To think my male friend/colleague should not have asked me this!

[AwkwardMoment2020]

Backstory: We’ve been colleagues for around ten months and get on very well. It’s an informal, hipster type work place and all of us on the team tend to socialise together. Him and I have genuinely become friends and enjoy each other’s company. He’s always been very respectful and polite and we are both quite reserved people unlike the rest of the team who are more extrovert. We’ve never ever had any reason or cause to discuss sex.

This is our first week back at work in person and today we were having lunch together outside and catching up. My eye was a bit watery from hay fever and he leaned over and kind of put his thumb next to it as if looking closer and wiped a tear away that was running down and then commented it was a bit red looking in a concerned, caring sort of way. Then, really bloody randomly while he still had his hand near my face he said, really seriously

Have you ever let anyone cum on your face?

I was really shocked and told him it was none of his business and not ok to ask me something so personal. He laughed and said “is that a no, then?” and said it’s the kind of thing friends discuss and he didn’t know why I was being so weird.

I don’t really have anyone to ask this in real life as it’s quite embarrassing but AIBU and weird. Or is it just not alright for someone to ask you something as graphic/sexual as that? As I say we don’t have a friendship where we talk about our sex lives or anything remotely sexual.

Absolutely not okay. It is sexual harassment. I’m so sorry op it’s awful when you think you know someone and they do something like this, makes you question all your previous interactions. I think you’ve handled it really well by calling him out at the time and not getting drawn into his bs apology.

It also concerns me the number of people who would let this go. If a FRIEND asked me this out of the blue I would be creeped out and this is a WORK COLLEAGUE. It is not okay, there is no excuse to sexually harass someone. He knew what he was doing, he was testing the boundaries.

Firstly, how did he touch your face from 2m away? That's the first line crossed, and perhaps the most important in current times.

I can't believe this whole sequence of events. He's such a creep. Please consider reporting him.

That isn’t sexual banter. It’s appalling.

@KenDodd. If you read the thread the OP explains quite early in that she is not in the U.K. and 2metres is not a requirement where she lives.

Obviously he shouldn't have asked that.

But also he should not be touching you, especially near your eye in the middle of a pandemic where we are being reminded not to touch even our own bloody faces!

I had a male "friend" when I was younger who I was very close with. We had a shared hobby so we spent a lot of time together. None of our conversations even ever remotely hinted at becoming flirty/sexual/romantic. I was friends with his wife andhis friends called me "auntie Nixee". One night, completely out of the blue, he sent me explicit pics. Next day he tried to apologise saying it wasn't him in the pics and he carried on as nothing happened. I was young and stupid and agreed, of course now I would have raised hell and immediately let his wife know.

Sometimes it really feels like 99% of men are disgusting creeps. We are constantly thought not to put people into boxes based on their race/gender/appearance etc. I feel horrible about thinking of men this way but apart from my DH, I have never met a single man who treats women decently.

When I was your age I would have felt it was somehow my fault and that the apology was genuine. The older I now know; you are not to blame. HE has made it awkward. The apology is sincere, but more because he could lose his job, not your friendship.
You deserve to be able to go in to work and concentrate on doing the best job you can, not worrying about what someone is thinking or might say tomorrow, next week, next month. It might be hipster, but they still want you to be professional and for all these reasons I think you need to tell someone in HR or your line manager the facts. The facts are in your original post. Email it to yourself. Print it out. Ask for a meeting and then hand them the email to read. You don’t even have to say the words out loud, but say; “this is an account in my own words of what happened at work yesterday”.
Good luck OP you should not have to wake up feeling uneasy about going into work and if you don’t tell someone today I fear you might feel uneasy every day and I don’t want that for you.

I mean I've discussed sex things with close friends but not a) randomly out of the blue b) not generally if they're a bloke and c) not when they're touching my face

Hi everyone just woke up and catching up.

Yes as previously mentioned we are not in the UK and have not been advised to maintain 2m distance. However it was across a wide picnic bench (like the IKEA canteen tables?) that he leaned over so we weren’t even physically all that close up until that moment. It didn’t feel sexual until he said what he did, it was more that he was checking to see if something got in my eye. But I didn’t ask him to and while we weren’t in an area with any active Covid it is gross at this time to touch people’s faces.

