to think that "sexual harassment" is a bit strong to describe this event?

[BartiiMus]

At a training session with work. 3 days, 2 nights on-site.

Around midnight (not long after the people concerned have left the bar), man A rings woman B and asks for a code to connect to the internet (we use password tokens and he'd forgotten his).

Woman says fine, come to my room. Man goes to room, then confesses he didn't come for that at all and tries to kiss her. She refuses. Man is confused saying he thought they had a "connection" earlier in the evening but she denies it. He leaves the room.

A few days later woman B tells my colleague about it. She was half-laughing about it and said she wasn't going to report it.

Last night at a party my colleague told us that there'd been "sexual harassment" during the training this summer but refused to say who had been involved. After a bit of coaxing and lots of clues from him we worked out who the man had been, and our colleague confirmed it.

I know him, I've worked with him before and he's a nice bloke. I'm not saying he didn't do this but he tried it on, was refused and left. Is that really "sexual harassment"?

To be honest, I'm a bit pissed off with the gossip colleague who told us all because it's a bit of a non-event (man tries to pull woman, woman refuses, man leaves) but he's usually highly emotive language like "sexual harassment" to describe it. She's not even reporting it. The man isn't her boss or anything and they don't work together.

I know I probably don't have all the story but I do know the gossip well and he does love to exagerate and I don't think it's very fair to man A to have people slinging mud at him like this.

So, deep breath AIBU?

He didn't just 'try it on'. He lied and used a supposed work problem to get into her room, where she was alone. He didn't approach her honestly.

Sadly we live in a culture where even witnessed, sexual assault at work is ignored by apparently decent, reputable employers so it's hardy surprising people reckon it's always the woman's fault if she dares to turn down an advance from a man.

(My former employer, an organisation that trades on its reputation for decency and ethics, is a household name, and that was decent and ethical when I worked there... after I left three women were assaulted on a work occasion, where they had no choice about being in the company of the culprit. They were pressured and threatened into withdrawing their complaints and hounded out of the company. The man ended up leaving too, but with a fat pay-off and lucrative contract for freelance work.)

He didnt lie to get into her room. He phoned her on a pretext, with something that could easily have been dealt with over the phone, and she invited him to her room.

He wanted to get on the internet, he asked her to give him a code, which she could have done OVER THE PHONE.. she chose to invite him to her room.. she did not need to do that, as OP has confirmed. Even if that was just a ruse to test out of she was interested, she would have given him more of an idea that she was because she did not have to invite him to her room. He got a mixed message, he backed away.. nothing more sinister.

And so what if she was alone in her room.. they were in a hotel, not a secluded chalet in the middle of nowhere.

Nobody has said it is anyones fault either. The people with common sense and no agenda are saying that he isnt guilty of any sort of sexual harassment.

But mellen he did lie. Whatever the reason she invited him in, he lied to her in the first place. None of this scenario would have happened if he hadn't lied in the beginning.

He could have used a socially acceptable cover for a hook up like 'do you fancy another drink/ coffee' but he didn't, he used a work related excuse. Why do you think he did that?

Yes mellen, but some people are so intent on hitting on the guy that they would rather put their own interpretation on the event - or compare it with something unrelated and more serious.

That is just hair splitting of the highest order. He led her to believe he was going to her room to get the laptop code. He then told her that wasn't why he was there. It says so in the OP.

Common sense would dictate that you don't lie to a colleague to engineer a situation where you end up alone together in a hotel room, try it on with them, and expect no repercussions from your dishonest inappropriate behaviour.

No one would be talking about sexual harassment if he hadn't rung up his colleague in the first place.

ffs, perhaps the bloke is a bit shy with women, not good at chatting up... he approached it clumsily and he got it wrong... what should we do, castrate him?

In the past I have used silly excuses to try and get closer to someone I fancied, sometimes it has led to what I was really hoping for, and sometimes it hasnt.. and I have had the same happen to me from blokes too and again, sometimes it was ok, sometimes it wasnt... nothing sinister about it at all.

Or maybe I am a sexual aggressor and should get some sort of treatment..

"He could have used a socially acceptable cover for a hook up like 'do you fancy another drink/ coffee' but he didn't, he used a work related excuse. Why do you think he did that?"

He could have done - maybe he preferred to ask for the internet code because it gave to woman a way of rebuffing him without having to turn him down - eg if he had phoned her, and asked for the code and she had given it then that would have been the end of it, with nothing more needing to be said. Where if he had phoned her room and asked for coffee after everyone has retired at the end of the night that is much more blatant.

he lied to her in the first place
No. He did not lie. His phone call was genuine and innocent.

It was when he was invited to her room that he (wrongly) thought he was on a chance and went there to get it on. He then admitted he had the wrong idea and left.

No lie there. Just a misunderstanding between two people who had been drinking and neither thinking very clearly.

Legal definition of sexual harassment:

'unwanted conduct on the ground of a woman or man?s sex or unwanted verbal, non­ verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature or unwanted conduct on the ground of the recipient?s rejection of or submission to the conduct described above,'

Italics are mine. A kiss is sexual, and that kiss was unwanted. It happened in a hotel that they had to attend for work purposes, and so it is then workplace sexual harassment if the woman makes a complaint.

But Crab, neither of the two people directly involved in this ARE talking about sexual harassment. The only people gossiping about it who are, are people who it is nothing to do with.

And it is amusing that the OP admits to pestering, hassling and cajoling the colleague who the woman chatted to into gossiping and naming the bloke, at another social event out of work..

So:

A: I need a computer code.
B: Come to my room and get it.
A: Okay.

