koolway wrote: ↑19 Feb 2024, 16:58
In real life, it’s a bit more complicated.
Your assumption is that such messages burst out of the gate.
Situation is evolving, message contents are evolving… you feel obligated to be polite because at first you’re not even sure of the true nature of it.
Even if you, as a victim, may think it’s funny and charming at first, and no harm is done… it doesn’t mean that anything done after that will be categorized as such.
You can find it creepy from the 1st occurrence. There’s no formula or roadbook to state if something is within the acceptable lines or not.
Let’s consider the “worst” scenario :
- they started flirting, she was ok with it…
- they even hooked up, she was still ok with it…
- she decides to stop, and he keeps on insisting for weeks or months…
that is still f…. up and problematic, no matter what you may think…
Now let’s consider a middle of the road scenario:
- he starts sending work related messages through a “private” channel
- she obliged and reply as a good employee would, using company phone….
- sometimes he drift to personal discussion “weather looks lovely in the coming days, any plans for the weekend?” (-> do you call hr from that point?)
- alternate work & personal, and push the boundary a bit more every time…
Add a little bit of particular context to it : one every other weekend, you’re both staying at a hotel abroad…
- be more and more personal…
- tell him to stop because it makes you feel “uncomfortable” (ie : f… off now! Stop it!)
- he doesn’t understand and continues…
Where do you draw the line?
In theory as soon as possible.
In practice… hard to judge for someone else and the context.