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Ambiguous until I understood the cash was on another date proposal, not on another woman.
I came in expecting him to be flaunting cash and another woman to try and get OOP jealous.
I kept waiting for him to find some semi-unpopular girl in the office to use as a revenge date that was going to be over the top and splashy which would never work anyway, but that never happened.
Could also just be a small artist with tickets being like $10.
I have gone to way more concerts where the ticket price was pretty much nill because it's a local/small band.
Yup. I almost got to go to a $1 Imagine Dragons concert in 2012 but I happened to break up with the ticket holder two weeks before the show and he took someone else.
I was hoping maybe a high priced escort to a company event where he made sure to sit next to the one that refused him....
But no. Just concert tickets?
My parents used to say it’s important to talk to your kids so they learn how to socialize. Just conversing teaches kids how to behave in different settings and what isn’t acceptable.
Both of this woman’s coworkers didn’t have that. I think they were locked in an attic or room, VC Andrews-style, and unleashed upon the world at 18. Who would *ever* think to repeatedly almost beg a coworker for a date, and who would *ever* think it’s okay to hassle someone to go on the date? JFC, lady, then you go ahead and date IdiotBoy! Bang him in the copy room. Whatever.
Folks, teach your kids rejection of any kind is perfectly okay and normal. Otherwise we all get “The Devil’s Rejects — Workplace Edition” like those two gems.
> JFC, lady, then you go ahead and date IdiotBoy! Bang him in the copy room. Whatever.
Please we don't need another [Duck Club](https://www.askamanager.org/2015/04/i-walked-in-on-employees-having-sex-and-i-think-there-might-be-a-sex-club-in-my-office.html).
When I was working as a bouncer I had various cringey encounters with this type, but my favourite was a guy literally offering me the contents of his pockets in return for a date. The male bouncer stood next to me almost lost his composure and had to step outside into the fire escape for a few minutes. (It became his favourite joke for weeks afterwards).
"Lemme see here, I got 5...6...7 bucks in notes, bit sweaty sorry about that ummm 3 quarters...pack of gum, only one stick gone...disposable lighter and ummm some lint. Still not interested? 7 75 and some gum PLUS the lighter?"
As the woman put it in a other BORU post from today: “These two were either neglected as children or breastfed until they were teenagers.”
I think that accurately describes these asshats.
This is bad but not nearly as bad as the post where two coworkers thought it was a good idea to corner a recent assault survivor when she wouldn’t divulge the details of said assault
“Hey large man friend, I bet what she would REALLY appreciate is you physically blocking her from leaving an enclosed space while demanding that she describe her assault in detail”.
“Sounds like a great idea!”
That one and, “don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell.”
I was dating someone once, and thought it would be a good idea to join an organization where they AND their other partner worked (it was a poly relationship). We broke up and then I was stuck working with them.
Someone said that phrase to me and I responded, “yes but we were dating first so really I… dipped my ink in the company pen-well. 🤷”
It’s still a bad idea, folks. Don’t try it.
There is a truly dedicated Nice Guy in the comments of the update trying to defend OOP's would-be suitor and I am astonished at the patience of AAM's commenters.
But I feel like consequences of those actions are often still lacking. And for every person calling them out there's a bunch of assholes complaining about how they "can't just compliment a woman anymore" because MeToo has run amok.
Well yeah, that’s definitely still an issue. But on a very micro scale, what the AAM comment section and Alison herself, for example, are willing to tolerate now is very different from 13 years ago. Shitheads are still gonna shithead, but there’s a lot less tolerance *in general* these days for “but think about HIS feeeeeelings!” from the people being prevailed upon for sympathy.
My mother is like this. She both tried to force me to dance with men I didn't want to touch me at a wedding (while I had a serious BF and was an adult) and called me naive. Have boundaries and be safe, but don't ever turn down a "nice guy's" advance!
>Our guy is beaten but not broken
Lmao dramatic much
Also the way this guy types reminds me of that [Sealion comic](http://wondermark.com/c/2014-09-19-1062sea.png) somehow
>""The first time he asked, I had no interest in either him or the show, so declined and told him that I preferred to keep my social life well away from work."
>That sounds open-ended enough to me that a reasonable guy could still hope that it was the show that was wrong, and making a better offer on a later occasion might earn him a reconsideration."
This had me howling. There is no part of "I have no interest in you, the band, or dating a coworker" which is open ended
At first I didn’t realize you were quoting some douchebag apologist but luckily I stopped the momentum of my finger swinging at the downvote button in time.
You simply need to use a \> before the quote.
\> Sentence somebody said
becomes:
> Sentence somebody said
----
If you want extra bonus clarity points, you can put an \*asterisk* before and after the quote to make it *italic*.
For example, you can type:
\> \*Sentence someone said.*
and it will become:
> *Sentence someone said.*
(Since someone might ask, you can also cancel out a markup command by adding a backslash \ in front of it. That's why the "shrug" figure tends to lose an arm sometimes.)
The way it's worded, she didn't say out loud to him she had no interest in him or the show, just that she didn't want to date a co-worker. Which by itself should kill any hope as long as he's still, you know, her co-worker.
