thread of inappropriate professional attachments

"I simply cannot imagine having erotic dreams about someone and not teasing them about it"

You need to learn to imagine this and put it into practice

This is really disheartening.

When a man brings up a behaviour which four women in a row (five, if you count the woman who was "skeeved" by it) say "That is definitely inappropriate, over the line and would make me uncomfortable." And the bloke who brought it up continues to represent that it's somehow *women* who should change, be more flirtatious and "daring." (I'm taking this to mean more open, receptive and providing flirtertainment for you, the male who thinks of himself as a Roué.)

When, the women on this thread are responding with increasing caution, at the horrifying knowledge that if you flirt, even in jest or to smooth a work situation, you will be opening yourself up to a situation where a man will feel justified in ~sharing~ his subconscious or conscious sexual fantasies about you AT you. And think that's OK.

And this is Rape Culture 101, this idea that even when women have explicitly stated their boundaries (it is *not* OK to tell a colleague you have had an erotic dream about them) a man will still feel justified in coming along pooh-poohing those boundaries and saying "oh no, it's OK, because I was ~respectful~ when I did it (even though she was skeeved out)" because you know what? Refusing to acknowledge and pooh-poohing women's stated boundaries is NOT respectful no matter how "implicit" you think your "self control" is.

When words and actions do not align, I take actions as the true representation, every time, in trying to establish whether this person and/or this situation is safe or not.

thread only got creepy when michael arrived, suuuure

There is being creepy in a safe space, where you can diffuse tension you are feeling, so that a work environment remains safe and does NOT become a "Hostile Work Environment" for anyone involved. And then there is non-consensually sharing your sex fantasies with someone you work with.

And if you can't tell the difference between those two things, you really shouldn't be working with other human beings.

Anyway, if it takes Michael's behaviour as a mirror to show me how disgusting and gross I am being about this boy, then it has worked. I feel disgusting and gross. I shall do my best to avoid any inappropriate personal conversation about him, or with him, in the future.

one time this girl I worked with told me she had a dream about me

and I was like "oh really"

and then suddenly, from the cheerful face with which she told me she had the dream, just like thinking about the dream, her face just got angrier and angrier, second by second

and she spluttered out "you stole me bicycle"

she walked away in a huff and I didn't see her again that day

I had a dream about a colleague the other night but it was about how she took me under her wing as an assistant. We moved the whole office to Irvine, California, then she sent me up to L.A. to ask David Lee Roth for a million dollars. Driving up the PCH was awesome. When I got to Roth's place, half of the public area was a kung fu studio/gym, the other half was an undergraduate economics program. I thought I saw Roth leave from the gym to hit the showers, but when someone finally emerged, it was a different guy done up like David Lee Roth. He robotically intoned "we understand you want to ask us for a million dollar gift." and then walked up the hall without saying anything more.

I told her about the dream.

I don't have steamy dreams very often and I don't know if I've ever had such a dream about someone who actually exists.

I don't have any workplace crushes. Being married/having children helps here for me, but ymmv. I have another colleague with whom I've developed a rapport. Snappy patter and the like. It's the happiest I've been interacting with another human being at work in years. I don't have a crush on her though, or anything like that. It's just such a change from the usual drab, glum, bitterness that I've been accustomed to encountering in the last 7-8 years of employment that I thought I'd mention it. It's weird, because I work in an office that's largely attractive young women but I haven't crushed on any of them.

she was a v nice girl working in a stem cell lab she would break mouse and rat spines and I would order the ketamine

My workplace friend used to work with lab rats!

Where do you all stand on flirting at work while in a long-term relationship? I'm in one while the IPA is married, and I have no desire to cheat. And I don't think he does either. But he's one of those guys who's been good-looking his whole life that he can't help but talk to women in this charming, flirty way. and sometimes I flirt back.

Same line of work but - perhaps, fortunately - he's in a different company, so I only see him once every few months or so. So cute though. Have had to stop myself from stalking him on FB.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Flirting-Without-Intention if both of you are involved with someone and you are both aware that there is no intention involved, and it's just for fun/flattery.

The problem is the asymmetrical situations - where one person is involved and the other isn't, especially if there's kind of a grey line about whether it's With-Intention or Without.

Actually, it's questionable if there's that grey line, it's just that it doesn't matter so long as it's symmetrical. It's where one person has intentions and the other doesn't. And think that's heightened by one person not having a solid relationship at home to reassure them that it's not with-intention.

