Comments for Post #C27913

My dad found my secret campus crush on a matrimonial website

F31 | PhD student | Income = Doctoral stipend. I am a BTech graduate from an average engineering college. I have always been single and I've had very few friends (of both genders combined) in my entire life. I joined a PhD program in 2021 (when I was 26) at one of the topmost colleges in India. Ours was a large batch, and one of my batchmates was an obese guy whom I didn't interact with initially. In fact, he had his own group of friends and I had mine, and the two groups were mutually exclusive. Over the next few years, quite a few students in my friends' group dropped out or went for exchange programs to foreign universities, leaving me somewhat isolated. Around the same time, I started gradually developing a craving for male companionship. In the meanwhile, the guy slowly transitioned from being obese to being mildly athletic / muscular; I started finding him visually attractive (if only mildly) but I almost never spoke to him. He and I worked in different labs different departments in different buildings on opposite ends of the same campus; so accidental meetings were rare and conversations even more so. In 2023-24, I used Bumble for a few months on incognito mode but I didn't get any serious match worth considering. However, I stumbled across the profile of my male batchmate (whom I didn't know very well at the time). He had posted a few shirtless pics of himself in the gym; it was perhaps the lighting but he did look a bit like a bodybuilder model. At this point, I started crushing on him. I was too shy to swipe right on his Bumble profile; so I used Bumble (on incognito mode) to stalk him. Every time I came across his profile, I would neither swipe left nor swipe right but simply close the app. A few months later (around mid-2024), his profile disappeared from Bumble; I thought he had found a girl and deleted his own account. Around the same time, my parents started pressurising me to marry. I half-heartedly agreed to let my father open a parent-managed account on IITIIMShaadi but I have hardly ever spoken to the guys my father finds through the app. Around a year ago, the guy shifted to another campus for the last leg of his PhD. I don't know the details but I haven't seen him in our campus for the last one year. In recent weeks, two things happened simultaneously: 1. While browsing IITIIMShaadi, my father found an 'interesting' male profile who was doing a PhD from my college. My father asked me whether I recognised the profile, and it was the same guy I had been crushing on since 2023-24. I was elated to know that he was single but I still don't know whether he has been single all his life (or he opened a matrimonial account only after breaking up with another girl). 2. I heard that he got a faculty job at another college and will soon finish his PhD (and leave our college). I also heard that he is coming back to our campus for his thesis defence. However, I won't finish my PhD until next year. Although I don't really know him very well (beyond the very few work-related conversations we've had), I still have an inexplicable crush on him. He is almost certainly single at the moment, and so am I. He is leaving our college soon, and I don't know when I would see him again (and if at all). How should I proceed? Please offer suggestions.