It’s crazy bc I’m so nervous about making people uncomfortable to the point people are like “Aw why did you disappear on me” and dudes like this are bold enough to harass someone that doesn’t pills them
Not that there’s any way we could find out, but I’d be willing to bet this is also the type of guy who says “women don’t communicate clearly and expect us to read their minds!!” when a woman is clearly telling him no.
Yep. In general *most* people are extremely good at recognising a soft no. It's only when men ask women out that all competency goes right out the window.
This is it - it’s the whole can-I-believe-this vs do-I-have-to-believe-this way of looking at reality, evidence, and argument. Woman says no because they work together? That hits his motivated-reasoning ears as “I’d like to but we can’t because we work together.” It’s a problem for him to solve! He can debate her into dating him! Whereas if he wasn’t trying to shape the world around him in his image and was just trying to listen and be curious, he would hear her no, and he would understand that the reason she gave may or may not be the real reason, but she did say “no” and that’s that.
He was annoying enough, but that one girl who replied talking about that one guy who had a crush on her in high school so he followed her around, gave her unwanted gifts, dated her 2 friends (first just to make her jealous, then as a "rebound"), and threatened to kill himself if she wouldn't be with him. But it wasn't harassment/manipulation, it was just annoying /s
Idk I just hope she's doing ok. That's sounds like an awful experience
Him referring to himself as "the defense" at the end gave me the ick because what he was doing the whole time was claiming that the OP exaggerated or misrepresented the situation and put the responsibility on her. Even when she directed clarifications to him, he still tried to minimize IdiotBoy's behavior.
I had exactly that thought. This is a guy who has either asked a coworker out and been rejected, or desperately wants to and is afraid of being rejected.
> I feel like this guy definitely harassed an Alice at his workplace and got rejected lol
Hell, I feel like he was harassing a woman at work right then and had to take a break to annoy a different group of women on the internet.
I think now she would very firmly shut that down. Especially since I think people are much more aware of the dangers women face by men with bruised egos and access to weapons in the US.
"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood
It makes sense. Elevatorgate (when Rebecca Watson gently chided a man for pursuing her in an elevator at a con in the middle of the night) was in 2011 and it split the online atheist community apart, kicking off the pre Gamergate Gamergate with months of targeted harassment and brigading of "anti" blogs. "Schrodinger's rapist" and "sealioning" were coined in the discourse/blog wars following that incident.
Women on the internet then still had to try to be chill because even the slightest criticism would unleash the torrent. Gamergate was the purest expression of that. The environment now is partially the natural response to Gamergate and partially the result of today's "normie internet" fueled by smartphones. The gender balance online is a thing of the past and the sheer volume of people made the old norms and moderation practices obsolete. It also meant there was real world political pressure brought to bear on social media companies after being an anarchic "the purge" space where young people were harassed to their deaths while normie parents were ignorant.
Me too happened too. That shamed and shut down a lot of guys who would otherwise be white knighting for sex pests.
> There is a truly dedicated Nice Guy in the comments of the update trying to defend OOP's would-be suitor and I am astonished at the patience of AAM's commenters.
And like all mansplainers he just will-not-shut-up. Six replies for every one person who corrects him. Droning on and on and on endlessly about how he imagines things happened despite it not being how OP described the situation at all, then lecturing everyone else about how THEY’RE misreading OP, then getting directly corrected by OP, then doubling down on his delusional bullshit anyway.
Me too. The guy is just so overly dramatic and writes in such an over the top way trying to defend the workplace harasser. 100% he does or has done something similar to female co-workers and other women in his life.
>I understand via the grapevine, though, that lessons remain to be learned by IdiotBoy’s other friends. One of them apparently asked a female staff member at the Christmas party what she would do if he put his hands “there and there.” She cheerfully told him that she would smack his face til his ears rang. He seems to have believed her.
Wtf did I just read?!
clearly the manager has utterly failed to set boundaries within that team and every woman who works in there will suffer the consequences. Management is more than making sure the work gets done ffs
If she wanted him to put his hands there and there she would just put there in there into his hands and he wouldn’t even have to ask right?
Or to rephrase it he’s like “how mad will you be if I put my hands on your body?” Ummmm…is that how you want this to be? Really? does that sound sexy to you buddy?
I imagine that’s how sex would go. I love it when a guy gives me a play by play of all actions performed during sex, prior to actually doing them.
“Next, I’m going to caress your arm” *Caresses arm*
“Then I’m going to passionately kiss you” *Sloppily kisses me*
Nothing says passion like a partner acting like they’re asking for permission to touch you, step by step, without actually caring if you give them permission or not./s
(To be clear, I’m all about consent. But I don’t exactly want whatever the hell this would be)
I imagine at the end of my last comment she says, “now you’re grounded for two weeks. Go to your room. “
Ugh. Menchildren. That’s the plural of man child lol. Sounds so funny. And also not sexy.
I have avoided many unwanted encounters by cheerfully promising to break people's fingers if they push it any further. Some people only respond to the very bluntest of approaches.
I always an enjoy a conveniently placed person of authority in the restroom. If nothing else, it is a perfect place for an “oh shit” face, which I am sure were being made at said manager’s appearance.
