will improve your chances at the singles bar by maybe a thousand percent.

As soon as you start getting it regularly from some other hot chick, your interest in work-girl will immediately disappear and you will be happy just being friends. Whatever rationalizations you have to make so you can still feel good about yourself, this was never about anything but your dick. Once it is happy then you are happy. End of story.

LW, I don't know if you're a troll or a creep, but if you want to get an idea of how you come across, think of how this nice woman would feel if she knew how you had described her here.

First, she'd say eeeeewwwww, then she'd be scared, and then she'd go straight to HR and a lawyer.

One of the things adults learn is that you cannot have everything you want. I said "everyTHING" on purpose. This is not a woman to you; this is a commodity you have the hots for. I suggest you listen: she's happily married; she's loyal; and she wants to start a family with the man she loves.

Who is not you.

I find it charming that this LW is attempting to restrain his emotions by thinking about this woman's dingleberries.

If I read this letter right, it took him four months to realize she was married.

Four months? I'm wondering whether she wasn't wearing a ring, or whether he's so young that he doesn't have enough married acquaintances to know to look for one.

I assume she knows he has a crush on her--sounds like he's being obvious, and people usually, at least subconsciously, know these things....Plus there's almost always a crush somewhere in any heterosexual male/female platonic friendship--a savvy person who wants a true and good platonic friendship w/someone of compatible sexual orientation knows to both mention his/her significant other in conversations, ask the other person about his/her own love life (encouraging that person to pursue other crushes...) plus make find some way of introducing the friend to the significant other. She should have invited this guy to have drinks with both her and her husband...esp. so that her husband wouldn't feel threatened himself.

If she doesn't wear a wedding ring, waited four months to tell this guy that she's married, and has been going out for drinks w/him...then something weird is going on on her end as well. Perhaps she's subconsciously (?) leading him on because his romantic attention makes her feel good about herself. It's fine for her to enjoy the fact that someone other than her husband has a crush on her, but it's definitely not fine to lead him on.

This guy does sound obsessive and unhealthy and very much in need of therapy....but unhealthy people are often attracted to equally unhealthy people. These two should stay away from each other, even as friends.

He's one of the characters from that Salon "love in America" feature or whatever it's called! In ten years or so we can hear about his "successful" relationship with a married woman he met as a pen pal while serving a sentence for breaking and entering. "Smelly backsides" will feature prominently.

...when I had just started graduate school there was a bumptious undergrad who enjoyed chatting me up, usually at the most inopportune times. I pointed out our age difference which seemed to go right past them. Then I pulled out out my ace in the hole: "I'm married." He responded: "I don't see a ring on your finger."

The point is, if someone says "I'm married" whether it's true or not is irrelevant. You have to face the fact s/he is not interested and move along.

Don't even try to be friends if you're already having these feelings. Even happily married people can develop an attraction for "friends".

Especially friends who are obviously enamored of them.

The LW can throw a wrench into a healthy marriage because he has no intention of just being friends, and even if he decides that's the right thing to do, he won't be able to.

He sounds really immature. He got "aggressive" when he found out she was married? He'd only met her briefly - it's not like she was going out with him long enough for him to form a normal level of attachment and then sprung it on her.

One glimpse and he's already that into her? See, the thing is that it's all in the LW's head, not in reality. And that's what is frightening about this. He's already seeing her husband as an opponent, an interloper in his imagined relationship with this woman.

It makes sense to tell him to stick to friendship, but he doesn't seem capable of this and he could really become a problem. At the very least, her friendly gestures could be misinterpreted and feed his obsession.

At worst, though, LW sounds rather hostile and oblivious and doesn't seem to understand this woman does not belong to him in any way but instead really loves someone else. ("for some reason" she's devoted to her husband?) He doesn't allow reality to get in the way.

This sounds sort of creepy, a precursor to some really obsessive and possibly destructive behavior.