(But I might just be speaking for myself there. Because I am really bad at flirting-without-intention.)

ARGH I said I was going to stop posting to this thread, but these kinds of questions intrigue me.

Yeah I think that grey line is what makes me a bit wary about this one - cause our whole flirtation started on a work trip, before we even knew about each other's relationship statuses (he doesn't wear a ring and says his wife doesn't either). And it didn't really stop when we did find out a little later on.

But yeah like I said, it's a good thing we don't work for the same company so I can basically avoid thinking about it most of the time. And I can't deny that it's been pretty fun, with- or without-intention.

Refusing to acknowledge and pooh-poohing women's stated boundaries

Huh? We had been flirting. I told her I'd had a racy dream. She didn't want to hear about it. I never brought it up again. We're still friends (we went out last week with a new beau of hers). We still flirt and "~respectful~"ly and with an implict understanding of no intentions I never bring up anything too skeeveworthy. Acknowledge that.

I also can't imagine having an erotic (it wasn't a sex dream btw, just steamy in a vague way) dream about someone with whom we didn't share some kind of erotic tension. Are there boundaries not to cross? Apparently there are. I get that but finding out where they are requires interaction. Different ppl have different boundaries. I knew someone at work once who flirted with me (also implictly in a platonic way) who gave me all sorts of details about her lovers that might have made some ppl blush but I listened half out of curiosity and half out of compassion 'cause she really seemed like she wanted a male perspective on something that was troubling her.

Look, you know what - please, just don't try to talk to me again. The more you speak, the more you reveal how little you actually "get it" WRT the things I am talking about. Like, you and I are just having completely different conversations. Or I should just install killfile on my work browser or something.

I think M. White is trying to engage with you and further explain the context for his comments. He appears to be acting in good faith.

imo

(coming from someone who could not imagine a situation in which I would tell a coworker about an erotic dream)

And as for people who attempt to ~explain~ conversations to me that I am involved in, seriously, please do us both a favour, and just don't.

I don't think it is a favor to anyone to leave you there looking like you need help understanding something.

a dream doesn't have to be overtly sexual to be inappropriate / over the line.

she has no control over what she does or did in your dream..

wcc, don't stop posting on this thread, your posts are really fun to read. i'm living vicariously through them because i have no crush. also this stuff is totally not a mirror to your behavior, it comes across that you've been extremely scrupulous to NOT be inappropriate!

I'll stop posting here. Y'all carry on.

Sorry, Rox, I don't think it's healthy at all for me to continue with this (or fair to him.)

Firstly, conversations here have been making me feel weird and gross about this, when formerly it had been a source of joy and fun. It now makes me feel icky and crepey. And secondly, if I found out that someone I was working with was essentially ~liveblogging their crush on me~ and detailing our interactions for the amusement of strangers, I would feel really REALLY grossed out.

On the same kind of level of grossedoutness as I would feel if someone at work started detailing erotic dreams that they said they had had about me, to my face. So in order not to be a total fucking hypocrite about my reactions here, I have to stop doing this.

understood

fair enough wcc. Personally, I think you don't have to talk about your own crushes here if it's weird, but you should feel free to chime with some general opinions on IPAs though. Seriously, some of us here do appreciate it, cause you're pretty thoughtful about this stuff.

Oh.

My.

God.

He is, actually, a Rand fan.

PLEASE GOD MAKE IT STOP.

Now ask him what his favorite Rush song is!

oh nooooo!

Well when he saw my face, he tried to backtrack to "I like them as novels, I think Objectivism needs some modification..." but the damage was done. I got him to confess to being a LibDem not a Tory before (probably Tory) OfficeGossip separated us but the damage was done.

I think I am going to have a crush on my second year Cornish teacher instead, he is just as handsome but more age appropriate. Also Mebyon Kernow >>>>>>>> LibDem.

are you guys fully serious about not wanting to hook up with people with repulsive political views?

yes

wcc why are you awake

I have to catch a train to Scotland in an hour. It's like a 14 hour journey to Orkney

And yes. Noxious political views don't happen in a vacuum. They actually affect the lives of ppl in groups I am a member of. I could not share my vagina with a member of a political party that wants to pass legislation that would affect my control of my vagina. It's kind of an important thing for me.