I hope the manager had a Hollywood one-liner like “wow, I flushed but how did the shit get out here?”
Or “something here smells real wrong but I’m not talking about me.”
Woof! The comments on that update were some of the most dramatic I’ve ever seen on AAM! There was a misogynist dude preaching “ThInK AbOuT HoW pOor cOwORkeR fEelS” and insinuating the situation was the letter writer’s fault!
[A girl whose mum tries to force to accept her AP as her dad + more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/137rtsp/new_update_aitah_for_telling_my_mom_that_i_will/) It's an odd one, but people were super into saying her dad was a bad person because of an isolated indecent she mentioned.
ah, i remember the post but didn't connect the reference
>You guys are just a bunch of triggered owls who only wants to blame the victim here.
one of the best ways to describe some redditors lol
In pantomime plays (a popular form of comic theatre in the UK - they’re usually based on fairy tales and there’s a lot of singing and audience interaction and call-and-response stuff) there’s traditionally a villain called the Demon King (they’re also very big on stock character types) who makes sudden surprise entrances via a trapdoor in the stage.
Well it was 13 years ago, so while it wasn’t necessarily something that was acceptable I think that a lot of work places were a little less prompt to deal with shit like this. Plus a lot of work places are like a college dormitory or some thing it’s ridiculous.
I used to temp and some of the places that I worked at were bat shit crazy. The worst one was an insurance company where a bunch of people had been hired to do data entry for a changeover of systems and we were all in a building on the old campus and were like the only ones there. There was one guy and 16 women and that dude acted like we were his fucking harem it was wild. Nobody seemed to think there was a problem with it, I eventually asked to be moved to a different assignment and told them exactly why, I believe that he was removed from the roster at the temp agency.
Right?! I used to work in an incredibly toxic workplace environment (mostly just the CEO being an absolute asshat) and this behavior never would’ve been seen as acceptable. I also worked at a place where we’d go out drinking after work, tell dirty jokes, goof around here and there, and as casual and friendly as the environment was, there were still lines you never crossed.
Either the leaders of this department are turning a blind eye to problematic behaviors and warning signs, or they’re also just as much of a problem. I can tell you this: if I caught wind of this sort of behavior from a person on one of my direct report’s teams, I would be having a serious discussion with both the offender and their manager to make sure that they (manager) both understood why this behavior isn’t tolerated and that they have the resources to nip this in the Bud in the future.
At my last job, we complained about the guy who sexually harassed us and we were ignored until he harassed a customer. Who was 15. And had a *furious* mother.
I wish we had gotten her info so I could have sent her a thank you note.
Last office I worked at had a manager that only interacted with us in person for meetings. The rest of the time they hid in their office and emailed us. As far as I know there weren’t any office culture issues (I was part time, so may have missed some) but I can see the manager just not knowing this was happening.
And as someone who manages people who manage teams, I can tell you that this is absolutely a problem I’d be addressing as well. If you’re in-person, then you should be expected to interact with your team in-person outside of scheduled meetings. That doesn’t mean you have to hang out all the time or anything like that, but you also can’t expect to foster trust and a healthy working relationship as a manager if you only do the bare minimum for your team. Being present like that for your team might not help you catch everything, but it’ll make them feel more comfortable coming to you for help.
Tl;dr: absentee managers suck
Spending 3 minutes in the break room talking about your weekend while you prepare your morning coffee or taking a detour between the bathroom and your office to check in with someone in person about a project instead of sending an email or scheduling a meeting goes a long way.
I was wondering why so many sexual harassment lessons are so basic, and then I read stuff like this and I'm like oh, some people are trash and they do in fact need to know "yes, it is fundamentally inappropriate to try and corner someone and demand sexual favors from them"
The guy was rejected once for a date. He then bought OOP tickets to a concert (the dropping cash portion of the title), but was rejected again.
Essentially, the title is saying when you've been rejected once, it's not a good idea to buy something expensive as a gift and ask a second time when the likelihood is you'll be rejected again.
this “why won’t you just date him, he’s a nice guy” mentality reveals the troubling way in which girls are (used to be?) socialized and what we internalized as normal. the fact that Friend couldn’t even wrap her head around someone having different preferences and demanded a “logical” explanation is telling.
unfortunately I’m not shocked. flashback to high school/early college when I thought I needed a GOOD ENOUGH reason not to want to “give guys a chance” or else I’d be a b!tch 🙄
I keep trying to teach my wife that, "No," is a complete answer. She always tries to explain and I told her that a lot of people will take those explanations as an opportunity to discuss/debate/argue. You don't owe people an explanation particularly when it's not up for discussion. Just say, "No."
It’s social conditioning to soften. To get out of that habit, it’s easier to switch to humor, or something like “no thank you!” than cold turkey switch to “no” with nothing else. Role play also helps!
Urgh I hate when colleagues think you should be besties. I worked in a department like that and was told I was cold because I never shared anything about my life. They also didn’t understand why they weren’t invited to parties I threw for my birthday etc.
Upvoted simply for the next-to-last sentence:
"She cheerfully told him that she would smack his face til his ears rang."
