Have been put in a really uncomfortable position.

[LikeYouWantIt]

We're on the brink of landing a huge contract at work.

I don't normally meet our customers face to face but as it's a government contract, our customer requested a visit to warehouse they're being supplied from.

Customer rep visited with me, and our sales guy. All fine, no issues. The rep then emailed me asking for various information and procedures. He replied saying "thanks, I owe you a drink!". Thought it was a bit clumsy on his part, but I emailed back "haha sounds good", then moved onto another work-related topic in the same email. He ignored the work related stuff and replied back "I'll definitely take you for a drink, it would be my pleasure. No backing out now!" I didn't respond.

3 days later, I got a Facebook friend request from him at 1am. I spoke to our sales guy about it, and we had a nosey through his profile. He has hundreds of friends, and his wife and kids are all over his profile. He's also the type to post pictures of his dinner, so assumed he's maybe just likes to add people on his socials.

I accepted, and you already know where this is going... I've managed to swerve his flirty messages up till now, while still keeping things fairly lighthearted, but now he's messaged saying he's coming back to the warehouse to "have an excuse to see me", and has pushed why I haven't responded to his messages.

I'm furious that this married man has put me in this awkward situation where I can't tear him a new one due to this huge work contract. I'm going to HR on Monday but how do I politely fob him off over the weekend?? I'm thinking I'll just have to block and ignore.

But whilst he shouldn’t have sent the request, why would OP accept? What benefit was it to her?

Oh come on now! There are a lot of people who will take advantage of situations where they feel the other person will be constrained by politeness or other restrictions. We are increasingly teaching girls that they dont owe politeness to anyone, but harshly criticizing for someone in a difficult position is just mean.

Edited to say - and victim blaming.

I have next to nothing on any of my socials. There's nothing for him to see.

FFS no it isn't. Women are never responsible for gross men being inappropriate and unprofessional.

Yes, I would advise anyone in that situation to ignore any reference to drinks and the Facebook request, but the OP was unsure what to do in the situation where she was dealing with a potential client and was obviously not used to dealing with sleazy men who will try and turn this power imbalance to their advantage. This is 100% his fault.

You definitely should have drawn the line when he said “I owe you a drink” and you should have ignored such a comment in your reply to him and just talked about the work related stuff instead. I certainly wouldn’t have accepted his friend request, you don’t really know him. I always keep my facebook personal and have those I’m most close to on there. I never do get these people who have 100s (even thousands) of ‘friends’ on facebook. Nobody has hundreds or thousands of friends or family members. I do feel those who just add anyone and everyone as friends are just collecting people to make themselves look popular. You would have just been another one he added to the list.

You appear to have encouraged him (albeit not on purpose). Just don’t respond to him any further, get someone else in your work place to deal with him and unfriend him on social media.

Well that's precisely it. Because he has hundreds of people on his page, we assumed that's just what he does. I think I have maybe 30 people in total!

Just text back ‘you’re married’

I'm completely baffled as to why a polite professional decline by you, to a wholly inappropriate advance by him, would have any bearing whatsoever on a government contract.

Yes. I’d be wary of just accepting people who have no real meaning to your life, especially when they already have hundreds upon hundreds of ‘friends’ on facebook. It’s just an ego stroke to them to collect as many people as possible so that they look popular and feel admired. He’s probably hundreds of random women on there who he says the same “I owe you a drink” like to.

Why did you want to see his?

The OP isn't a victim of anything 😳

She's had to rebuff a flirty man that's all.

I didn't? He looked me up, not the other way round?

This is such crappy behaviour from him, OP!

I have a real networking type of relationship with clients, frequently I’ll get an ‘I owe you a drink for sorting this one’ and I’ll say something like ‘mines a large Sauvignon blanc when we’re all next onsite!’ to sort of brush off anything more! The FB friend add crosses so many boundaries. I personally wouldn’t have accepted it (you’re just opening up a personal line of communication) but take it as a lesson learnt! I’d definitely just ignore him now over the weekend, hopefully he can take a hint, and I’d mention it to HR too. You could even say look I’ve not been put in this position before and I feel really uncomfortable, this is what’s happened so far - and just have the chat. Try not to worry though - he’s 100% in the wrong here.

So you’re quite choosy about who is on your socials? But accepted him?

I agree. That's a sort of throwaway comment and I dont think you deserve to be given a hard time. I would have replied with something non committal, maybe your ",sounds good" seemed a bit too much like you'd actually go.
But I do think your sales manager has given you bad advice on accepting the FB request. That should have been ignored and no further engagement on socials.
So, ultimately I think the best you can do is ignore FB messages (I think FB you can mute or block someone without them knowing) and then reply on email as a PP suggested saying something like "yeah, must chat to my hubby/bf about when might work unless you wanted to bring your wife and we can double date it?"

Sorry you've been put in this position OP. Next time just ignore advice to accept social media requests

I'm wondering if the OP is just miffed that he's married.

This would make sense in context because it seems she only got annoyed after she accepted the FR.

And also if she was just annoyed that a client was flirting with her, she'd be annoyed whether he was married or not.

So its ok for him to be flirty with someone at work? Especially when he is married? And has the potential power in this dynamic? That is not predatory? And its OPs fault? 🙄

Ok then.................

Stop infantilising the OP. They are a grown professional adult.

i can't believe all the screeches of victim blaming and "oh but it wasn't their fault" that there is on MN nowadays.

When will people start giving other women agency and stop turning them into dumb powerless idiots who allow men to walk over hem, pester them and make them do things they don't want to.

MY GOD THE INTERNALISED MISOGYNY ON THIS THREAD.
How is this man's gross, inappropriate, pervy behaviour the OP's fault??
Honestly makes me want to bang my head against a wall that women (I assume, though kinda hope not, maybe there's backwards blokes lurking on here) STILL believe this shit.
No advice, OP, just outraged on your behalf 😆

People have a drink with customers and clients all the time, just go for a drink take a colleague with you to show it's a work meeting if you are worried.

Not enough eye-rolls.

Personally, I would ignore his facebook message. If you send something however carefully worded, he's likely going to send something back and before you know it you are in a conversation. Ignore, put it out of your mind and enjoy your weekend.

Just disengage with him. No drama. The contract is not going to be lost because you ignore any messages on FB, I promise.

I can see your point and I think you should just chalk this whole episode up to experience. You're going to encounter the odd married creep in business but the majority aren't like that at all. Also, change your Facebook settings - if you haven't already - to friends and family only.

I think asking her sales managers advice as to accepting the FB request or not, did not show OP as being able to make her own decisions.

No way would I have asked advice on that.