thread of inappropriate professional attachments

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?

I probably shouldn't be the one in this discussion to say this, but, girls and chicks and stuck fucking french exchange students? There's your examples extreme enough to me to not want to go home with you right there.

Yup.

is there a better way to express the last part or is the entire sentiment just bad?

the use of phrases like "chicks" and "stuck fucking french exchange students" are fairly egregiously misogynistic.

thread of inappropriate professional attachments

sometimes when a date is going well and comes back to my apartment for a nightcap, I like to stand in front of the record player and ask if they like the novels of ayn rand specifically so I can drag the needle across the record if they say yes, then whip around and stare gaping-mouthed at them until they sheepishly back out the front door.

i automatically repel tories by being both scottish and the son of a refugee so this never comes up for me.

What are these "dates" you speak of?

Anyway, the whole "not being a Tory" thing is something I establish while still in the crush stage. (not that it ever gets any further.) This isn't a dating thread anyway, it's a "people you can never date because work complications" thread so I dunno where this derail came from. I think being ~hot for teacher~ probably has its own thread of complications somewhere.

well, part of inappropriate professional attachment is that you can get to know someone in a very narrow work context and crush out without really knowing anything about them. then in the midst of your sexual reverie you run full steam onto jagged rocks like well-thumbed paperback copy of the fountainhead on their desk with tickets to a phish concert used as a bookmark.

Well, not exactly. It was more whether they think of workfare as a horrifying exploitation of the most vulnerable segments of society at the expense of decently paid roles, or whether you think it is "maximising efficiency." (while coming from a class that enabled you to take a 3 month unpaid internship in China at no personal expense.)

Going for drinks with my IPA and a few other work colleagues tomorrow night. There is NO WAY that this might be awkward, oh no not at all...

At my old job, which was also in publishing, one person had a friendship with, like, a minor public figure (tv news twat). Then when not everyone wanted to socialize with the editor and their friend, everyone's job was threatened. I mean I really think that people in publishing shouldn't socialize with people they might criticize in print.

So then one of the fellow staff was obviously hooking up with this public figure, which pissed us all off because the guy was kind of a bimbo and we don't need that shit in our workplace.

When I left that job, one of my beefs was, "I'm not here to hobnob with celebrities, I take my job very seriously."

absolutely stunning girl beside me spent all day elaborating on the catwoman outfit she's wearing for halloween, now pls lady i gotta concentrate on this thing i'm doin

I have been told that OfficeBoy was ~pining~ for me in my absence, and he looked at me entreatingly and said "aw, but no one has been giving me hassle all week, can you send me a nasty email or something?" So I told him he was rubbish and he had done something stupid with his hair, and he grinned and went "Yay!" Haha, he is v v funny and sweet.

Every time this thread revives, a part of me thinks "it's happened, hasn't it?"

Sorry, but..

So I've either done a really brave thing or a really stupid thing.

I had a really big blow-up this morning at work. (Over something totally unrelated, and with someone completely different - which was actually fine because everyone has had occasional issues with this person, and he and they all recognise that it can be difficult.) But I had a long talk with my boss about stuff I'm finding difficult to cope with at work. And I brought up the fact that I was finding it hard to cope with the banter sometimes, not to take it personally, and he said, yeah, it's always been a really banter-heavy office, especially X and Y, and he couldn't deal with being in the office 5 days a week, which is why he works from home, but he said he will talk to X.

But anyway, that wasn't the stupid thing. This all means that we're going to have a meeting with HR and sort some of the stressy stuff out.

The stupid thing was this:

After talking about banter, I emailed OfficeBoy and said, look, the banter between you and me is getting out of hand. Saying, it's been fun and flirty, but it's starting to rattle me, and I'm worried that we're developing a really weird dynamic which I'm not sure I am comfortable with and I'm worried I'm harassing him. And he emailed back and said, no, it's fine, banter is fun and healthy, he isn't bothered by it at all, he likes me.

To which, I could only write back and say, well, no, that's not it. *I* am taking it too seriously. And said, p much flat out, I am worried that my feelings are becoming inappropriate, and if we carry on flirting, I will start taking it in earnest. (A bit too late for that, obviously, but he doesn't need to know that.) And could we please stop.

Which is killing me, and half of me thinks that was the grown-up thing to do, because this became really quite unhealthy some time ago, and it is interfering with my ability to do my job and probably reached the point where the obsession is not good for my mental health. And the other half of me thinks that this is the stupidest thing I've ever done because I've now destroyed something which was sometimes quite fun and positive and enjoyable and potentially made work even more awkward than it was before. But I don't think he'll be horrible about it. I hope. I just hope I can not be horrible about it.

WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO COMPLICATED AND STUPID. WHY CAN'T I BE NORMAL, EVER. Don't answer that.

And could we please stop.

Very workplace appropriate and brave, too.

Well, wow!

This will go one of two ways. Either things will get slightly less flirty and more friendly/civil, or well, um..

Let's call it a shot to nothing. I think you definitely took a while to pick the 'better moment' which means he will either say "OK, fair enough, will calm things down" or

oh, xx it.

Anyway, things will definitely not get nasty.

Over and out, I gues.

It took a couple of rounds but we got to the "I understand, let's be more professional" option in the end.

Which is kinda :-( but mostly :-/ because I had to spell out "I think I am taking this somewhat more seriously than you may be" which is just embarrassing but I didn't really want to give him any room to say "oh xx it."

you were both courageous and professional imo

I'm not feeling it right now.

We had to work together quite a lot today and I couldn't even look him in the eye. I just felt really awkward though he was trying his best to be professional and friendly and it was all actually OK.

I also really miss the mood-enhancing kick of having a crush. Life feels pretty chilly and unfun without one now.

the defining trait of a crush is that it's short-lived

well, one of them anyway

share with me crush songs to get this stupid NIN song out of my head

YEAHHHH. hugglez bomb WHITE CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE love that nick btw. so brave to send that email. if i was him, id respect u 4 being so professional and it's NOT CRAZY AT ALL. u should have a co-meeting with HR to discuss it still i think.

f hazel i prescribe 10 ccs of ALICIA KEYS stat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srMBZiqNMaM

This is p much the best crush song in the world:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlaEpd-DZZU

The Fun and Games - The Grooviest Girl In the World

(At least, the high, happy wheeeeeeeee! part of the crush.)

(I have never been a NIN fan in any way, but watching that Closer video always makes me happy and excited in a terrible sort of way.)

((I disagree, though, that crushes are inherently short-lived. Some of mine have ached for years.))

This experience has really driven home something kind of awful about sexuality which I kind of knew as folk-wisdom but had never really grokked as a personal experience.

That finding someone physically attractive and liking/respecting them is nowhere near as powerful an aphrodisiac as finding someone physically attractive and being annoyed/irritated/wound up by them. That the combination of the two things is actually deadly, in that attraction and annoyance both feed one another in this synergistic way that spirals out of proportion. And also that the whole thing picks up an element of competitiveness, whereby wanting to sleep with that person takes on an element of competitiveness, and becomes like scoring a goal in a game, that the object is "getting one over on one's opponent" by tricking or pushing them into sleeping with you. Which is an awful, awful way to think about sexuality when it comes down to it. And I hate myself for feeing that way about sex, and yet I still sometimes do.

Eh I've had that kind of sex, though, and it's not very good? Because there's no intimacy, the impulse on both sides is basically selfish, to "win." I understand the compulsion, believe me, but the finale doesn't really appeal anymore.

For me, it's really the only kind of sex that *is* any good, because intimacy is a distracting thing that kind of gets in the way of a good shag.

Not that I'd remember or anything :-(

that fun and games song <3

I have a crush on Alicia Keys who has superpowers of product endorsement and dog reviving

we would be a great team because I like to buy things and pet cats

wcc breaking down the "she's annoying" truth bomb to an extent

Yeeeeah I was going to say!

pretty distracting cleavage situation today :-/

need to go through the many updates in this thread since last I looked, but just a quick update:

Holiday worked! coupled with no longer working with her so much. The painful relinquishment of cathexis, the gradual acceptance of the dulness of quotidian office life, were slowly taking their sad but necessary progress, greeting out my soul (<--strong factor of IPA is clearly boredom - this has probably been already mentioned.)

But I've just had a train journey after work with my IPA, ("6Are you getting the train? Cool! Let's get it together!") who was just -*melts* - and I was a stammering incompetent fool (I've got this thing - I can't speak properly around her and her only, it's like some kind of verbal apraxia).

And now I'm spinning it all out into insane reinforcement of those relinquished psychological habits of attachment.

Actually I'm not. I'm doing the sensible thing and sitting in a pub posting to ilx. DO NOT THINK OF THE IPA. She's a cool person, yes. You are an adult male who can both handle that and understand the requirement, important for everyone not just you but her as well, not to build internal worlds around people and then project them from the inside to the out. Unfair. Unhealthy.

Another beer I think.

Another beer I think.

Perhaps you'd fancy an IPA (India Pale Ale)?