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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to have asked my boss out for drinks?

206 replies

Firefin · 28/01/2023 11:28

My colleagues seem to think so.

Context: I don't have a lot of friends because I have spent many years of my adult life moving from one place to the next, but I have finally settled down in a place for the longer term. In fact, the 2-3 friends I do have live abroad or are mainly online-based. I work stupid hours and I am a single mum, so don't have a lot of time for socialising and my main social lifeline are the people I work with.

While I have been at my workplace for a few years now, my boss and I have spent a lot of time workling reasonably closely together over the last year or so, and, as is natural, have started chatting a little more about non work related things. We get on well. Things have been very stressful at work recently and we're both a bit dragged down by it all, so I have asked him out for drinks one evening, to which he agreed, and we have now made firm plans for this.

Now, here's where my colleagues have a problem: not only does it seem to be wrong in their eyes that we meet up socially at all, but I am apparently all the more unreasonable because the man is in a very long-term relationship (way more than a decade, though not married).

I literally have zero interest in him in that regard; I don't piss on relationships and would actually lose a lot of respect for him if he tried anything on. I have made it very clear that I am only after a platonic relationship and there has never been an indication that he saw me in any way differently.

My issue is, this disapproval seems to solely come down to the fact that he is an attached 50-y.o. male and I am a (younger - late 30s) female. True, he doesn't normally socialise with colleagues. But I am bisexual, by that logic I wouldn't be allowed to socialise with anyone, ever.

So, AIBU to have asked him out for drinks?

OP posts:
Original poster
Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:25

Aprilx · 28/01/2023 17:22

I think the responses would have been exactly the same if your boss had been a bi / lesbian in an established relationship and you also bi / lesbian. Apart from that side of things even from a work point of view it is pretty cringey to invite the boss out for 1 on 1 drinks and then tell all your colleagues that you have done so.

You actually seem to get off on trying to test relationships. You are not the innocent you pretend to be. You have mentioned before that you have invited married men out and I presume you pretended that the drinks with your old female boss was innocent even though you wish it were more. You are starting to sound quite toxic.

Show quote history

I have invited married men and women out, yes. At my age it's not unusual for poeple to be in committed relationships and if I only had to stick to the small pool of single people around me my life would be pretty bland.

And just to calm that romour on my female boss, I very honestly told her after a couple of glasses of gin that I'd happily ask her out on a date. BEFORE we met for coffee a few times.

OP posts:
LaLuz7 · 28/01/2023 17:40

How do your coworkers even find out? Did you tell them or did your boss?

LaLuz7 · 28/01/2023 17:41

*how did

Original poster
Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:41

It came up in a conversation about what I was doing on a specific date, which just happened to be the date we'd picked to meet up.

OP posts:
LaLuz7 · 28/01/2023 17:43

Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:41

It came up in a conversation about what I was doing on a specific date, which just happened to be the date we'd picked to meet up.

You didn't have to tell them. It was quite obvious that they might judge. Why create drama by mentioning it and then complain that you don't like their reaction?

Original poster
Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:45

Because it is innocent and above water?

The conversation went something like: "Oh, you live in this town, there is this event on Saturday x date, are you planning on going?" and I responded with "Ah, no, I'd have loved to go, but that's the day Paul and I are going out for drinks".

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 28/01/2023 17:47

I don't think I'd make a plan go for lone dinner/drinks with another man who wasn't my family. It's too much like a date even if we are platonic.

I do think this is a weird view (sorry) and do get why the OP wonders if there's some element of strangeness around sexuality in the responses here.

Honestly, although people are saying it would also seem like a date if the OP's boss were a bi/gay woman, I've never come across anyone in real life who thinks like that.

LaLuz7 · 28/01/2023 17:49

Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:45

Because it is innocent and above water?

The conversation went something like: "Oh, you live in this town, there is this event on Saturday x date, are you planning on going?" and I responded with "Ah, no, I'd have loved to go, but that's the day Paul and I are going out for drinks".

That sounds like you were flaunting to them how close you are to the boss. It's a strange thing to do and a strange thing to mention. "Nope, I have other plans" would have been enough.

ZenNudist · 28/01/2023 17:57

I've said YANBU but it's a bit odd. I'd put money on him trying it on. Are you by any chance ugly as sin? I will also wager that you are pretty.

Original poster
Firefin · 28/01/2023 18:01

It's a strange thing to do and a strange thing to mention. "Nope, I have other plans" would have been enough.

See, to me it would have been stranger not to say it at that point. Why keep it a secret? If anyone found out afterwards that I'd deliberately not said anything, now THAT I can understand looking dodgy.

Are you by any chance ugly as sin?
Pretty much 😂

OP posts:
ArcticSkewer · 28/01/2023 18:13

Oh dear oh dear, you are sounding a bit thirsty.

I agree with another poster that you just like stirring things up a bit and testing boundaries.