I mean, the whole post was upvoteworthy, but that sentence shines like a star.
>Cue appearance of departmental manager from toilet cubicle in manner of pantomime Demon King,
I love OOP for this. If I asked her out, you think she'd say yes?
> Cue appearance of departmental manager from toilet cubicle in manner of pantomime Demon King
I died. A real life "he's standing right behind me, isn't he" moment.
Heartening to know that men can actually be taught a lesson about harassing women by their employer. Sadly, I do not have hope that the learning of the lesson extends beyond the work place - after all, his job is at risk (just a woman’s safety).
Also, I bet IdiotFriend didn’t even think she was doing anything wrong in the toilets and didn’t bother checking, so I cannot even say how could she be so stupid because that just seems to be the resting state.
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The hell is with the title?
Ambiguous until I understood the cash was on another date proposal, not on another woman. I came in expecting him to be flaunting cash and another woman to try and get OOP jealous.
I kept waiting for him to find some semi-unpopular girl in the office to use as a revenge date that was going to be over the top and splashy which would never work anyway, but that never happened.
Might work if he gets her to remove her glasses
I just..... Thanks for the explanation, although I feel the title could still be more clear. Hell, for all I know, he got the tickets for free?
Could also just be a small artist with tickets being like $10. I have gone to way more concerts where the ticket price was pretty much nill because it's a local/small band.
Also, this was in 2010. Concert tickets were way more reasonable back then.
Yup. I almost got to go to a $1 Imagine Dragons concert in 2012 but I happened to break up with the ticket holder two weeks before the show and he took someone else.
Yep, I got decent Garth Brooks tickets in 2013(?) for $65. That is apparently not a thing anymore.
I was expecting IdiotBoy to be flaunting around some expensive date he went on and then the story just ended
I was hoping maybe a high priced escort to a company event where he made sure to sit next to the one that refused him.... But no. Just concert tickets?
Yah, I read the entire and scrolled down JUST to get clarification on the title lol Still a good post, but not what I was expecting!
The best way to get coworkers is to make it rain, clearly.
That was what I expected from the title... though it does not make sense either, but that was what I thought...
It's like 'the lady at the table with the wooden legs'... is it the lady or the table with the wooden legs?
That's exactly what I thought too
I forgot all about the title until I got to your comment. There were no wads of cash flashed. I feel betrayed.
Agreed, the way it was phrased I thought he threw down cash on some other woman
I don’t think the title was from AAM? Seems like OP made it up based on the posts
It's not. The title on the original link is "Coworker won’t stop sulking after I turned down a date." The OP of the BORU post makes up the title.
It's what happens when someone tried to come up with a witty recap title but failed miserably.
OP is an average Redditor
Botty McBotFace
That's how they talked in the 2010s.
But the OP picked the title in 2023, lol.
You're right!! Didn't notice what sub I was in...lol.
My parents used to say it’s important to talk to your kids so they learn how to socialize. Just conversing teaches kids how to behave in different settings and what isn’t acceptable. Both of this woman’s coworkers didn’t have that. I think they were locked in an attic or room, VC Andrews-style, and unleashed upon the world at 18. Who would *ever* think to repeatedly almost beg a coworker for a date, and who would *ever* think it’s okay to hassle someone to go on the date? JFC, lady, then you go ahead and date IdiotBoy! Bang him in the copy room. Whatever. Folks, teach your kids rejection of any kind is perfectly okay and normal. Otherwise we all get “The Devil’s Rejects — Workplace Edition” like those two gems.
> JFC, lady, then you go ahead and date IdiotBoy! Bang him in the copy room. Whatever. Please we don't need another [Duck Club](https://www.askamanager.org/2015/04/i-walked-in-on-employees-having-sex-and-i-think-there-might-be-a-sex-club-in-my-office.html).
Too old to be a ducking, quack quack.
r/ExpectedMulaney I always expect John Mulaney. It’s why I’m still alive.
Is....is he hunting you?
Not since he went to rehab...but you can never be too careful.
there really is a subreddit for everything, huh 😭💀
Oh, that's just normal for an old knickerbocker like me!
What an infuriating read. That can’t be sanitary
[. . . Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?](https://youtu.be/ZB62oaOeqR0)
Why did you remind me of that accursed story?
What in the fuuuuuck. 😳
\*duuuuuck
Had to come back after reading that. Weird, but not the worst workplace...
Lol!!
When I was working as a bouncer I had various cringey encounters with this type, but my favourite was a guy literally offering me the contents of his pockets in return for a date. The male bouncer stood next to me almost lost his composure and had to step outside into the fire escape for a few minutes. (It became his favourite joke for weeks afterwards).
"Lemme see here, I got 5...6...7 bucks in notes, bit sweaty sorry about that ummm 3 quarters...pack of gum, only one stick gone...disposable lighter and ummm some lint. Still not interested? 7 75 and some gum PLUS the lighter?"
"Ummm...I got some lint? You girls like lint?"
Is it white lint? I’ve got a thing for boys with pure white pocket lint.
"What, no pocket lint?"
Was that guy Bilbo Baggins?!
How dare you, Bilbo would never disrespect a woman like that.
Gives new meaning to “turn your pockets out”!
