I’ve got a crush on my young new boss

HoW refreshing it was when this man (call him Joe) arrived at your workplace and changed the atmosphere. You used the terms ‘cynical’ and ‘world-weary’; both at work and in your private life you were feeling jaded and desperately in need of a ‘lift’. And then Joe arrived — and fresh air blew through your life.

There will be readers, sorely beset by their own problems, who are wondering why I have chosen a letter about what is no more than a crush.

‘Unrequited fondness’ is the title you gave to your email and this is hardly the stuff of tragedy. Yet how many of us are afflicted by small let-downs which add up to a big sense of being flattened by life?

It’s an accumulation of pinpricks which can gradually deflate a whole soul: relentless, punishing and all the worse for seeming trivial. Your problem is about sudden excitement and hope followed by disappointment — and should resonate with others, gay, straight or just human.

of course, this problem is also about perception and truth — and my answer must be honest. Yes, you were imagining Joe’s fondness for you.

A pleasant, enthusiastic young man, he treated you warmly as a colleague he likes and almost certainly values. That strange little detail of him liking watching you play table tennis meant … oh dear, exactly what it says.

But to you it implied much more — because you crave a ‘special’ relationship with somebody who can change your life and end the loneliness that surely lies behind this problem.

Surely, it’s not so much about charming Joe, who will soon move on out of your life, but about how you are going to deal with your world-weariness and create some new starts.

I expect you have kicked yourself with embarrassment for mentioning your feelings to Joe. Secretly, you hoped he might be gay (despite the girlfriend); now you must face up to that fantasy.

I suspect it might have been good for Joe to realise that charm often has unexpected consequences. He might even have asked himself whether he did something to encourage your crush — and was that responsible?

He might have learned a useful lesson from meeting you, and if I were you I’d embrace that thought. Did you matter to him? Yes, I think so. But more than the others in work? Probably not.

You need to learn from this experience. Joe will move on to a new placement and out of your life, and your quest now is how to wake up the rest of your days as Joe enlivened them during that brief time. Read today’s top quotation by Sylvia Plath — and believe.