I'm only 2 months at this job but I already know most of then from other company. They're constantly joking at everything all the time, nothing is ever serious with these guys. We lunch in a place where there's a group of 10 or so pretty dentist interns that also lunch there mostly at the same hour.

They never talked to these girls AFAIK, but last week I hit on two of them that were in a table next to hours. I knew they'd burn the move so I awaited for all but one of them to get up for desert/coffee and then talked to the girls. I knew if I had talked to them while they were at the table they'd shout shit like "hey, leave the girls alone!", "Is he bothering you girls?" and such.

The girls liked me and I also liked one of them during the interaction, but I didn't make a fast move right then, because I see them everyday anyway. So I planned on asking her number next chance I got to talk to her, and to get her by herself if possible. But then my friend that was still at the table goes on and tells the others, making it a big deal how I approached the girls, and their reaction. Talking loud AF, the entire place could hear it. So I got worried that they'd fuck everything up next day, and tried to be more discrete.

That was last Wednesday, we only worked again on Tuesday (yday). I tried to avoid being "about the girls" in there, so I just took my plate and went through the buffet. The girls were in a bigger group and already eating. I didn't even look at the table to avoid prompting trouble. But then comes the guy that was at the table, talking loud AF again, about the girl I'm into: "did you guys see? the hot shorty staring at him all the time nonstop?", "damn, you caught my crush"... they talked about it the whole time. They talked all kinds of shit to burn me, everything they could do, they did. The girls got up and headed out, but then 2 of them stopped later at a distance to wait for 3 or 4 others went to the the WC. One of these 2 was my target.

And this is were I made a mistake, I think. I had to be somewhere after lunch and I had finished my plate, so I got up and paid, and headed out. I was going to pass by her and maybe say at least a "hey" on my way. I should have done it. The group that was behind caught up with them, and then it was a group of 6 girls, and only 1-2 of them knew me (I didn't pay attention if the other girl was there). And then my co-worker started screaming my name with a mocking tone: "hey, where you going", "what you're doing?". Clearing implying I only got up to head towards them. Fuck. I passed by them, looked at her, she didn't look back.

I'm pretty sure she was thinking "please, don't talk to me". But I can't figure out if she a) was afraid of me involving her in the negative attention the guys were throwing at me, b) thought I bragged about her to my co-workers, c) thought I got dumb-confident after the crap my friend was talking about she looking at me, as if I wasn't even into her until I heard d) that I went towards her to perform in front of the guys e) that she simply didn't want me to talk to her right then and now under those circumstances. I even did another mistake, after passing them, my friends were screaming so much I - fuck - turned around and looked back at them. At least that made them stop the BS, but I don't know if it'd had been better to ignore them so it wouldn't look like I was performing, or worse because they'd scream even more crap.

Who needs enemies with "friends" like those?

In any case I'm 99% that the ship has sailed and moved onto other waters. But if there's a way to save this I would really appreciate ideas. Thanks those who read, I had to at least get this out there.