I’m still undecided about how to proceed. I have now replied to his message just clarifying what he said so it can be proved it did happen.

“Your actions yesterday of asking me twice if I’d ever let a man ejaculate on my face were degrading and unacceptable. I have never had any wish to discuss my personal life or sexuality in general with you. You are a work colleague and it’s inappropriate. To do this at a moment when I was visibly in pain, struggling to see and to touch my face without asking at the same time was also intimidating and made me feel deeply uncomfortable. To then react to my discomfort by trying to normalise this behaviour and calling me weird for informing you this was unacceptable and none of your business added even further injury to an already shocking and humiliating event.

You made me feel like you were imagining me in this degrading scenario and you had no right to do that.

I can’t see someone who treats me this way and who has no respect for societal boundaries as a friend. Once was enough for me to know I will never subject myself to this behaviour from you, or anyone ever again.

I don’t wish to communicate with you except at work and for work related reasons only. I am mature enough to be polite and professional in our mutual workplace and will not be responsible for any awkwardness. I am happy to discuss the events of yesterday with management should any change in dynamic be noted and will be requesting that I am not left alone to work with you as I wouldn’t feel comfortable going forward.

I must make it clear that I do not want to you contact me again on social media or my personal cellphone/email and I will not be socialising with you. Respect my wishes and do not reply to this message.”

I hope that’s ok. I was angry when I sent it and kept having to redraft. I can see he has read it and so far hasn’t replied which is good.

I think you should speak to your boss pre-empting him getting his side in first.

It's a good response. You could let your boss know what you have said, as really this is now a problem for management.

@RoseGoldEagle

He expects you to think ‘oh what a lovely apology, I won’t take this any further now’. If you report this, or try and avoid him, he’ll start to get annoyed, and you’ll see his true colours again. He’s not really sorry OP. ‘A special sweet person’ is nauseating, you’re not a puppy. It was an absolutely vile comment, and he’s 30, he absolutely does know that was not appropriate. Of course people sometimes accidentally say the wrong thing, but this is not an example of that- you don’t accidentally ask that question- he was testing you, and unfortunately there are women and girls out there who would have hated it but laughed nervously and not stood up to him like you did. He was testing to see if you were the kind of person he could get away with saying things like that to- if you’d shrugged it off, it would have escalated over time. You sound to me like you DO have good boundaries, as you didn’t just ignore this. If you feel you can report him OP, then I really would. Hope you’re feeling ok today and am glad your colleague has your back- we all do too!!

This.

I was reading the thread thinking about my reply and then got to the message and thought all he's very fucking sneaky! and got to this post and it says pretty much what I would have.

Iv not finished the thread yet but I will just now.

i think he'll try and get in there first now youve said that-i mean why say i dont know why youre being weird in the first place then apologising profusely

someones told him to try and calm you down

Op, send everything to HR. He wont let this go.

And just to add, my dh used To work in HR, Ive just read your op to him. I got as far as wiped away a tear from your face and my Dh’s eyes went wide in shock at that.

You need to contact your boss immediately with screenshots of his message to you and your reply to preempt any attempt from him to drop you in the shit and an explanation of what’s happened.

Seriously.

The message from him yesterday was an attempt at damage limitation and you’ve just told him it’s failed. He will now escalate by trying to skew this to being your fault with management by employing the age-old tactic of ‘getting in first’.

Yes I agree send this to your boss too.

The message from him yesterday was an attempt at damage limitation and you’ve just told him it’s failed. He will now escalate by trying to skew this to being your fault with management by employing the age-old tactic of ‘getting in first’.
Again, this.

WTF. YANBU. What a disgusting creep. Hope you're ok.

Oh dear I've had a male friend for 5 years and if he asked me that he wouldn't be my friend, that's just not on and I'm not surprised you were shocked. I'm sorry you've just lost a good friend.

Just to add as well if you are worried about the hassle or potential consequences of reporting him to your boss/hr you can raise very discreetly. “Look this happened, it made me uncomfortable, I just want it recorded”. Even if there are no actions taken against him it means if it did escalate they have it on record, and he can’t turn around and say “well she didn’t complain before” etc etc

Don’t click on poissons links. They’re spamming the whole site, I’ve reported.