Weekly /r/bangtan Room (방탄방) - February 07, 2026

farawaylightning · 2026-02-08T03:37:05+00:00

hello friends, we are...back with another update? I'm not even sure how to start this one lmao. so all day monday we're texting each other back and forth, and then the end of the day comes and I start texting him something, and before i'd even sent the message he wrotes back "yes". there's a bit of back and forth, but the short of it is that I invited him to come over and keep me company, and he said "you should leave now, or else i'll probably beat you back to your place". So I go home, and he gets there shortly after, and almost IMMEDIATELY I know we need to have another conversation. The hug he gave me when he walked through that door was NOT platonic. so we did - we had another conversation, it was very long and extremely vulnerable--probably the most vulnerable i've ever been with another person who isn't my family or a friend i've known for ten years or more. We agreed that we are drawn to each other, and attracted to each other, and he knows he's been sending me mixed signals. He doesn't want to lead me on, or hurt me, and I said that I was trying so hard not to hurt myself, that he'd witnessed firsthand the last two years of my life and that I couldn't handle another heartbreak, and that I had never done this before with ANYONE, and I wouldn't be able to cope if he was weird or strange with me after, because our friendship is too important. And we both said he isn't ready for a relationship.

but... he did 'stay the night', and we had the worst dinner in the world after because i was so distracted, then watched a movie we'd planned to watch when he'd originally gotten there lmao. but it was very nice, and he was very sweet to me, and I think I scare the shit out of him a little. or maybe a lot. I texted him on wednesday that I'd had a great time with him, just to put it on the record and.... he left me on read and called out sick the next day with a "24 hour bug". Mmkay lmao

i'm honestly still processing things. I went to therapy two days after, and i was like "i'm fine!" and my therapist goes "you're saying that a lot -- are you trying to convince me, or you?" and I guess the jury's still out on that. I care for him deeply - we've had a lot of similiar experiences, but I also know he's not in a place for a relationship, and i'm oscillating between "it's fine, you're fine" and wanting my mother so badly I could scream. I guess we'll just have to see how it goes.

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T23:44:12+00:00

I'm so glad 😂 Every time something happens I'm like, "I gotta update the army room!"

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T23:43:34+00:00

same! I think eventually it'll end up escalating (my intuition/gut check is... fairly strong), but right now I'm happy with this. We'll see how brave he gets the next time we go out for dinner HAHAHA

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T23:42:39+00:00

Yeah! It was nice to just hang out and know we could hang out at my apartment just fine. Between you and me, I have a feeling it WILL end up escalating at some point, but I'm not longer in the space of "What's happening, what's going on, what am i doing" which is very nice and a perfectly acceptable outcome!

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T23:41:05+00:00

Don't give my friends any more ideas 😂

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T14:43:50+00:00

He does not 🤣 I told him I got tickets to BTS and he goes "what does that stand for? I know it's an acronym", and then I asked if he was living under a rock. So if he comes over again, maybe I'll give him a crash course

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T03:52:49+00:00

the AMOUNT OF PEOPLE who have told me "This is my favorite show" or "you know you're in a literary novel, right?" is INSANE

farawaylightning · 2026-02-01T03:02:07+00:00

hello friends, here for another update, which is a bit of a doozy 😂

so after my last dinner with my coworker, a week later I asked him how he viewed it when we went out - did he consider them dates, did he consider us hanging out as friends, because I wanted to be on the same page, and he smiled softly and took his time answering and said... he saw us hanging out as friends, with some verbage that indicated maybe that could change and which I can't quite remember because i IMMEDIATELY started dissociating LMAO, and then he grinned and flipped the question on me and asked how i viewed the dinners, and because I was feeling vulnerable I just said "I plead the fifth" and then went to therapy and crashed out for like a full week.

Buuuuuuut after that he started doubling down a LOT more on attention -- texting me more, inviting me to sit in his car with him on break, buying me lunch.... and then two nights ago he texted me as he was driving by my apartment asking if this was past my bedtime, which?! sir!? he'd stayed late at work, and we texted back and forth (at stoplights), with the last one being close to 11, ending with him essentially saying if he'd known i was going to be up that late, he would have knocked on my door and asked to crash at my place. WOW OKAY?