Then, according to the OP:

'Man goes to room, then confesses he didn't come for that at all and tries to kiss her.'

How is the first part not a lie?

I wonder how many posters who have said "but she invited him into the hotel room" use or have used those RSA/SecurID token thingies? if I had to give an RSA/SecurID token code to a drunk person who was holding a phone to one ear and typing 10 numbers into a keyboard in under 30 seconds with one hand then I would probably end up up saying oh just come to the hotel room and get the sodding thing and do it yourself because I wouldn't want them locking my account by getting it wrong 3 times. Except I wouldn't say it like that - I would be polite and probably wouldn't let on that I was irritated and had half removed my make-up, was scoffing any biscuits I could find in my pyjamas and wanted to go to bed. I would feel obliged to be professional and therefore helpful towards a colleague who had called me about a work related issue. This thread makes me think I would be an utter fool to even pick up a call to my room or work mobile from a colleague out of working hours!

It is really scary to think if a colleague did come to collect the security token I have implicitly consented to anything other than..er... lending my SecurID token. As other posters have pointed out, there are many other ways to work out if a colleague is interested in you other than tricking your way into their hotel room under false pretences and then making a physical move on them.

The man in this has no sense of how creepy telling someone you had tricked your way into their room is, WHEN YOU ARE ACTUALLY STANDING IN THEIR ROOM. If someone said that to me I would be glancing round the hotel room assessing my escape routes, hoping the visitor wasn't standing in the way of the only door out.

Who said anyone was drunk?

Squeaky Toy, it is actually perfectly possible that the woman in question may not consider what went on in the hotel room to be sexual harassment, but either her or the man could consider all these people at work talking about them in a sexual situation to be sexual harassment in the workplace and put in a complaint against the gossipers, including the OP who has posted about it on the internet.

Spaniel
a serious question please
your definition says 'unwanted conduct on the ground.. '
How does one know that the conduct is unwanted before it starts?

The OP says: " tries to kiss her. She refuses ..... He leaves the room."

so when he found out it was unwanted, he stopped. He didn't actually kiss her.

In order to avoid the suggestion of unwanted conduct, what else should he have done? Do we, female or male, always ask for a kiss before trying?

Well, he did lie, because he said he needed to use the Internet and had lost his code and blah, blah, blah which mustve been an excuse to at least continue speaking to her. If his reason was innocent and genuine why did he try to kiss her then if all he wanted to do was check his email?

The reason there are normal social ways of finding out if someone is interested in this kind of scenario e,g, would you like a coffee, is to protect all involved. Coming up with something different and work related isn't a good plan to find out if someone is interested is it. It certainly didn't work in this case.

So what if some blokes are shy or socially awkward or whatever. It doesn't give them the right to push themselves onto women. It obviously doesn't work for them and their time would be better spent following the norms and conventions we have for this kind of behaviour. It would help them more if what they're looking for is a relationship or whatever. And would ensure they cannot be accused of sexual harassment which is not the case for the man in the above scenario.

"Squeaky Toy, it is actually perfectly possible that the woman in question may not consider what went on in the hotel room to be sexual harassment, but either her or the man could consider all these people at work talking about them in a sexual situation to be sexual harassment in the workplace and put in a complaint against the gossipers, including the OP who has posted about it on the internet"

If I were the woman in question, and knew people were gossiping about it, I would be pissed off, particularly if they were building a fucking great mountain out of a molehill.

"So what if some blokes are shy or socially awkward or whatever. It doesn't give them the right to push themselves onto women"

oh for heavens sakes.. he tried to kiss her... nothing more sinister than that.. he is just lucky he didnt try it with some of you on here, because he would be in a cell being accused of pre-meditated sexual assault or worse by now..

No we don't, but if we don't and the kiss is unwanted and it happens in a situation related to work, then we leave ourselves open to complaints of sexual harassment.

In much the same way, we may say rude (not sexual, but just rude) things in a comedic way to work colleagues, who may find it hilarious. But one might not, and put in a complaint. Then I may be informally asked by a manager not to do it again.

That is why there are informal as well as formal routes to go through when people make complaints. Because if we only ever brought up an issue when it was so serious that somebody could lose their job over it, then lots of smaller problems, which could be addressed before they became serious, wouldn't be.

So this guy, might be a genuine mistake, he gets told to abide by policy, and that's the end of the story. Or maybe he isn't a nice guy, and maybe he does this all the time to colleagues who are not interested, and his whole department knows and it has created an uncomfortable climate, and he has already had informal warnings, and this latest incident takes it to a formal stage.

Sorry, I was replying to Sallying.

Well, he did lie, because he said he needed to use the Internet and had lost his code and blah, blah, blah which mustve been an excuse to at least continue speaking to her.

"mustve"? How do you know? She only had to give him the password on the phone and that would have been an end to it.

If his reason was innocent and genuine why did he try to kiss her then if all he wanted to do was check his email?

Because as has already been explained, he got that (wrong) idea when the woman invited him to her room. He (wrongly) thought he was being invited to a tumble in the sheets and that was rather more interesting than email.
When he realised his mistake he mumbled an apology and left.

Squeaky I know you are not trying to be obtuse and you know the difference between trying to kiss someone who you think might be interested in an appropriate scenario and engineering a situation with a colleague alone in a hotel room and then trying to kiss them when they weren't expecting it. He's lucky if she doesn't put in a report about him.

He needs to protect himself from being in this situation in the future with one of us man hating bitches who'd send him down for life for even thinking one of us is attractive even with our hairy legs, unplugged eyebrows and dungarees

Thanks, Spaniel

I'm leaving this now. I think everyone has given their opinions and none of them have changed.