Edit: Thanks for everyone's comments. I really did not expect this kind of response. It was also hard to hear people's critical analysis of my own biases. But, hey -- I can see that they are indeed there, too.

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Every office has one, you know, Good Guy Phil (let's call him). You know, he lights up the room, and everyone just loooooves him -- he's Good Guy Phil! To me, he seemed fantastic until, until of course, I found out that he had a longtime girlfriend and that he couldn't stop hitting on me. It was disgusting, terrible, and I even had to talk to my manager about it. Quarantine finally gave me a welcome reprieve from him, from feeling like I was literally just eye-candy for him. From seeing that look in his eyes that literally prompted these bizarre words to come through my head: "I feel like I'm made of pixels. I literally feel pixelated right now. I feel like I'm a po*n that he's entranced by."

A couple weeks ago, I had a phone call with him for work. We started talking about how quarantine is bringing about a ton of "life re-evaluations." He went on about how he's starting to suspect that he's just "staying in relationships just because he's comfortable" -- it's obvious based on context that he's speaking about his 7-year, live in, Forever Girlfriend.

And then, he starts to talk about the "risk multiple" that keeps people from taking risks they know are logically worth it. He explains: If people are offered a prize of $100 for guessing correctly on a coin flip, then mathematically, you're supposed to be willing to bet $50 or less to play that game. $50 is the mathematical point of indifference between a 50% chance of losing your original $50, and winning a $100. He then goes on to explain that the EMOTIONAL POINT OF INDIFFERENCE is $20. Basically, people aren't willing to play this bet unless it's $20 or cheaper. That's because of "loss aversion," or the feeling that you're already attached to money already have in your wallet. Basically, you're more attached to the $50 you already have, than the $100 you could have.

Based on the vibe and the fact that he's a member of senior management and he can't just say it; he's implying that he KNOWS LOGICALLY that he should leave this relationship that he's basically over, where he's not really in love anymore, but that the relationship has not yet reached the "cheapness" level of $20. He's more attached to the relationship (probably the ease of the s*x, the shared 50/50 rent, avoiding the hassle of moving out), than the logical "win" of getting out of a dead relationship and finding someone he really likes. He's basically valued his GF as between $20 and $50 -- the place between emotional indifference and logical indifference.

This conversation made me feel so unsettled because it was so "subtle," what he's trying to imply. But even during the conversation, when I was like thinking to myself "WTF are you switching topics from your GF to economic risk multiples without signalling a topic change?"... I had this weird feeling like -- "Is he trying to tell me that I'm the $100 here? Is he trying to say that, if he had the guts, he'd leave his GF and bet on really pursuing me, instead of just flirting with me all the time"?

This guy is super smart, very eloquent, intellectually slick, and manipulative. He knew exactly how to explain his feelings about me, his GF, why he doesn't want to leave EVEN THOUGH HE WANTS TO, all while coded in economic theory... all in terms that technically wouldn't be scandalous or "wrong" for a member of senior management to tell a junior coworker.

A lot of the LVM we talk about on FDS seem like really unintelligent, unsophisticated guys that treat our emotions like sledgehammers. Please beware, the worst LVM are the ones that are really intellectually gifted, and who treat our emotions with a surgeon's scalpel... who use their intelligence to justify wasting women's time or hurting women.

Oh yeah, his Forever GF? She's 39 (he's 34, so what does he care about her timeline?), pays 50/50 on rent even though she makes $ 36k while he likes $165k, she wants a family, begs for marriage, but just stays with this guy. She's an extreme Pickme (and this feels very mean to say, I'm sure she's hurting like all hell everyday), and it's truly sad. She's wasting away her last fertile years, hoping that he'll change. And here this man is, talking to his female coworker that he clearly has feelings for, describing his GF as barely more valuable than $20.