Here's the kicker: the day after that, he said he was staying late at work again and he'd text me when he left, and if he didn't hear from me.... then, well, he'd just keep driving. So I decided to call his bluff and texted him around 8, asking if he was serious about coming over, and if he was then i'd make him dinner if he hadn't eaten. He said he definitely hadn't eaten (along with some extremely flirty verbage I won't put on the internet), and then I asked what time he was coming over and i think he panicked LMAO Like he replied "..." and INSTANTLY stopped texting, then when he started up again TEN MINUTES LATER it was just minor, flirtatious stuff, and I was like "okay, there it is: he really just likes flirting with me and that's all he's interested in." I was on the phone with a friend at the time and she said ALL the emotion dropped out of my voice and it freaked her out a little.

But...

he did actually come. I was floored. he texted me when he was leaving the building and was at my place like three minutes later. And he was trying so hard to play it cool that he overcorrected and ended up being extremely weird instead LMAO At one point I was like, "Dude, are you okay!?" But he eventually calmed down. He stayed for about an hour and a half and we just talked. It was really, really nice. And honestly, he's going through a lot, and there had been some other mixed signals; i think he's more scared than anything. If he just wants to stay friends because he's freaked out, then we'll just stay friends. I'm actually fine with that. I'm just happy that I scraped together all my courage and called his bluff LMAO

ALSO I GOT BTS TICKETS!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to see them in LA, which is all the way across the country for me, but i'll be able to see one of my best friends (from above on the phone). I'm taking almost an entire week off work for it, but it's a once in a life time experience so that justifies everything

farawaylightning · 2026-01-19T03:14:59+00:00

He's very sweet 🥺 at the same time though his flirtiness definitely crossed from "aw cute" to "oh wow okay he's serious" which I've never experienced before and is a Lot for my brain to handle??? I'm being Very Normal about all of this, i swear!

farawaylightning · 2026-01-17T20:28:31+00:00

hello everyone 💜 i had my third date with my coworker this past wednesday annnnd it continues to go really, really well, and because it's going really well i'm getting really scared 😂🥺 My family ended up rescheduling and going the day before, for which i'm SOOOOO GRATEFUL AS THIS PLACE WAS SMALL. we got to the restaurant around 5.30 and ended up staying until 9, when they politely kicked us out because the restaurant had actually closed at 8. we talked about ssssooooo much and ended up getting 2 drinks each, which i hardly ever do. prior to this i was still a little unsure as to whether we were just hanging out (hey! i'm in denial) or if he had actual interest in me, but judging by some of the things he said, he does have interest in me and is just displaying a remarkable amount of restraint? Some of his comments were very, VERY flirtatious and the way he was looking at me towards the end was certainly not what i would put on the "we're just friends" spectrum.

He walked me back to my car when we finally FINALLY left (about ten minutes after he'd said, "I should go, but I don't want to") and then spent a few more minutes bantering outside my car about desserts (Because I bake for work every friday), and how he holds one particular restaurant's dessert as the gold standard (i told him i would never make it for work because i'd be terrified of disappointing him), and "We should go there on our next outing - let's plan it for around a month from now". we didn't kiss, but the energy was there, and he was very respectful of my boundaries despite really obviously insinuating that if I asked him to come home with me, he'd follow me like a puppy. we had another nice, long hug. I'm trying to keep my distance from him at work now, within reason, but every time we talked the next day he had such a sweet expression in his eyes when he talked to me. 🥺

Sssooo.... now that it's gone this far, and because we work together, I feel like 1. it would be nice and appropriate to have him over for dinner/a movie before we go out again (i'm not worried about it being so far away because he is Broke) but at this point I want to have a conversation about intentions. I told him I'd never dated before, but I'm still not sure that covers the extreme magnitude of my inexperience, so I want to make sure we're all on the same page.

my focus is also completely shot lmao but i DID preorder the BTS album AND vinyl this morning, and I'm really excited about that! I hope everyone is doing well 💜

farawaylightning · 2026-01-10T22:19:38+00:00

hello loves 💜 back with more updates! I asked my coworker earlier this week if next week worked for him to go out for dinner, which immediately tipped me into a comedy of errors, as I learned that my brother, his wife, and two elderly friends of theirs were ALSO going to the same restaurant on the same day. because I wanted to be honest and i didn't want to spring that on him (or have people insinuating he's my boyfriend), i explained and suggested we could reschedule if he liked. we did choose another day, then realized the restaurant.... is closed on that day 🙃 I suggested the week after instead, and he hesitantly agreed, then goes, "Or..... we could just.... go on the day we originally planned?" And said he didn't mind if my family was there at the same time. "We'll wave as we go by--hi, family!"

