Relationship Advice

I often wonder whether society's lack of respect for platonically caring about a person makes it harder to move on from romantic feelings that develop for someone with whom a relationship isn't compatible.

I think my advice would be to accept the fact that you can't turn your feelings off with a switch. When I'm trying to move on from a crush or similar, something that I find weirdly helps is thinking of the line "I will permit [my feelings] to pass over me and through me" from Dune — though the quote references fear rather than romantic feelings, of course. I find it useful to think in this way because if I try to fight things too hard, it's like it just intensifies it and that hurts more. Unfortunately, this scenario sucks for you, and it will continue that way for a while. I speak from experience when I say that trying to beat something into one's brain doesn't tend to work out well. So I would advise trying to continue forward as you have been, treating her as a friend and colleague. Sometimes you may find that the wistfulness hurts enough that you feel it necessary to give yourself a little distance from her, and if you're wise and proactive about giving yourself space for your feelings, you should hopefully be able to do this in a way that won't cause her to worry that she's upset you (I had a bad time once when I pushed my feelings down so hard that I would reach my "this hurts too much" point super abruptly, and this caused me to be a bad friend to the recipient of my unrequited feelings. He didn't even know I was into him, so it was especially confusing for him.)

This next paragraph is speculation based on general vibes in your post, so I apologise if I come across like an armchair psychologist. I found it interesting how the first part of your post spoke about your own mental and emotional availability for a relationship, and that the point about her having a boyfriend was buried pretty deep. I found that odd because it strikes me that someone already being in a relationship is surely much of a deal-breaker than one's own qualities. I'm not saying this in a judgemental way at all — what I'm getting at is that it sounds like you're feeling pretty unfulfilled with your life at the moment, and I wonder if you're experiencing the double whammy pain of unrequited feelings, and a dissatisfaction with yourself. Framed in a more positive way, it sounds like your friend/colleague has inspired you to want to be better. That could be super productive, if you're able to avoid slipping into the mindset of being better to be worthy of her — if what I'm saying resonates with you, then it's important that you keep yourself grounded on the fact that your quest for growth is a thing you are doing for yourself, even if her positivity was the thing that inspired you to strive for change.

The final advice I'd offer is that you should try not to put her up on a pedestal too much in how you think of her. That's useful advice in general, I reckon, but I want to give context on where I'm coming from with this. Your description of her reminded me a lot of my late best friend, who was a larger than life figure who radiated charisma and made you feel like he'd known you for years, despite having just met. He exuded an aura of welcomingness. Getting to know him as well as I did meant I learned how much of a messy human he was beneath all of that, in the sense that he projected an almost inhuman sense of strength sometimes. In particular, I came to understand that his extreme kindness was, in part, a way that he grounded himself against how grim the world can be. It turns out that even the best people are, in fact, just people. I don't say this to diminish the positive qualities of your friend. Just be aware that your current feelings may make it easier to slip into a mode of elevating her in a way that risks flattening the sometimes wonderful, sometimes dreadful complexities that we all have — even awesome people often find themselves uncomfortable on a pedestal. You can still admire and respect her, just be mindful of the tone of how you're thinking about her. Sentiments like "she's great, she lights up the entire workplace with her energy" is probably fine, but "there's nobody out there like her" is idolising her a bit too strongly and will probably make recovering from your current feelings harder.

I know that responding to comments on a post like this can be a bit emotionally taxing, so don't beat yourself up if you don't end up replying, but I want to end this with a question. Like I said above, I get the sense that you want to be doing more stuff, what with words like "hermit". Is there a hobby or something that you have either enjoyed in the past, or would be interested in trying? Sometimes when people ask this question, they're suggesting that doing a new hobby would be a good way to get out and meet other romantic prospects, but I'm not a fan of that mindset (plus you've already said that you prefer to stay single). I'm thinking more about whether there's something that would help you to be living a life that feels more worthwhile, if I wasn't too far off the mark with my speculation.