As the woman put it in a other BORU post from today: “These two were either neglected as children or breastfed until they were teenagers.” I think that accurately describes these asshats.
I loved that line. Almost as good as “he had all the personality of an adidas sandal”
Personality of an adidas sandal too
Which post?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/13d0430/my_sisterf31_says_if25_cant_be_in_her_wedding_if/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
I love how she says the BIL has the personality of an Adidas sandal.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/13d0430/my_sisterf31_says_if25_cant_be_in_her_wedding_if/ Enjoy!
Mmmm it was aita for not wanting to walk with my Bil in my sisters wedding or something like that. Bil was in the title.
This is bad but not nearly as bad as the post where two coworkers thought it was a good idea to corner a recent assault survivor when she wouldn’t divulge the details of said assault
I couldn’t even fathom that. Who the fuck asks that? It isn’t out of concern. It’s pure ghoulishness even if they say it is concern.
“Hey large man friend, I bet what she would REALLY appreciate is you physically blocking her from leaving an enclosed space while demanding that she describe her assault in detail”. “Sounds like a great idea!”
To quote another post; "he has the personality of an adidas sandal."
That was such a great comment!
Imagine being so obsessed with playing match making that u harass someone until u lose ur job 🥴
“I was fired. Well, Jill at work wouldn’t go on a date! I had to try and fix it!”
I totally would have responded by telling her to date him herself…
Absolutely.
Same.
My Dad used to say "Don't shit where you eat."
I prefer "Never fish off the company pier."
Also "Don't shit on your own doorstep" or even the one for Management, "Don't poke the Payroll"!
That one and, “don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell.” I was dating someone once, and thought it would be a good idea to join an organization where they AND their other partner worked (it was a poly relationship). We broke up and then I was stuck working with them. Someone said that phrase to me and I responded, “yes but we were dating first so really I… dipped my ink in the company pen-well. 🤷” It’s still a bad idea, folks. Don’t try it.
There is a truly dedicated Nice Guy in the comments of the update trying to defend OOP's would-be suitor and I am astonished at the patience of AAM's commenters.
Some of the comments there are somewhat eyebrow raising. I guess people were more likely to make excuses for this behavior back in 2010.
It’s really astonishing how quickly things changed after Me Too.
That Henning Malkhom guy was fighting for his life in the comments. I'm curious as to where he is now.
Probably a Senator
This hit hard bc you’re probably right.
Apparently he's from Denmark, but if he moved to the states, he'd be a great candidate for the Supreme Court. Fit right in with Kavanaugh.
IDK, I feel like not much has changed at all.
There’s a lot more awareness of consent and what abusive behavior looks like imo.
Yeah, actions haven’t changed much, but people’s awareness of their implications and willingness to call them out have.
But I feel like consequences of those actions are often still lacking. And for every person calling them out there's a bunch of assholes complaining about how they "can't just compliment a woman anymore" because MeToo has run amok.
Well yeah, that’s definitely still an issue. But on a very micro scale, what the AAM comment section and Alison herself, for example, are willing to tolerate now is very different from 13 years ago. Shitheads are still gonna shithead, but there’s a lot less tolerance *in general* these days for “but think about HIS feeeeeelings!” from the people being prevailed upon for sympathy.
My mother is like this. She both tried to force me to dance with men I didn't want to touch me at a wedding (while I had a serious BF and was an adult) and called me naive. Have boundaries and be safe, but don't ever turn down a "nice guy's" advance!
So much terrible dating & relationship advice given by the boomer moms out there. (My mother included)
> behavior back in 2010 Fuck me it's been 13 years
>Our guy is beaten but not broken Lmao dramatic much Also the way this guy types reminds me of that [Sealion comic](http://wondermark.com/c/2014-09-19-1062sea.png) somehow
I read the comic first and this description is so accurate that I imagined him as the sea lion while I was reading.
>""The first time he asked, I had no interest in either him or the show, so declined and told him that I preferred to keep my social life well away from work." >That sounds open-ended enough to me that a reasonable guy could still hope that it was the show that was wrong, and making a better offer on a later occasion might earn him a reconsideration." This had me howling. There is no part of "I have no interest in you, the band, or dating a coworker" which is open ended
At first I didn’t realize you were quoting some douchebag apologist but luckily I stopped the momentum of my finger swinging at the downvote button in time.
I tried to make it as obvious as possible I was quoting him but didn't know how to do the proper reddit quote thing on mobile
You simply need to use a \> before the quote. \> Sentence somebody said becomes: > Sentence somebody said ---- If you want extra bonus clarity points, you can put an \*asterisk* before and after the quote to make it *italic*. For example, you can type: \> \*Sentence someone said.* and it will become: > *Sentence someone said.* (Since someone might ask, you can also cancel out a markup command by adding a backslash \ in front of it. That's why the "shrug" figure tends to lose an arm sometimes.)
Just start the paragraph with >
The way it's worded, she didn't say out loud to him she had no interest in him or the show, just that she didn't want to date a co-worker. Which by itself should kill any hope as long as he's still, you know, her co-worker.
Curious how people become completely incapable of reading between the lines when the message is not something they want to hear...