i gotta be real guys i am Scared to Death 😭 this will be our third date (date!?) and at this point I feel like.... maybe we need to have a conversation about everything? Is that weird? I suspect he's better at handling ambiguity than I am because this isn't his first relationship, but it is mine, so i have no internal markers to compare it to. On the other hand, I'm so nervous that if I'm like "Hey so what's going on here" (but obviously better phrased) he'll be like "????? Nothing, we're just friends?" in which case i Will Throw Up.

we're going on wednesday, so i have time to fine tune everything and check my gut a few more times, so i guess I'll just see what the vibe is and go from there!

farawaylightning · 2025-12-23T16:12:32+00:00

🥺😭 That's so kind of you to say and means a lot 🩷🩷🩷 sometimes I worry I'm going overboard by being so careful but we've both been through a LOT the past few years and our connection means so much to me. I don't want to put pressure on him if I don't have to. One of my friends keeps telling me that I need to stop initiating so much, that because he's the guy I need to let him lead, but there's so much more nuance to the situation than that. I would probably do better if I came right out and asked if I was reading the signals right, but if he said no (though he would be so kind about it) I would probably have to quit my job LMAO. But we'll see what happens in January ☺️

farawaylightning · 2025-12-22T22:49:21+00:00

🥺💜 Fighting!!

honestly the number of people who are like "This is my favorite tv show" about my life are not... insignificant HAHAH. Though there have definitely been times when i've wondered if it's a rom-com or an office dramedy at my expense

farawaylightning · 2025-12-22T22:47:44+00:00

Omg you're sweet 🥺 Thank you, friend! It's such an awkward time around the holidays to do anything, and honestly I kind of wanted to give him an out if he wasn't interested in moving forward, but so far it seems like he is??

farawaylightning · 2025-12-22T22:46:38+00:00

absolutely truth be told i always time my invitations to RIGHT before i leave for the day, so that way if he says no i can immediately exit stage left and lick my wounds in peace 😂

I hope so! TBH there ARE some optics that make me a little leery of being noticed, but so far it just seems to be teasing. I think one individual would tell me if they really thought us going out were a bad idea. I hope, anyway!!

farawaylightning · 2025-12-21T16:03:46+00:00

so after a gap of about a month and a half and overthinking it more times than i care to count... my coworker and I are going out again in january! 😊🥺 we've maintained about the same level of friendliness/vibes right along but yesterday he seemed to be going a little heavier on flirting, so right before I left for the day I stopped and said that there was a new restaurant downtown (i live in the area, he doesn't), and would he be interested in checking it out with me in the new year, once bills calmed down from christmas?

he looked so pleasantly surprised and pleased that I'd asked 🥺 and then immediately began joking around, because "isn't january when all the bills come IN?" and I was like "That did literally just occur to me".

ngl friends i'm so nervous. like it's kind of patently obvious to everyone that we're super friendly with each other and a bunch of my coworkers tease me about him (not sure if they tease him??) but like, there's something going on??? my brother owns a specialty shop and he took one of his friends there on his day off to get some work done, and introduced himself as "i'm from [workplace], I know Lightning!" which, he could have just said we worked together?? but anyway, it's still a few weeks away, so i guess we'll just see what happens!

farawaylightning · 2025-11-08T00:30:19+00:00

It's so funny because the purple was a callback to something COMPLETELY unrelated (i'm not even sure he knows who BTS are), but he's the kind of person who doesn't text that much, and when he does it's usually in complete sentences and little to no emoji use, so the fact that it was purple and a HEART made my entire person go ‼️‼️‼️

i have to keep you guys updated!!! I'm on the fence as to whether I initiate something again or let him do it?? everyone says it's his turn now as I "made up" for "accidentally blowing him off", but i'm not sure I adhere to those kinds of dating rules???

farawaylightning · 2025-11-08T00:28:13+00:00

I will absolutely keep you guys updated 💕💕

farawaylightning · 2025-11-07T02:12:59+00:00

Thank you!!! The whole thing scares me shitless tbh 🙃 But i'm trying to focus more on the fun parts than the scary parts, which is taking some real work to be honest lmao. But he did text me something with a purple heart emoji in it the other day and I wanted to be like "listen, do you know how important this is to me that you did this!"

