Eurgh, I am feeling just rotten tonight. Absolutely wracked with anxiety and misery.
A male colleague, whom I would consider a mate, has sent me some dick pics and I'm feeling horribly guilty about it? I didn't ask for these photos, I don't feel as if I have intimated that I ever wanted them but after he'd sent them I didn't set a clear boundary and it's left me feeling like I'm the one at fault for trying to handle it with a bit of deftness.
The office culture where we work is very 'lads chat' and so sexual banter is commonplace, he's also very flirty in his chitchat with all us women and we just play along as that's his character. There's no explicit stuff, it's more just wink-and-a-nudge innuendo level. I am not interested in him in any way, shape or form but I do have a tendency to 'mirror' people when I communicate with them and so I never felt uncomfortable with his being a flirty person.
Basically, I didn't want to make things awkward by being like "this is inappropriate" when he sent them, so I matched the flirty tone of his messages but in one word answers to try and close it down without any unpleasantness and to save his ego. Big mistake, I realise.
That obviously didn't work so in the end I went for the 'let's have a laugh about this' approach and said "you're not getting anything back from me 😂" because he was asking for some. Eventually he did stop asking, but he kept mentioning what he'd sent me and now I just feel dirty. I feel as though because I've allowed the (what I believed was harmless) flirty chit chat to happen in person, that I've essentially signed away any right to be miffed by this.
I have a partner whom I adore and this has left me feeling as though I've cheated on him! Receiving a photo of someone else's genitals just feels like...cheating, I can't find another word to explain how I feel! Even though they were sent without my being asked. There was also no conversation prior to them being sent, we weren't messaging or anything, he just sent them.
My partner, for what it's worth, knows what he's like because I've been very open and honest about this chap and his role as the office get around. I just didn't expect him to escalate things like this with me? Knowing I have a partner.
I don't really know why I'm posting here, I'd just like to stop feeling guilty about this because I know, deep down, this isn't my fault. I just feel at least partly to blame by not making it immediately clear how much I didn't want them, which I worry could now be construed as me having felt fine to have received them.