Should I continue these coffee dates?

What's your love and dating problem these days? Send a letter here, please.

Chat at 1 p.m. – and please really do. We have tech changes (really, I swear) happening soon (all good stuff), but chat is a good time to discuss what that will look like.

Also, we're prepping for our next podcast season. For those who haven't listened, we tell a story every episode that falls under a topic related to love (breakups, meeting people, how age affects relationships, etc.). The next theme will be money. I'm looking for people (it can be anonymous, of course) to tell stories about how money has affected their love lives. They might be about:

- What it’s like to date someone whose background with money is different than your own.
- What it’s like to disclose to a potential partner that you have a LOT of credit card debt. Or student loan debt. Does it stop you from dating? Or change the way you think about the person?
- What happens when you come into unexpected money – or lose a lot of it.
- How it goes after you move in together not because you're ready, but to save money.
- What it's like to be married to someone who doesn't like to spend (or very much does).
- How you learned to talk about finances with someone, even when it was difficult.
- How wedding planning (and the cost of it all) changed or clarified priorities in a relationship.
- How money issues and philosophies caused a breakup – or didn't.

Submit your stories by clicking right here.  Or you can email them to me directly at [email protected]. Again, we can make these stories anonymous. I know money is tough to talk about – which is why we picked it as a theme. An example of a recent episode is here.

OK, I'll be quiet now.

I met a man at work who said he is single and unattached. I started to see him, as a friend, during work hours for coffee. I felt like I was getting attached, and he seemed to have a good time too. But when I asked him to do fun activities outside of work with me, he always had an excuse.

I stopped going for coffee, and he still acts flirty with me. In fairness, he is a bit of a flirt around the office with other women too. I still like him. Should I try to resurrect a friendship or not? Meredith, what do you think?

– LoveTorn

No more coffee. With him, at least. If you wanted an in-office friendship with this man, I'd tell you to go for it. But the fact that you had to write this letter says it all: you desire more, and he is not going to deliver.

See him for what he is, the flirty guy at the office who doesn't want to hang out after work. I know you can't erase your feelings, and it's probably difficult to see him without wondering if things could change, but if you stay busy, you can get over this. You can make plans that have you ready to run out of the building when your work day is over. There are also other work friends. Who else is available for coffee?

Sometimes when people write in about work crushes, we tell them to take a risk – to ask for plans or a clarification of feelings. It can be dicey, but worth it. You can skip that step because you have the answers you need. He's not a close friend or a romantic possibility. If he wanted to be in your life in a bigger way, he'd be excited about real plans.

A lot of people have work crushes that stay like that forever – something to think about on occasion, but nothing more. Demote him.

– Meredith

Readers? How do you contextualize a work crush?