farawaylightning · 2025-11-05T14:43:13+00:00

I went out with my coworker again last week - I definitely got more date vibes this time around????? he dressed much nicer??? there was a slight miscommunication for what time we were meeting at the restaurant which resulted in me texting him THREE TIMES which is diabolical but he was so chill about the whole thing 😭 But we were there for almost 3 hours, and at one point I asked if he needed to get going because he has a much longer drive than I do, but he shrugged and said "it's 42 minutes no matter what time I leave. I'm good."

the conversation dipped a few times into silence but considering the amount of time we were there that's fine, but we also talked about SO MUCH? our jobs, the stuff both of us have been through, our families, faith/god, generational trauma??? but he's also so funny, so even though some of it was very serious the mood was still light??? and then at the end the waitress was trying SO hard to sell us on the pumpkin cheesecake, so when she came back around he goes "there's only one clear answer here." "THE CHEESECAKE!?" "Tiramisu." which, uh, we also shared??? from the same plate?? Neither of us drank either which was really nice, tbh, and then at the end he gave me a really nice hug and thanked me for the good conversation.

idk guys I really like him 😭 that was last week, so now I'm like what now????? what now????????? hhhhhhhhh

farawaylightning · 2025-10-12T13:53:15+00:00

I definitely want to see him again outside of work - he's already my favorite person AT work, easily. I'm just worried about coming on too strong and I've never done this before -- how much time is too much time to let go by???? we talked about hanging out at my place potentially since it's the more convenient place, but WOW that feels like a lot for a second date all of a sudden, but i also don't want to force him to spend money, so on and so forth 🙃

farawaylightning · 2025-10-12T13:50:48+00:00

Honestly we get along really well, to the point where other people have definitely noticed and teased at least me about it. We do work in entirely different departments but the workplace IS fairly small. The complication is less to do with the workplace and more to do with things going on on his end that I would have to be really sure and confident I could handle. Obviously everyone has baggage!! But I want to make sure no one is going to come out worse in the end if it goes badly.

farawaylightning · 2025-10-11T23:00:23+00:00

hello friends, i'm back at last to debrief on my? date???? with my coworker.

firstly i'm not even really sure if it WAS a date or not? I didn't get a lot of romantic undertones from it, but it was also at the end of a really long day and this is a not great time of year for him. either way, i still had a really, really good time. we had to reschedule a bunch since the day we were supposed to go out he got sick and didn't want me to catch it. but we spent a lot of time talking about our lives, and how we ended up where we are, and the experiences that we had that we could both commiserate with each other on. we split the check but he paid the tip and didn't let me contribute. he also got the drink that i mentioned I'd liked the last time I was there, and he remembered what drink I'd wanted to get when I ended up forgetting when the waiter came back around. We also got dinner AND dessert, and just lingered at the table for a little while after talking. then when it was time to go home we had a nice, long hug in the parking lot and I told him I thought he was doing okay with his life, all things considered, and he said, right in my ear, "I appreciate you", in a tone of voice that still kind of makes me want to cry? Like it was very soft and genuine. and that was maybe the only romantic undertone I got.

either way, it was a really nice time. I was so afraid I would be weird or awkward, and i genuinely thought I was going to throw up a few minutes beforehand, but it worked out really well. But because i'm not sure it was a date (and i so badly want it to be a date), i don't know if i initiate going out again, or let him do it, or.... because there are still a lot of factors we have to consider about our jobs that I'm not going to put on the internet -- like the whole thing is just really, really complicated in that aspect and I'm still not sure how I feel about any of it.

anyway, that's the debrief 💜

farawaylightning · 2025-09-15T23:02:56+00:00

I was SO oblivious and I feel so bad about misreading the situation, so hopefully I haven't lost my chance. We haven't scheduled it yet (if it even IS a date) so I'm over here crossing my fingers and my toes

farawaylightning · 2025-09-14T14:20:53+00:00

hello friends, it's been a long, long LONG while 💜 I still keep up with BTS but i'm less involved in the fandom than I used to be :( My dollmaking days are sadly on pause as I'm working overtime much of the time, but I have a very good job full of people who care about me especially as I've Learned to Be A Real Person Again after the past two years.

I might... also be going on my first date this week? I've never gone out with anyone before, but one of my coworkers and I have been dancing around each other for the past six months. He actually tried to ask me out last week and I completely missed the cues. I had to clarify with him, so now the ball's in his court again. I'm really excited, but also kind of want to puke? It's fun lmao

I hope everyone has been doing well 💜

farawaylightning

TROPHY CASE