Yea, don’t even try tact with this one. Shut him down NOW.
A clue by four may not be enough. Try a clue by eight. Be loud, be insistant, be prepared to slap him with a restraining order or a harassment charge.
To quote my little sister’s best friend, Julia, “some people can be SO annoying when they just don’t go away!” (She was talking about the guy next door she hides from, but it works)
Okay, this statement has me curious. Care to elaborate, Vinnie?
You flirty girls need to observe me in action. I apparently was born with the secret of repelling men. I was dead surprised when anyone asked me out.
(Cyn; “a Glock 19” - that’s hysterical!)
hardygrrl, save that letter too JIC you have to make good on that threat.
Leave it to you, dear Lynn, to remind us of the appropriate prep involved in the use of kitchen implements as a device of assault. I laughed so fucking hard at this. God bless you, good woman.
Making mental note to self: Do NOT accept that dinner offer from Lynn for pan-fried scallops… 
'Nuff of that. Now, then. Originally Posted By Blinking Duck
This strikes to the very heart of this entire issue, IMHO. I’m as much of a flirt as the next person, but it’s with eyes wide open and the knowledge- and radar- that lets me know if someone’s not happy with any kind of interaction that moves beyond the PURELY professional/polite social. It’s kind of incumbent upon anyone to have those skills, but sadly some men- AND women- do not.
The women who are unnerved by my speaking to them directly and looking into their eyes as I do so may percieve attentions that aren’t there. They learn quickly enough that it’s not an issue with me.
How does one teach an adult where the line is???
Cartooniverse
I can see a certain girl I know saying this exact same thing… about me.
With the utmost respect, hardygrrl:
You made it “very clear” to him that you were not the least bit attracted to him, yet you continued to be “a big flirt”. This sounds like a classic “mixed signal”. You also say you “tried to be tactful”, which I suppose means you danced around the fact that you were not attracted to him, which would only have led to his confusion.
His crime, you see, (aside from the eavesdropping, etc., which was quite lame) was persistence. Romantic comedies and cute little stories have taught men that persistence pays off, and he just has to work harder in order to win your love.
Here’s how the story would have played out in Cosmo:
“There was this guy at work…I flirted with him for most of the year, but I wasn’t really interested, since I was seeing someone online at the time. He loved coming to see me in my cube–I could never get any work done! He used any excuse he could find to touch me, and I told him to stop, but I was secretly excited. He was concerned that I was not really happy with my online BF, and I knew deep inside that he was right, but I couldn’t tell myself that at the time. Then, one day, he wrote me the sweetest letter…I had to jump his bones then and there.”
What I’m saying is that yes, you do have to wear the big flashing neon sign. You may think that you have been perfectly clear up to this point, but you may not have been. What you consider obvious he may consider ambiguous, and what you consider subtle and tactful he may miss altogether.
He does not deserve flaying, or beating with kitchen implements. He simply needs to be told, firmly, unambiguously, and without question, that you are not the least bit attracted to him, you are not going to be, you are very happy in your current relationship, and that if you can’t interact on the level of friends and co-workers, you won’t interact at all. Also tell him that if he ever eavesdrops on you again, you’ll have him strung up. Make sure he understands. Ask him if he understands.
Again, no disrespect intended. I’ve just been on the other side of the “I made it perfectly clear!” thing, so I know what can happen.
Dr. J
** hardygrrl responds to DoctorJ **
Let me explain something. When I say I’m a big flirt I mean it in the way ** BlinkingDuck ** so perfectly describes. I’m friendly, I smile and joke with people. That does not mean I’m trying to lure them with my feminine wiles.
As soon as he made it obvious where his feelings were heading, I was trying to be nice about it. We ** were ** friends up to that point. If we hadn’t been friends I could and would have told him off right away. I knew things were going to get difficult,and they did,and I was trying to handle it as gracefully as I could, without hurting his feelings.
I was very clear when he did something that bothered me…when he started the “let me pick invisble lint of you” crap,I said “I don’t like when you do that. Point out the lint and I’ll get it,thank you.” Considering that I hug other male friends hello and goodbye, the fact that I didn’t want him touching me in the slightest SHOULD have been a huge flashing neon sign of a hint.
There’s persistance and there’s utter cluelessness.
You know, there was this girl a while ago that kind of liked me, but I didn’t like her. After reading some of the posts on this thread, it’s clear to me what I should have done: Hit her in the head! With a cast-iron skillet or a 2x4, it sure would’ve felt great to bash her brains in for daring to like me when I didn’t like her!
Oh, how I wish i had read this thread earlier! Then I wouldn’t feel so guilty about all my violent revenge fantasies about the opposite sex. I should’ve known that joking with my friends about injuring or killing her would’ve made me feel so much better.
:rolleyes:
And women wonder why chivalry is dead.
** Lizard **
No one here is SERIOUSLY advocating violence. Welcome to It’s Not Realsville,I’m the Mayor.
With that out of the way, I’ll admit that if he got me in a postion where I felt my safety was threatened in ANY way, I would not hesitate to kick his ass Buffy-style and not feel bad afterwards.
Since what little sense he has is keeping him away for now,life’s good.
So does this mean that the guys on the SDMB can get big laughs from here on out with jokes about raping women we like, as long as we’re “just kidding”?
And as for you being the Mayor of Not Realsville, the following quote made that very clear: "I know I’m a big flirt but do I have to wear a sign that says “I’m just being friendly and this indicates no romantic/sexual interest on my part?”
I would say you are definitely on another planet. I think DoctorJ let you off pretty easy.
Let me see if I understand this correctly…because some braindeads can’t tell the difference between friendliness and attraction. I’M in the wrong here.
Like I stated above, I’m friendly,I smile, and I joke with people. With close friends, I’m physically affectionate i.e. hugging people.
