I've been at my job for about two months, and there's this girl at work who I've taken an increasing interest in. She is diligent, relatively easily to talk to, studied literature and linguistics (two things I like), but is rather reserved. We do not talk all that often, but when we do she seems enthusiastic and engaged.
What our interactions have been like:
SPOILER: Show
Looks-wise, she's actually quite attractive but not in an in-you-face way. She's a brunette, almost as tall as I am (about 175cm, I'm 180), thin, and has beautiful eyes. She comes from Slovakia and though her English is fluent it is clearly her second language. Not that this is a bad thing.
The conversations we've had were mostly about what she studied in university. She learned German in high school but didn't like the language; however, she likes German authors and wrote a dissertation on a German work, which she readily described to me. This is good since German language and literature is something I'm into as well. Furthermore, she took some Chinese and seems generally interested in Eastern stuff. She says she spends a lot of time reading.
We've also discussed languages. I took a couple years of Russian in university, but don't have good command of it at all. When I mentioned this, she said that Slovak was a good choice if one wants to get into other Slavic languages. After doing some basic research on Czech and Slovak (the two are mutually intelligible, I'm told), I realized that most of the grammar and half the vocabulary is actually Russian or variants thereof written in the Latin alphabet and that picking it up wouldn't be so hard.
She seems to have been pleasantly surprised when I told her I would learn Slovak (I qualified this by saying that it would be a stepping stone to Russian), and later complimented me on my understanding of the grammar. I might also mention that she is the only person I can think of who says I look my age. Everyone else says stuff like "oh you look like you're in high school." FWIW, she's three years older than me.
The conversations we've had were mostly about what she studied in university. She learned German in high school but didn't like the language; however, she likes German authors and wrote a dissertation on a German work, which she readily described to me. This is good since German language and literature is something I'm into as well. Furthermore, she took some Chinese and seems generally interested in Eastern stuff. She says she spends a lot of time reading.
We've also discussed languages. I took a couple years of Russian in university, but don't have good command of it at all. When I mentioned this, she said that Slovak was a good choice if one wants to get into other Slavic languages. After doing some basic research on Czech and Slovak (the two are mutually intelligible, I'm told), I realized that most of the grammar and half the vocabulary is actually Russian or variants thereof written in the Latin alphabet and that picking it up wouldn't be so hard.
She seems to have been pleasantly surprised when I told her I would learn Slovak (I qualified this by saying that it would be a stepping stone to Russian), and later complimented me on my understanding of the grammar. I might also mention that she is the only person I can think of who says I look my age. Everyone else says stuff like "oh you look like you're in high school." FWIW, she's three years older than me.
When we talk, she seems to prefer facing me and making eye contact. She doesn't laugh much, but she smiles a lot. Our conversations are casual but not heated. Then again she does seem like a relatively mellow person.
Now for the problems. Her work schedule is different than mine (I get in at 8-ish and leave at 6-7pm, she gets here at like 11 and leaves around 10pm), and she works in a different team, about ten meters away from me. So I can't really hang out with her while working exception in the rare situation one of us needs something done from the other.
All the times we've talked have been "accidents" (some real, some engineered by me) during lunch and dinner breaks, and she seems to have no interest in actually initiating any conversation unless she wants something work-related done. She doesn't seem to greet anyone except in situations where it would be super awkward not to. This is weird since whenever we do talk she's super cool. I haven't had the chance to investigate in detail but I get the feeling that she's like this with everyone.
The single biggest problem as I see it is that I simply don't see enough opportunities to get to know her better outside of what short, uncertain, and easily-interrupted conversations I can manage during breaks. The substance of our contact is great, but there's not much of it. I'm pretty sure she isn't taken but even that is something I can only infer at this point.
It's possible that this is all one-sided and I've been friendzoned (more like coworker-zoned) since she could well be pleasant to everyone. Based on previous experience, I'm kind of assuming this by default, but maybe that's not a good mentality. I don't know if I should be more aggressive or if I should take things really slowly and stay safely outside of the "creeper" realm. At the same time however I don't want her to think I have no interest in her.
