Sticky Situation

[alexalauren]

Here's a little preface to the situation:
My boyfriend of a year broke up with me two and a half months ago. Since then I've had a hard time getting over him, but have thought fondly about meeting someone to help get my mind off of my ex - a rebound if you will. I've just started working at a store in town with one of my really good friends who broke up with her 2 year boyfriend about a month ago. Now there's this boy at work who she kind of had a crush on and who liked her. However she doesn't want a relationship with him for multiple reasons. She's not ready to date yet, their morals cross (he smokes), and she doesn't want a relationship before college anyway.

The situation has gotten a bit tangled, as I like this boy as well. He is definitely interested in me. He's told my friend he thinks I'm attractive, and asked if he could ask me on a date, but my friend didn't really want to him to ask me out yet.
He and I worked together today and were super flirty. It was super fun. We actually ended up getting in a pizza sauce fight... haha. We work at a pizza place. Our manager was gone, so we were having some harmless fun. We got pizza sauce all over each other, and it was super flirty the whole time. Then when we were cleaning he kept hitting my with his rag and whenever I would try to go anywhere, he would block my path and make me have to try to push him out of the way. Then when I would try to get him back with more pizza sauce (this was an ongoing battle) he would try to tickle me to get me to stop. Then in passing during our fight he told me I was adorable. When I was trying to get him with more sauce he said something jokingly like "you look so evil right now, but I guess you're still pretty adorable". Then when I left he walked out with me to the front and said goodbye, but he instead of just goodbye he goes "Bye, doll. Have a nice night".

So anyway, he's definitely interested, but there is a friend roadblock in the way. Of course I won't go against my friend; I'd rather have her than a guy. However, I would really like to date this boy, or at least hang out and see where things go. Is there a nice way that I can ask her to let me see him?

[Nicole!]

I would give it some more time before talking to your friend. However, if she doesn't like him then I don't see why she would mind you getting together with him. But as you said, friends should always come first.
She clearly doesn't want you seeing him just yet, so I would wait a bit longer and then just say you are interested in him and would like to date him and just see how she's feeling about that.

[Aletheia*]

Sticky situation indeed, but I'm a bit confused. Not by anything you said, but by how your friend is reacting.

She just got out of a relationship, and she's crushing on this guy. Of course, for some people, a month is too early to have moved on from such a long relationship, and you mentioned there are other factors as to why she won't date him. So, why won't she let you hang out with him or go on a date? This is where my confusion lies. If she doesn't want to be with him, she should allow you to have a date to see where things lead. She may be more reluctant because "she seen him first" or something along those lines, but honestly, I'd talk to her about this. Tell her that you'd like to hang out with him, and see how things go. Not that an official relationship would happen right away, you just want to see if you share any common interests and would like to hang out as friends.

I know friends are important, but your friend is being a bit selfish. She doesn't want him, but she won't let anyone else? I'd take a chance, and just go for it.

[alexalauren]

Thanks for the advice so far!
So at school today (day after pizza sauce battle), I told my friend about work and then she told me he had texted her after he got off work. He asked her if I was interested in him, but when she replied she told him I wasn't. She told him that I'm still not over my ex and that I probably wouldn't want to date anyone. I thought that was kind of a lame thing to do. If she didn't want to talk to him about it she could have found a nicer way to go about it. She shouldn't have lied. I think that was pretty selfish - she knows I'm into him. I was kind of hurt when I heard about it.

Now today I talked to my older sister; she agreed that my friend was being a bit selfish, and told me that I should just go for it and see what happens.

I texted him saying something like, "Hey, so Maria* told me about your conversation last night. I just want to let you know that what she said about me isn't true. I think you're a cool guy and would like to get to know you better ". He replied saying "Cool, well then we should hang out sometime". I said that would be fun. He and I are working together again tomorrow night, so that should be fun. I'll just play it by ear and we can see how things go from there!

[Nicole!]

That was a rude thing of her to do. I think you should talk to her about this and just ask her to please be honest next time. She should want you to be happy and not try and sabotage your chances with him.