There’s this Aries at work and she is the most badass person I’ve ever met. She doesn’t shy away from anything, she is unabashedly herself, and she has this magnetic level of confidence I’ve never seen. I’m a Scorpio and I’ve always been the inverse. I’m usually shy and timid and a people pleaser to a fault, but since getting to know her I’ve become me. I’m more comfortable engaging with people and being my actual self and it all stems from the fact that I feel really safe with her. When we’re together we work amazingly well and in the past month it’s become so much more fun like we just connected and in a way I’ve never experienced before. I’ll lean into her teasing and tease her back, we have long and warm eye-contact and I’m getting to know her in a way I’d only dreamed of at first. When we say goodbye at night too I swear there’s this moment where she wants me to say something and I really, really do. It’s like she gives me the time to but she’s seeing someone so I can’t.

With this I want to show my appreciation for her because of all she’s done. I know she’s someone who doesn’t appreciate clinginess, nicknames, lovebombing, etc. I’m not into that either but I do want to be sincere with her and open but not scare her away. She posts a lot on Instagram about wanting to be supported, respected, desired and understood and I don’t want to overstep in that regard by coming off as way too strong, partly because I don’t know what she thinks of me.

Any advice? I plan on getting her a gift card for some new shoes that she mentioned she’ll be needing as well as one for where we work, with those there’ll be a little letter but I’m lost as to what it should say versus what I’d like it to say. I will note that at the very least my intention is to take the work friendship we have to a higher level, we’ve spoken a bit outside of work about our pets but it’s still hard to ask her about HER as I’m just as interested in what makes her, her. If it leads to something more than that then it’d be spectacular but not my intention if she is still with someone when I give this to her.