Sexual Harrassment

There comes a time in everybody’s working life (sadly – because this type of shit shouldn’t ever happen to anyone) when you are sexually harassed in the line of your work. Now, I never thought it would happen to me or so subtly that I would actually be flattered by it & not offended… I mean how does that even happpen… But when I told Noodle about it, not only did he get supremely jealous, he was also the one that pointed out that I had just sexually harassed. OMG! As if I needed someone to point that out to me! Who have I become…? Is this what online dating has done to me? After all the unsolicited cock shots – which is the equivalent of someone flashing you in a park, perhaps in a trench coat & all sexual innuendos from men online over the last 12 years, am I so desensitised that I am ok with a guy sexually harassing me via text at work, on my work phone? Why didn’t I realise that this guy was actually being a creep to me!? I guess I am lucky he didn’t try to find me in Facebook or some other stalker method. At least he used the only way he had to contact me.

So to give you some background… In my job I work with lots of diverse people, I often am contacting people via text, emails calls & faxes (yes people sill use faxes!). I work closely with a guy, who is about my age & from New Zealand. He literally has the best eyes in the world – they are bright blue piercing eyes & he is quite attractive, I won’t deny that, but he is such a bogan but he is a nice guy who means well. He also looks you directly in the eye when he talks, it’s hard to look away but it can be unsettling for me! We also have some banter about Dave Hughes (an Aussie comedian) & how he says “Good on you” all the time… This guy & I say it all the time & laugh, it’s kind of flirty, I’ll give him that, I do engage in it… I probably would consider dating him too, if things were different for both of us, like if we’re both single & we met in a pub or online…

I actually see this group of people every month for meetings & he’s never text me ever, in the 3 or 4 years that we’ve been working together. So when I start getting texts from him, I do wonder why he’s messaging me, I mean he’s never replied to a text I’ve sent him, ever. It is a bit weird, I mean I am pretty sure that he still has a Nokia 5110 that you have to click the number buttons 2-3 times to get a letter. Which probably explains his terrible spelling…

This is the exact text exchange with a few minor changes to protect our identities (obviously). His messages are in blue & mine in black.

Not my usual style to post exact exchanges like this, but I think it’s part of weird things that happen to me as a single woman, that never seems to happen to anyone else. Hahaha.

Hi hows arvo bn goin?. tht guy is prety good ae we shud try get him to come to all our meetings frm now on

Yeah & from what the other guy was saying he probably should be in them. so when we look at the agenda for the meetings, we can work out who should be there.

Yeah i think he shud be nd yes tht definitly a good idea as he is a lot more clearer thn the othr guy is lol..nd jst of th subject n no ofence whn i say this n its not bad but i cnt look at u in th same way anymore lol

I agree. I’ll dig out the agenda for next months meeting.

I hope I haven’t done anything to cause that.

Tht sounds like a plan to me…haha na u hvnt its mre embaressing thn anything lol

I hope I didn’t embarrass you by anything I did.

No its nothing uve done il tel u bt im already gtn bit embarest lol

Nd u cnt hate me fr teln u either lol bt lets jst say tht i had a very sexual dream about u im nt goin into details bt ws a good dream lol so whn i saw u today i instantly felt a lil embarest haha n cudnt look at u in same way lol

Thanks for telling me.
I hope this doesn’t affect us working together.

No probs i think lol ,but na its defnitly nt gona effect us wrking togethr,unles its changed ure view n thoughts of me n think im sum creep sicko lol?.

No, I don’t think you’re a creep. It’s all good.

Thts good thn,thnx..wht u upto fr rest of ure nite gt much planed?

No ofence but if things were diferent i wud ask n see if u wanted to out fr a drink ae.bt anyway u hve a goodnite

Just off to the gym, if I ever leave the office. No offence taken. Things are as they are. Have a good one.

Oh wow u stil at th ofice wrking?,good on you lol.good tht ure not ofended .thn mby one day il ask u fr a drink thn anyway lol.will do u to hve a good one.

Reading back on this, years later, I actually can’t believe that I wrote back “Thanks for telling me” I mean WTF?! WHO AM I? & as if I said that he wasn’t a creep! This is seriously creep level… It’s one thing to have a dream about someone, but you don’t need to fucking tell them about it… Is this like Stockholm syndrome? Not wanting him to get into trouble for sending me these texts?

I talked to 2 of my bosses about it, showing them to text exchange & asking what I should do. They both just sort of laughed when they read it & said I did the right thing, but seriously, why wasn’t something done about this? Why didn’t I do something about this? What should I have done about this…?

After this, I kept working at the site but we never spoke of it again… I kind of forgot about it, pushing it to the back of my mind because I still had to be professional & I was never going to act on it. He text me a few times after that, to see how I was, but that was about it. Thankfully. I get moved off this site & don’t ever see him again, which I am thankful for. But who knows what the future holds!

He has a partner, I have a Noodle – who got jealous about this when I showed him… Not that Noodle ever has a reason to be jealous with me, but he seems to get jealous a lot!

But really… This is just one of those weird things that always seem to happen to me!

#IBD4U