idk if this is a crush or not but im terrified anyways

long rant incoming but..

To start, ive considered myself aro for most of my life, ive never really experienced anything i can call a crush confidently.. which is why i dont know if this is one

i also have been considering ace. because even though i have sexual fantasies, the idea of acting on them disgusts me and tbh its never about real people.. which is what makes this guy at work different because i feel physically attracted to him.

up until today tho, i believed the attraction was in my control, i felt like i could simply just not he attracted to him if i wanted to.. sorry for being confusing im very confused myself.

for context on him, i work in retail, hes a department head, we’ve like barely spoken beyond good mornings and work related stuff. i actually dont know him at all. but recently i became extremely curious about him, wondering abt stuff i usually dont and having the urge to see him. id get “butterflies” even hearing him get paged

Today, i found out hes being transferred

…and i felt so abandoned immediately. we aren’t even anything for him to abandon me. like me feeling like my world just shattered sounds crazy right? and that terrified me iwl. i didnt realize i was this attached. i just hate how extreme my reaction was. and it reminded me of my past

when i was abt 15ish, i was extremely attached to this older man online who was grooming me. i had very intense reactions at the time and was convinced i had bpd, even, now i thought i outgrew those patterns and i was just reacting to what was happening but today felt like i was 15 all over again.

im not saying this coworker is grooming me lmao, it might be worth mentioning that he is older tho, by a decade or more id guess so

i dont even know if i should still consider myself aroace, idk if this is the best sub to ask in even but im wondering if anyone else went through anything similar, if yes…

how did you figure out what you were feeling was a crush or not? and how am i supposed to cope?