M22 there, need a honest advice.

Hey, I’m a 22 year old introvert and I was never really looking for a relationship before. But lately I found a job I genuinely like, and there I met a coworker, a 36 year old single woman with a kid and honestly, she’s different from anyone I’ve met before.

Even as an introvert, I really enjoy talking to her. She’s one of the very few people who doesn’t drain me socially. I could probably talk with her for hours. We have similar hobbies, similar life goals, and even think in surprisingly similar ways, even though she’s much more extroverted than me.

We’ve spent a lot of time together at work talking, learning things, joking around, and helping each other. There’s definitely been some flirting too (mostly from her side honestly, because flirting is hard for me as an introvert 😅).

At one point we ended up spending time together outside of work. It started as just a normal activity, but turned into hours of talking while sitting somewhere with a nice view. She opened up to me about her life, and I opened up a bit too. Since then things felt more intense emotionally, although lately things also feel a bit calmer and I’m overthinking everything.

The thing is… I genuinely don’t know if I’m even an option for her because of the 14 year age gap. I’m a very calm, quiet and peaceful person, i know women like me, im one of the few man that actually listens an cares, but in her im not sure, got a lot of mixed signals and I don't want to broke the thing that is between us with.

She’s honest, kind in a very genuine way, and she always brings good energy around her, yet she's been through a lot in her life, she is also a very busy, im having hard time inviting her somewhere because I really don't want to interrupt her plans.

I guess I’m just looking for honest advice from normal people who maybe experienced something similar. I’ll genuinely read every reply because I'm lost.