I'll never understand how difficult people make things by not being forthright and making things awkward:

"Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?"

"...I think there's been a misunderstanding. I had asked you on a hike as a fun first date, I didn't realize you had a boyfriend. I'm going to bow out of this, but I can give you the hike info if you want to take him." And then you laugh about the misunderstanding the next work day, and keep things at work from then on. No reason for it to get bad. Flirting is still fun! Just leave it at that without expecting anything more.

Theres a lot to unpack here, but really OP made a mistake by asking to go hiking. Thats a terrible first date idea and also isnt inherently date-y. Likely he was just missreading her kindness as flirting, but if he had asked her to dinner or coffee brunch it would've made his intentions more clear to her.

Not that it really matters because its fake and gay anyways.

fake, anon had a girl interested in him

gay, he almost had a three way

Completely possible anon was a creep and she felt uncomfortable saying no.

I'm reading a green text post here, and then the comments are analysing the situation as if this is r/amitheasshole. What's going on Lemmy?

I don't get why anon believes he is being used. It was a miscommunication, sure. Did he spend money on her before this? Using him as a ride to go on a hike? Hikes being extremely cheap and only needing to pay parking, usually.

It's kinda weird to wait until the last minute to ask if someone else can come along on a planned outing.

But the rest? I dunno. Looks like a pretty standard mixup.

OP had a chance at a three way and dropped the ball...

Prob fake but imagine spending a lot of time trying to form a friendship with someone and in the end you find they were only trying to fuck the entire time.

Definitely sending mixed signals not mentioning her boyfriend and saying she has to do things alone, but not sure how that qualifies as "using". Hiking isn't really something people "use" others for, it's not like he would have been carring her the whole time. If she was getting him to do her job when he was talking to her then yeah, but this doesn't mention anything like that. She could very well have just wanted a friend to talk to at work and didn't know how to bring it up after a while...

Maybe I'm overthinking this...

Welcome Anon to the confusing gameshow of "Is she flirting or is that just how she is with friends!" /s

I kinda want to know what Anon and his "female coworkers" thinks counts as flirting. Simply being nice to someone and having fun talking to them isn't flirting, as much as some guys might like to think it is. Now if she was a more touchy person, I can see how that'd be mistaken, as being touchy is also a common way of flirting.

Though find it odd that she waited until the very last minute to ask if her boyfriend could come. And also, guessing "I'm no longer interested" is paraphrased, cause nobody on 4Chan is mature enough to not make things incredibly uncomfortable at work after this.

Comments here are ignoring we only have this guys extremely biased view of this situation and are saying "leading him on" was cruel again big assumption.

I’ve been there. Used to work with a girl, had a huge crush on her and I assumed she did me as well. She used to hang out, we’d get lunch every day, she would sing songs at her desk and substitute my name, flirting was obvious to me and everyone in the place assumed we were in a relationship. Until I finally had the courage to ask her out.

She was completely surprised.

Oh well, live and learn. Eventually found my wife and here we are almost 20 years later with kids. Eventually the right one will click.

Hike sound like 1st date PC to anyone? I mean, it depends on the definition of hike but someone I barely know dragging me to an isolated place in the woods somewhere sounds like a legit way to end up being drug through the woods with a much higher probability than the typical coffee shop date.

Also, who doesn't have work-mances without deeper meaning? I always have beer after work bros and lunch/break dates with my coworkers but that has no meaning beyond. In fact, I've always had a strict rule of never shit in my own back yard. If I was so inclined as to date someone from work, I would not do so until after finding a new job.

I’m actually in a situation somewhat like this. A girl our online group knows became somewhat fixated on me. She wants to talk all the time, fantasizes about us living together, but I know she has a long term bf. She isn’t happy with him, but still, they love together and we know him, so it’s fairly inappropriate.

since we have only one part of this supposedly real situation:
4channers always loose and this one did as well, how dare this woman wanting an actual friend
and of course this weirdo assumes it was totally flirting

Maybe she quit because his reaction to her having a boyfriend creeped her out. She didn’t want to be around someone who misinterpreted what were merely friendly gestures.