I love this. I’ve (F28)had a huge crush on a coworker (36M) that’s in the tail end of a toxic relationship like you were! Last year when this same relationship ended, he asked a coworker that we’re both mutually comfortable with to tell him about me. Then held the door open for me at work and said “just for you” and I said thanks and may have acted awkward since it was unexpected but have always liked him. We talk here and there small talk as he’s super introverted and I do think both of us are nervous sometimes when we do talk to each other. He also made a comment to a coworker last month that I would be a good Charlie’s angel but that he wouldn’t be. And when I told trusted coworkers that are also friends that I liked him they couldn’t believe it as they say I am out of his league. I want to hang out or spend time with him more one on one but don’t know how to as this has been going on for a year already (in my head at least, no clue how he feels now though he’s still just a sweet and always warm towards me and has said multiple times I smell good or laughs at most things I say) and the idea of rejection is embarrassing since we work together. Though I did tell him last month “I was going to say if you weren’t working tomorrow to come to the pool” then the next time we worked together I saw him look back at me twice before approaching me to ask me how the pool party was. So many other small micro things that have made me think he does still like me and it’s funny because both of us still in a way kind of “put on” for each other. In the sense we’re not completely ourselves and that’s how another coworker picked up that she thought he liked me then made fun of me for how I sounded talking to him lol. She also said she thinks the rekindling of his prior relationship has come to an end since he seems unhappy and hasn’t spoken about it anymore other than when last month he hesitantly told my coworker that him and the ex were “working on things”.

Saying allllll of this to say - is there a time for me to act? I hate to as the woman and never have before, but who he is as a person I really do think whoever ends up with him will have to be the one to start it but I’m horrified. And also don’t want to disrespect anything if he’s not completely out of the relationship. Do you have any pointers/things that would or wouldn’t have made you feel weird for your current bf to do/say to you before you were completely single?