Yep Sneaks, I think I will finally start working on my PhD this weekend. From then on, I will give it my best shot to write out a plan and stick to it. I haven't really touched anything PhD related in months (I know, I know!) .

In the scenario that I give things my best shot for say next 6 months and still make no progress, I will re-consider quitting. But for now, I am going to try to work this out and block supervisor and the co-worker and everything out of my mind. I will deal with him when necesseary and chat with others while on breaks for the 3 days that I am at the university.

Cobweb,

Thanks for a well thought out post. I guess my view on this type of situation in general is that a strong attraction/crush can not be sustained over such a long time period (3-4 years) with zero reciprocation or encourgement on another person's part.

I guess if academics are trained to deal with student crushes, they should discourage them when they see signs of student's interest (and I do beleive that there were many clues that were rather obvious even if nothing was explicitely said).

At the very least I think that my supervisor enjoyed the ego boost. But, I still needed to have WAY more control over my emotions and thinking.

As for real vs imaginary, I can agree that my situation was "imaginary" given that nothing concrete actually transpired.

We are really arguing is my feelings were 100% unrequited vs 95% unrequited :)

This is also the first time I have spoken about this anywhere and to anyone so it even helps to just get this out.

Thanks for the replies so far guys, I really appriciate them and they are helping.

As for what was real and what was imagined, in my 27 years as an uhmm shall I say attractive woman, I do know when a man finds me attractive. Steamy glances WERE there, no doubt in my mind at all. As were him constantly looking at my uhmm chest while talking, scanning my body etc. He stated on a few occassians that "he has to start acting more professional with me". He was friendly and he WAS attracted but I do realize that it didn't go deeper than few passing thoughts to him. I don't blame him and I accept full responsibility for my subsequent failures. I do not beleive that he crossed any lines and I am sure that there were other students that he found attractive and it wasn't a big deal to him.

I am releived that one of you thinks that he has no idea why I am acting out. It would be a lot more embarassing if he knew the whole truth.

Anyhow, that does not even matter. The situation has a strong emotional impact on me and I have been neglecting my academic work to the point where I question if anything is salvagable. This is now a real problem. Not to mention that as a result of me making no progress my reputation in the depatment is at the very bottom and it kills me that I feel underestimated on every level (yet I understand how it looks from their perspective). I am probably the worst and most troubled post-grad student in there. Sadly, I have a strong prior academic record and am on full scholarship - and it has come to this.

Do you guys still think that I shouldn't quit?

Now in year 4 (part time), my superviosor considers me nothing but a huge headache and I in turn can not stand him either. I wish I could go back in time and change what transpired over the years, I wish I was more focused on my PhD, I wish I did so many things differently. To make it worse I am not even sure if my supervisor realizes that all my acting out was mostly due my feelings for him or if he thinks I am just lazy, unmotivated and incapable. I would rather he thinks the latter.

I am not sure what to do now. All the conflicting emotions that I feel towards him are draining, it is difficult to watch him and his female collegaue flirt like we used to, the whole dynamic is sick and toxic to me. He is probably aware that I fancied him and he discarded me. I want to quit and leave and I think this would probably be for the best.

Other option is making a last ditch effort to make my PhD work but I fear it might be too late. It is not possible to get another primary supervisor, he is the only one knowledgable enough for my project within 100km radius of my city. So if I were to go on, I would have to grit my teeth and deal with him on consistent basis. I do not know if I am emotionally capable of this.

I have so many regrets and no good solutions... what should I do?

I know that there is another topic floating around like this, but I bleleive my issue goes a lot deeper.
For those of you with light crushes read my post and heed the warning.

I really, truly, need help and advice as I have reached the end of my rope so please bear with me.

I am doing PhD part time (onto my 4th year now). My male supervisor is 15 years older than me (also married with 2 kids) and I was attracted to him from the start. I could definetly sense an attraction from his side at first. He would check out my body constantly, lots of accidental touches, he would often stumble an stutter when we made eye contact - it was really quite hot. There were compliments, e-mail flirting, long chats about anything but he never crossed the line and neither did I. This went on for good 2 years (keep in mind I am part time though).

I was distracted and my work started slipping. By that time, I felt like I really devoleped feelings for the supervisor that went past the crush. I couldn't concetrate on anything and thought of him all the time (although I never told him anything). He gave me some really harsh criticisms about my work (they were deserved) and started pulling back. He slowly got very distant, no more flirting (except very occassionaly), no more e-mail chats. I was devastated. My PhD was also well and truly in trouble as I made barely any progress.

Instead of realizing how silly this all was and starting work on fixing my PhD, I started acting out. I realized that my supervisor only probably entartained passing toughts of sleeping with me and that my feelings were largely unrequited. Si I decided to "hit him where it hurts" and started working even less on my PhD. I would cancel meetings with him all the time (I was also hoping that by seeing him less I will move on). I would not do what he asked etc. I even talked about quiting number of times. He showed concern but really didn't quite know what to do with me. Of course, I was only hurting myself with this behaviour. Opportunities for being involved with papers and conferences came and went, work was piling up even more and yet I was quite intent on carrying down this road of self destruction. My depression and frustration increased with each professional failure.

To make matters worse, my supervisor started showing lot of attention to his female collegue (also married) and I found this quite difficult to watch. I have no idea if anything is actually going on between them or if he only fancies her but I have spent quite a bit of time trying to guess and even more time crying at home over it.