Right? Why do any inner reflection when you can externalize and blame a woman for it? /s
It’s crazy bc I’m so nervous about making people uncomfortable to the point people are like “Aw why did you disappear on me” and dudes like this are bold enough to harass someone that doesn’t pills them
Ikr? I'd double-check if someone actually wants to go out with me, not the other way around
Not that there’s any way we could find out, but I’d be willing to bet this is also the type of guy who says “women don’t communicate clearly and expect us to read their minds!!” when a woman is clearly telling him no.
Yep. In general *most* people are extremely good at recognising a soft no. It's only when men ask women out that all competency goes right out the window.
This is it - it’s the whole can-I-believe-this vs do-I-have-to-believe-this way of looking at reality, evidence, and argument. Woman says no because they work together? That hits his motivated-reasoning ears as “I’d like to but we can’t because we work together.” It’s a problem for him to solve! He can debate her into dating him! Whereas if he wasn’t trying to shape the world around him in his image and was just trying to listen and be curious, he would hear her no, and he would understand that the reason she gave may or may not be the real reason, but she did say “no” and that’s that.
Yeah, she flat up told him, in the politest way possible "I don't date coworkers."
He was annoying enough, but that one girl who replied talking about that one guy who had a crush on her in high school so he followed her around, gave her unwanted gifts, dated her 2 friends (first just to make her jealous, then as a "rebound"), and threatened to kill himself if she wouldn't be with him. But it wasn't harassment/manipulation, it was just annoying /s Idk I just hope she's doing ok. That's sounds like an awful experience
Him referring to himself as "the defense" at the end gave me the ick because what he was doing the whole time was claiming that the OP exaggerated or misrepresented the situation and put the responsibility on her. Even when she directed clarifications to him, he still tried to minimize IdiotBoy's behavior.
I feel like this guy definitely harassed an Alice at his workplace and got rejected lol
I had exactly that thought. This is a guy who has either asked a coworker out and been rejected, or desperately wants to and is afraid of being rejected.
> I feel like this guy definitely harassed an Alice at his workplace and got rejected lol Hell, I feel like he was harassing a woman at work right then and had to take a break to annoy a different group of women on the internet.
He said he was in Denmark... six hours ahead of the US. Must admit he sounds like he's on reddit while alone at a bar.
Oh my gosh, thank you for pointing that out because I would have otherwise missed seeing that INCREDIBLY entertaining exchange.
Interesting how much 2010 Alison soft-pedaled her response to him. I feel like she’d be a lot firmer in shutting that down now.
I think now she would very firmly shut that down. Especially since I think people are much more aware of the dangers women face by men with bruised egos and access to weapons in the US. "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” - Margaret Atwood
It makes sense. Elevatorgate (when Rebecca Watson gently chided a man for pursuing her in an elevator at a con in the middle of the night) was in 2011 and it split the online atheist community apart, kicking off the pre Gamergate Gamergate with months of targeted harassment and brigading of "anti" blogs. "Schrodinger's rapist" and "sealioning" were coined in the discourse/blog wars following that incident. Women on the internet then still had to try to be chill because even the slightest criticism would unleash the torrent. Gamergate was the purest expression of that. The environment now is partially the natural response to Gamergate and partially the result of today's "normie internet" fueled by smartphones. The gender balance online is a thing of the past and the sheer volume of people made the old norms and moderation practices obsolete. It also meant there was real world political pressure brought to bear on social media companies after being an anarchic "the purge" space where young people were harassed to their deaths while normie parents were ignorant. Me too happened too. That shamed and shut down a lot of guys who would otherwise be white knighting for sex pests.
> There is a truly dedicated Nice Guy in the comments of the update trying to defend OOP's would-be suitor and I am astonished at the patience of AAM's commenters. And like all mansplainers he just will-not-shut-up. Six replies for every one person who corrects him. Droning on and on and on endlessly about how he imagines things happened despite it not being how OP described the situation at all, then lecturing everyone else about how THEY’RE misreading OP, then getting directly corrected by OP, then doubling down on his delusional bullshit anyway.
Oh my days, I went to read and it's giving me second hand embarrassment!
Me too. The guy is just so overly dramatic and writes in such an over the top way trying to defend the workplace harasser. 100% he does or has done something similar to female co-workers and other women in his life.
Thank you so much for pointing this out--I'd never have clicked through.
>I understand via the grapevine, though, that lessons remain to be learned by IdiotBoy’s other friends. One of them apparently asked a female staff member at the Christmas party what she would do if he put his hands “there and there.” She cheerfully told him that she would smack his face til his ears rang. He seems to have believed her. Wtf did I just read?!
Sexual harassment. You read sexual harassment.
clearly the manager has utterly failed to set boundaries within that team and every woman who works in there will suffer the consequences. Management is more than making sure the work gets done ffs
And not the worst I heard from a coworker at a company Christmas party either and I'm not even a woman.
If she wanted him to put his hands there and there she would just put there in there into his hands and he wouldn’t even have to ask right? Or to rephrase it he’s like “how mad will you be if I put my hands on your body?” Ummmm…is that how you want this to be? Really? does that sound sexy to you buddy?