That stated, just because I act like that does not mean I want anything more out of the relationship. Which I tried to hint to Sparky MORE than once. For Christ’s sake,I never even laid a finger on the guy,he decides he’s in love with me,starts acting odd and I’m going to let it slide?
Maybe I should just change my personality so I don’t confuse people. It’s my fault the guy’s a clueless putz. The fact that I joked with him and said hello when he came in OBVIOUSLY meant I wanted him badly. I see the error of my ways now.
[sub] Warning. Sarcasm alert. No animals were harmed during this post except for a lizard.[/sub]
Arden Ranger said:
To which Lynn replied with:
When taken in context, the cast iron skillet comment is not at all out of place, IMHO. Lizard, surely you can see the difference between joking about raping a woman and this?
Sorry, boys. Sarcastic or not, hardygrrl’s position all along has been that she’s a person who can measure the difference between flirtaciousness and over the line. Who can hug a close friend without thinking that she now has to hug every swingin’ dick in the office, simply because she hugs her CLOSE FRIENDS. Which part of this isn’t making sense to you guys?
She’s not sending mixed signals ONE bit from what I’m reading. If Mr. Eagermitts didn’t get the clues at first, she was pretty firm from the outset. At SOME point he should have clued in and backed off, and apologized JUST ONCE for his out of line behaviors, and then kept the office relationship dedicatedly professional.
Instead he comes off like the petulant guy the morning after.
Oh puhleese. This guy is so self-driven and inconsiderate that he thinks that any woman within 1000 yards must be attracted to him because his testicles descended when he was in utero, instead of withdrawing up into the abdominal cavity. ( That’s not a slam to all the flirtacious lesbians out there, I’m just making a point here )
Pisses me the fuck off. Which part of being gently flirtacious doesn’t click? The part that says that life isn’t the television show Cheers, where after a few years of flirting, eventually you have to go to bed with Shelly Long? :eek: The part where being monomanical means that you refuse to LISTEN to said object- I say, OBJECT- of your affections, even though she’s made it really very fucking clear that your attentions are unwanted?
I’m a serious flirt, online and in real life. You know what? Now and then I realize I’ve made a remark that crosses the line, and step back and chill out and say something. Sometimes the friendship flourishes anyway, sometimes a remark does some damage and it doesn’t. A good friend of mine left a remark on the answering machine last week. She and I flirt a lot, but our families are great friends, we socialize a lot. She said something heavy enough to make my wife think that she was testing the waters to see if I was interested in an affair with her. That was in no way the case…but it did some damage that she now needs to deal with. She said it, she has to move past it with my wife. Adults do that. They face up to what is said, deal with it and move on.
hardygrrl’s office Prince of Pathos doesn’t get that part of adult life. To him, he’s still a Freshman in college, being told that anyone around him who is a woman will automatically adore his attentions. Shitsack still thinks that No means Yes.
:mad:
Cartooniverse
You want him gone - take a hard line.
Don’t think about it, just tell him to fuck off… and if he doesn’t - enlighten him concerning the sexual harassment charges and a restraining order he has pending.
Your problem should be solved at that juncture.
Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the men on this board but I would have so totally missed this. If I were attracted to someone and intent on pursuing them, how she greeted her coworkers wouldn’t have concerned me for a nanosecond.
I love your head, man. Your eyes aren’t too shabby either 
Thank you Cartooniverse. 
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I found out today he even asked one of my friends AFTER I told him there was no chance in hell if it was possible that I would change my mind someday.
Her response? " NO. At this point she doesn’t want you anywhere near her. Get the point. Even if she wasn’t intereested in someone else,she still wouldn’t be interested in you. BTW, the president of Reality called and suggested you get back within its borders."
No, I wouldn’t go that far. But there is a big difference between “flirting” and “being friendly.” You just threw them in together in the same sentence, as if they were interchangable. To me, this says that you are as clueless as the guy you are talking about.
Sure. In one you’re joking about sexual assault; in the other, you’re jokng about physical assault. I suppose there’s a big difference in the “fear factor” between the two if you are a woman. Me, I don’t think joking about any kind of violence is ever funny, unless you’re describing a Road Runner cartoon. Who the “victim” of said joke is or type of assault doesn’t matter, unless you’re sexist.
Hey, maybe so. Maybe he’s a pathetic, moronic loser. Maybe he couldn’t get laid by a desperate crack whore. But then, we only have hardygrrl’s version of event’s, don’t we? I wonder what version this guy would tell if he were on here? Maybe he would spew some angry tirade about how he’s just trying to be friends with a female co-worker, who’s so self-absorbed she sees his every action as some kind of pass at her.
I’m just trying to make a point that there are two sides to every story, not impugn hardygrrl’s honesty. The guy really does sound like a schmuck, but nobody on here knows him except hardygrrl, who started this thread in the first place. So why don’t we leave the vituperation to her?
Of course, one could turn this argument on it’s head, and say that Adults know when to keep their mouths shut so that they’ll never need to face up to anything stupid they’ve said.
I guess that’s the difference between the way that we’re seeing the comments about violence. While you seem to have taken it as a serious piece of advice, or an action condoned by Lynn, I saw her comment as deliberately humourous and cartoony in its over-the-topness – as you said, Road Runner-esque.
** Lizard **
Here’s a lit of things he’s done-you be the judge…
Stood at my cube until supervisors told him to leave.
Gave me flowers.
Bought me wrestling action figures-I have a collection in my cube.
Questioned my friends about ** SP **
Made up excuses to touch me.
Asked me for my phone number.
Asked if he could come along when I go out with my friends.
Emailed me the lyrics to Creep by Radiohead.
No,he’s NOT just being friendly. Case closed.