It's not a great look, but up to you. You know what a lot of people think of it and why, now, when apparently it was previously a mystery.

LolaSmiles · 28/01/2023 18:42

I agree with another poster that you just like stirring things up a bit and testing boundaries
I'm inclined to agree.

All this oh I invite loads of married colleagues 1-1 out, but I only do this because I apparently struggle socially and find it hard to meet people. I don't understand why my colleagues would raise eyebrows that the older, male boss who is in a relationship is suddenly changing his not socialising with colleagues approach the second a younger, single, female employee invites him for 1-1 drinks. I just want to connect with him personally. Look how uptight my colleagues are, I can't believe they think there's anything going on between me and Paul (tilts head tinkly Laugh). They're so silly noticing that he's suddenly changed his approach to socialising with colleagues for me. Can't men and women be friends? is so, so telling.

The OP sounds like people I've met and they love the drama.

This thread is one step away from "but I'm not like the other girls. I just happen to get on well with lots of colleagues who are in relationships and find it so confusing that anyone would have a problem with it".

ArcticSkewer · 28/01/2023 18:54

There's always a head tilt, tinkly laugh ....

Noone really cares, but they probably enjoy the gossip.

It'd probably do you more good to focus on building genuine friendships, op.

LolaSmiles · 28/01/2023 19:05

Threads like this give me a new appreciation for the MN phrase tinkly laugh.

You're right that the OP would probably find she has better friendships if she starts trying to build rounded friendships instead of prioritising drinks with married colleagues.

GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing · 28/01/2023 19:13

Would be less awkward to make it a group thing imo

GrohlOnAPole · 28/01/2023 19:21

I don’t know, some people will read loads into it and loads would think it’s fine.

personally I think it’s fine if neither of you fancy the other. I meet up with my boos (now ex-boss) regularly for a catch up, just the 2 of us. We’re both happily married and it’s not in any way romantic…. We just get on and value one another’s friendship.

Rugbyballhead · 28/01/2023 19:26

I don't see anything wrong with that, so long as his wife knows and she doesn't mind. Me and my husband go out with work colleagues of the opposite sex a part of groups and 1:1, so long as it's just platonic and spouses don't mind - what's the problem?

LolaSmiles · 28/01/2023 19:35

Rugbyballhead
Same here. DH and I both have drinks and coffee breaks with opposite sex colleagues. It wouldn't bother either of us if the other had drinks with a colleague.

I would be a bit 🙄 if an older male married / long-term-relationship-haver boss who never socialised with colleagues and declined colleague social events decided the sudden exception was to have 1-1 drinks with a much younger, female employee who is his junior.

It doesn't have the same vibe as the situations you and I outline.

CappuccinoFace · 28/01/2023 23:13

Firefin · 28/01/2023 17:45

Because it is innocent and above water?

The conversation went something like: "Oh, you live in this town, there is this event on Saturday x date, are you planning on going?" and I responded with "Ah, no, I'd have loved to go, but that's the day Paul and I are going out for drinks".

Is it Saturday night that you're going out? 👀

newrubylane · 28/01/2023 23:24

I shared a commute for years with a much older male colleague who was in senior management and went on to become the company director. We continued to car share. I left the company and we remain good friends. We both have partners and young children now. We have frequently gone for drinks together etc. All completely platonic and now we socialise in our couples as well. It is entirely possible for it not be weird.

buffydavis · 28/01/2023 23:39

CappuccinoFace · 28/01/2023 23:13

Is it Saturday night that you're going out? 👀

Show quote history

His long-term partner will love that! Expect he won't tell her. That is so seriously weird.

whataboutsecondbreakfast · 29/01/2023 06:38

Going out for casual drinks with colleagues and/or your boss is one thing.

But you say yourself this man never goes to any social events, yet all of a sudden he's interested when it's a younger woman asking him out? Hmm

DorisParchment · 29/01/2023 07:23

@LaLuz7 no, we’re both married. Reasonably happily so.

I also have two other male friends that I often have dinner with. One is married, one is single. I don’t see the problem. We’ve never found the urge to jump on each other, it’s just dinner. The married one has a flat in London where he stays during the week and we sometimes go back to his for a pizza.

Maryquitecontrary55 · 29/01/2023 07:54

This is really shady. Where I work, there would be definite eyebrows raised even if you asked an attached male colleague out for 121 drinks. The boss? Absolutely no way! Surely you must know what it looks like? It looks like you're trying to shag him, which is not a good look! I can't believe you wouldn't know this.

MissTrip82 · 29/01/2023 07:59

You’ve invested far, far, far too much energy already into this causal platonic drink. I’ve never, ever spent this much time and headspace on a non-event like a quick catch up drink with a colleague.

Repeatedly clarifying he’s not married isn’t helping. I can’t imagine why that would be relevant to a casual catch-up drink with a colleague.