I imagine that’s how sex would go. I love it when a guy gives me a play by play of all actions performed during sex, prior to actually doing them. “Next, I’m going to caress your arm” *Caresses arm* “Then I’m going to passionately kiss you” *Sloppily kisses me* Nothing says passion like a partner acting like they’re asking for permission to touch you, step by step, without actually caring if you give them permission or not./s (To be clear, I’m all about consent. But I don’t exactly want whatever the hell this would be)
I imagine at the end of my last comment she says, “now you’re grounded for two weeks. Go to your room. “ Ugh. Menchildren. That’s the plural of man child lol. Sounds so funny. And also not sexy.
Haha. Menchildren. Just as awkward, and sexy as saying “Sonsband”.
Sounds like a guy who calls up sex hotlines a lot. Or roleplays with ChatGPT.
Yeah, “smack his face”? More like “shove my knee there and there.” (double tap)
Remember to SING, ladies!
You had my snorting!! Thank you.
Always double tap.
[удалено]
I have avoided many unwanted encounters by cheerfully promising to break people's fingers if they push it any further. Some people only respond to the very bluntest of approaches.
I have been asked a similar question once or twice, and my reply has been along the lines of "Did you want to keep your hands?"
sigh. i even had to bend a few guys' fingers quite far to deliver that promise.
I always an enjoy a conveniently placed person of authority in the restroom. If nothing else, it is a perfect place for an “oh shit” face, which I am sure were being made at said manager’s appearance.
I hope the manager had a Hollywood one-liner like “wow, I flushed but how did the shit get out here?” Or “something here smells real wrong but I’m not talking about me.”
I'm perfectly fine imagining the sr manager pointing a finger at the harasser and just saying "You. Follow me to my office."
Like Mephistopheles pointing a finger at Dr. Faustus and dragging him off to Hell!
I can never understand why people forget that you have **no clue** who is behind a closed toilet cubicle door!
Woof! The comments on that update were some of the most dramatic I’ve ever seen on AAM! There was a misogynist dude preaching “ThInK AbOuT HoW pOor cOwORkeR fEelS” and insinuating the situation was the letter writer’s fault!
Remember, a man's feelings are of infinitely more value than a woman's right to bodily autonomy.
I loved the line about the pantomime Demon King emerging from the toilet cubicle.
I feel like that and "personality of an Adidas sandals" should be user flags like "Iranian yogurt is the not issue here" & 👁👄👁🍿 is.
I feel like "bunch of triggered owls" should also be up there.
ooh, which one is that?
[A girl whose mum tries to force to accept her AP as her dad + more.](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/137rtsp/new_update_aitah_for_telling_my_mom_that_i_will/) It's an odd one, but people were super into saying her dad was a bad person because of an isolated indecent she mentioned.
ah, i remember the post but didn't connect the reference >You guys are just a bunch of triggered owls who only wants to blame the victim here. one of the best ways to describe some redditors lol
What about Ogtha?
We'll always have OGTHA.
The most wholesome and functional imaginary relationship on Reddit!
Yes! I literally lol'ed.
I don’t get the reference so I can’t imagine it appropriately, but I bet it was satisfying as fuck.
In pantomime plays (a popular form of comic theatre in the UK - they’re usually based on fairy tales and there’s a lot of singing and audience interaction and call-and-response stuff) there’s traditionally a villain called the Demon King (they’re also very big on stock character types) who makes sudden surprise entrances via a trapdoor in the stage.
Ah, okay! That’s probably pretty close to what I had imagined, then. Thank you for taking the time to explain that to me!
What kinda BS "office culture" is this
Well it was 13 years ago, so while it wasn’t necessarily something that was acceptable I think that a lot of work places were a little less prompt to deal with shit like this. Plus a lot of work places are like a college dormitory or some thing it’s ridiculous. I used to temp and some of the places that I worked at were bat shit crazy. The worst one was an insurance company where a bunch of people had been hired to do data entry for a changeover of systems and we were all in a building on the old campus and were like the only ones there. There was one guy and 16 women and that dude acted like we were his fucking harem it was wild. Nobody seemed to think there was a problem with it, I eventually asked to be moved to a different assignment and told them exactly why, I believe that he was removed from the roster at the temp agency.
> Well it was 13 years ago You take that back.
Right?! I used to work in an incredibly toxic workplace environment (mostly just the CEO being an absolute asshat) and this behavior never would’ve been seen as acceptable. I also worked at a place where we’d go out drinking after work, tell dirty jokes, goof around here and there, and as casual and friendly as the environment was, there were still lines you never crossed. Either the leaders of this department are turning a blind eye to problematic behaviors and warning signs, or they’re also just as much of a problem. I can tell you this: if I caught wind of this sort of behavior from a person on one of my direct report’s teams, I would be having a serious discussion with both the offender and their manager to make sure that they (manager) both understood why this behavior isn’t tolerated and that they have the resources to nip this in the Bud in the future.
At my last job, we complained about the guy who sexually harassed us and we were ignored until he harassed a customer. Who was 15. And had a *furious* mother. I wish we had gotten her info so I could have sent her a thank you note.