"The personal is political" isn't just a catchy slogan; my politics are directly informed by how I think about and try to treat people on a daily basis. Only the safest members of society get to treat politics like its some meaningless tribal game because they're the ones who won't be directly affected by changes in policy.

So yeah, if someone is totally fine with my uncles not being able to get married or my mom not being able to get health insurance, I do not want to sleep with them, and that isn't particularly radical imo.

okay. what about a 9/11 truther, who believes the u.s. government blew up the towers? where do you draw the line?

who are these ridiculously ignorant yet hot ppl you can't resist dylann

examples, examples. last one was beautiful australian-chinese girl, who even chided me for mocking the nepalese accent of a mutual friend, but then made comments about aborigines that made me feel uncomfortable. she posted an image macro on her facebook profile of an old aborigine dude with the caption SNIFF PETROL / GOES TO DREAMTIME (check it out). i just mentally maneuvered around it (growing up in western canada, fucked up opinions from nowhere on first nations people are not exactly new to me). i can live with that kind of stuff.

Okay, I guess I'm telling you that I can't live with that stuff because too many people in my life, including me, are affected in a real way by people who act and vote like that. It's not abstract. It's real.

And maybe examine why you can live with it? Like, why doesn't it bother you enough to make you distance yourself from someone like that?

If it really is because you see the good in everyone, think you can do more good by engaging than by distancing, awesome! You're better at dealing with situations like this than I am and I think that's admirable.

Given that I am 1) the child of White South Africans and 2) spent much of my formative years in and around NYC, racial privilege was never something I got to just take for granted, or ignore, or pretend just didn't exist. When you see second hand the effect it has on the people being oppressed, and first hand, the ugly twisted effects it has on the oppressors, it stops being something you can just just give a free pass on. Shrugging and saying "oh I'm just kind of used to it" is not a constructive attitude. I don't know what, if anything, you can do to change the views or behaviour of ppl who say and do things like that. (I don't get to preach coz it's something I'm still working on.) But you know, ~not fucking them~ - letting them know that their repugnant views will have real world negative effects for them - is a start? If being racist spelled social death for ppl, they might think twice about at least expressing it?

Facetious, but also kinda not.

p weird that being from western canada doesn't make you less able to live with that kind of shit.since how badly fucked over the first nations here have been is something you really can't escape here.since,thankfully,it's acknowledged by officialdom.

important xposts x2

i DO get it. at the same time, though, i've had very close friends that were into ayn rand and we managed to get along with our lives and even discuss politics without hating each other, but there is definitely inexcusable territory.

23 year old girl aborigines sniff petrol facebook racism doesn't get there for me. because... it's a bit abstract due to geography/my own background? i cut her some slack because of poss crosscultural issues (she's an immigrant rather than a white australian) (living in asia for half a decade, you hear people, including ones you are trying to fuck, saying a lot of FUCKED UP shit. if i had to cross off my list every girl that told me to watch my bag because central asians are thieves, i'd be stuck fucking french exchange students, who probably think the same thing anyways)?

i guess i just wanted to hear an example that was extreme enough for me to get it (i know the petrol sniffing jokes are pushing it). i've never taken a girl home and had her suddenly say something inexcusably offensive. an affection for ayn rand is so innocent to me. i just can't picture myself happening upon a out-and-out racist or fascist chick...-- like, i think that i put myself out there in such a way that i would turn off most people with vile political views, if that doesn't sound fucking silly or nonsensical.

strangely, it's a very different situation closer to home, where racial shit is very much alive and real to me. i'm not going to get down with ANYONE that dares pull some gas huffing jokes type shit. i will make it very clear to them that they're fucked. but this seemed different. i am aware that that's wrong. but getting back to the original thing, i can't see a conversation with someone on an even subtle white supremacist getting past the five minute mark.

(living in asia for half a decade, you hear people, including ones you are trying to fuck, saying a lot of FUCKED UP shit

ok this sort of makes more sense now. my experiences with the racial prejudices of, otherwise pretty egalitarian, people in latin america has been p eye opening :/

like a wonderfully warm and intelligent anarchist who "finds it hard to look at asian people".

massive thread-derail.

actually, after writing all that contradictory shit, i have gotten the point. so, i guess my final question is: before you find the ayn rand book or hear he's a tory, you don't get that certain vibe? i think i do!

andy, how am i doing here?