I’m in love with my junior at work and I genuinely don’t know how to move on 😭

Okay so I (F) work in an organization and there’s this guy (M) who is my junior. We’ve been working together for around a year.

Our communication has mostly been work-related. Whenever he needs help with something, he usually comes to me/asks me, and I’ve always tried to help him. Because of work/team stuff, there were periods where we didn’t really interact much. I also tried to initiate conversations sometimes by sending random memes, reels, or just random stuff, but it was never really anything beyond that.

The problem is… I caught feelings. Like, actual feelings. 😭

Recently, his friend told me that he likes another girl and basically his friend said that I should forget about him.

And I KNOW he was probably trying to be honest with me, and technically he didn’t do anything wrong. But I genuinely cannot just switch my feelings off.

What’s making it worse is that lately he seems kinda distant/off. He doesn’t really reply like he used to, and now I’m overthinking everything. Part of me is wondering if I completely misunderstood our connection and he only ever saw me as a coworker/senior who he could ask for help.

Maybe our whole “connection” was literally just a work relationship and I was the one attaching meaning to it. 💀

I know the obvious answer is “respect his feelings and move on,” and I’m trying, but HOW do you actually do that when you still love the person?

Do I completely stop initiating conversations and just let things be? Or am I overthinking his recent distance?

Honestly, I just need some perspective because my brain is not being rational rn. 😭