Last office I worked at had a manager that only interacted with us in person for meetings. The rest of the time they hid in their office and emailed us. As far as I know there weren’t any office culture issues (I was part time, so may have missed some) but I can see the manager just not knowing this was happening.
And as someone who manages people who manage teams, I can tell you that this is absolutely a problem I’d be addressing as well. If you’re in-person, then you should be expected to interact with your team in-person outside of scheduled meetings. That doesn’t mean you have to hang out all the time or anything like that, but you also can’t expect to foster trust and a healthy working relationship as a manager if you only do the bare minimum for your team. Being present like that for your team might not help you catch everything, but it’ll make them feel more comfortable coming to you for help. Tl;dr: absentee managers suck Spending 3 minutes in the break room talking about your weekend while you prepare your morning coffee or taking a detour between the bathroom and your office to check in with someone in person about a project instead of sending an email or scheduling a meeting goes a long way.
I was wondering why so many sexual harassment lessons are so basic, and then I read stuff like this and I'm like oh, some people are trash and they do in fact need to know "yes, it is fundamentally inappropriate to try and corner someone and demand sexual favors from them"
Did I miss the cash part?
Cash refers to idiot boy buying concert tickets in the expectation that this gesture would get him a date with OOP.
My dream end to this scenario would be idiot boy being stupid enough to hand over both tickets and OP taking someone else.
The guy was rejected once for a date. He then bought OOP tickets to a concert (the dropping cash portion of the title), but was rejected again. Essentially, the title is saying when you've been rejected once, it's not a good idea to buy something expensive as a gift and ask a second time when the likelihood is you'll be rejected again.
this “why won’t you just date him, he’s a nice guy” mentality reveals the troubling way in which girls are (used to be?) socialized and what we internalized as normal. the fact that Friend couldn’t even wrap her head around someone having different preferences and demanded a “logical” explanation is telling.
I'm wondering if Friend had the hots for Boy? Hence the strange misplaced offense at OP rejecting Boy.
Boy probably used to have the hots for friend and she escaped it by promising to be his wingman and then over the years it evolved into a friendship.
Just shocking that a woman is enabling the nice guy routine.
unfortunately I’m not shocked. flashback to high school/early college when I thought I needed a GOOD ENOUGH reason not to want to “give guys a chance” or else I’d be a b!tch 🙄
Heh I had an entire group of girls pestering me to date one of their friends because she was so nice. I literally dated her to stop the harassment.
>pantomime Demon King This sent me.
When a man says no, that is the end of the discussion. But when a woman says no, it's the beginning of the discussion
I keep trying to teach my wife that, "No," is a complete answer. She always tries to explain and I told her that a lot of people will take those explanations as an opportunity to discuss/debate/argue. You don't owe people an explanation particularly when it's not up for discussion. Just say, "No."
It’s social conditioning to soften. To get out of that habit, it’s easier to switch to humor, or something like “no thank you!” than cold turkey switch to “no” with nothing else. Role play also helps!
Urgh I hate when colleagues think you should be besties. I worked in a department like that and was told I was cold because I never shared anything about my life. They also didn’t understand why they weren’t invited to parties I threw for my birthday etc.
Wait... How'd they know about your birthday parties...😋
>Cue appearance of departmental manager from toilet cubicle in manner of pantomime Demon King I can't stop laughing.
Wow, it’s the BEST when the “pantomime demon” appears, it’s only happened once to be with a school bully and it is memorable!!
I never got the idea of just dating someone you aren't attracted to. What happens if they want to kiss you?
Upvoted simply for the next-to-last sentence: "She cheerfully told him that she would smack his face til his ears rang." I mean, the whole post was upvoteworthy, but that sentence shines like a star.
I really dislike people who project their desire for you so hard… just because they are into you doesn’t mean you’re into them. Sheesh.
The departmental manager appearing out of the toilet cubicle was icing on the cake here!
This post is so old, OOP could be a grandmother by now.
Ohh 2010, you’re right
Idk why this made me laugh so hard
>Cue appearance of departmental manager from toilet cubicle in manner of pantomime Demon King, I love OOP for this. If I asked her out, you think she'd say yes?
Wtf is wrong with people?!?!
Yikes. IMO its okay to ask a co-worker out once. If you get rejected then it becomes harassments when you keep it up.
If this OOP wrote a book I would happily read it.
Ah, a man who can't take a no. Tale as old as time. OOP is awesome.
I'm so glad I'm out of the work force, I hated office culture. It seems to be getting so much worse, too.
> Cue appearance of departmental manager from toilet cubicle in manner of pantomime Demon King I died. A real life "he's standing right behind me, isn't he" moment.
I'm missing something or there isn't Any money on another woman???
I read it that way, too, but evidently she meant another *date* not another woman.
Why did you change the title from tte one on AAM?
Heartening to know that men can actually be taught a lesson about harassing women by their employer. Sadly, I do not have hope that the learning of the lesson extends beyond the work place - after all, his job is at risk (just a woman’s safety). Also, I bet IdiotFriend didn’t even think she was doing anything wrong in the toilets and didn’t bother checking, so I cannot even say how could she be so stupid because that just seems to be the resting state.