Is there something going on here…

[Ellabootoo]

I’m a PhD student with a male supervisor (not main supervisor). I’ve noticed recently that he keeps staring at me everytime he walks past my desk. He seems to be walking past my desk more frequently too, sometime walking by slowly and looking at me. We make eye contact a lot. He has approached me to simply ask “if you ever wanna chat we can always go for a coffee” I brushed him off a bit saying that I’m still early in my project and I don’t really have anything to update him on, as I assumed he meant he wanted a project update. However, he said I don’t have to have much to update but that if I just wanted to chat we could. He has then asked the same thing again on a different occasion. I emailed him recently to arrange a catch up about my project, which he agreed to. The email was typical of a supervisor/student, “hey, would you be available for a catch up next week?” although this was our first meeting as I have only recently started.

One week after arranging this meeting, I was having lunch by myself and he walks in, looks at me for a moment, but with his eyes kind of narrowed like he’s thinking about something as he’s looking at me, I say hello, he does an awkward wave, waving his hand down by his side but doesn’t say hi. I think there may have been one other person in the lunch room. He gets a drink then heads back to the door. But before he leaves, he turns around and says “actually myname, I just wanted to ask if anything’s wrong, did something bad happen? I was taken aback and said no, I just wanted to give you an update on my project. He then seemed relieved and said he just wanted to know the “tone” of the meeting. Does this seem like an excuse to come up to me or was he checking to see if the meeting was to talk about something more personal?

It seems very strange and I haven’t had this type of interaction with any other supervisor. Surely he wouldn’t need to check the tone of our meeting, of course it’s about my project, he’s my supervisor?! , what else would it be about, and if it were something bad I would have mentioned in the email. During the meeting he brought a water bottle, and had his phone propped up on the water bottle, and on the screen was picture of who I assume was him and his wife. It was an incredibly odd thing to do. Since then, he’s been looking at me, there was a moment where we locked eyes for a few seconds, but it was really odd, and felt very intense to the point I had to look away. Because of the eye contact and looks when we met for the meeting it was definitely awkward to begin with, I think we both definitely feel there is some tension. Sometimes he’ll come into his work area which is behind mine and just potter around for a minute before leaving, and I’ll catch him looking at me.

Today he sent an email as I was on my way into work, saying: Hoping you could help me out with a quick favour... would you please be able to take out the orange bin in my lab bay area? manager says it needs taking out for a visit (I must have missed the other day) and I'm WFH today and have no one else I can ask... I'd really owe you one!

Sorry for the wall of text. I don’t have an interest in anything with this person, but for the sake of my career etc, I would like to know what, if anything is going on.

You're being reasonable to dislike this. Most likely a change of tone will put a stop to this without having to involve anyone else. Saying Yes Ted, do you want to speak to me? , for example when you catch him looking at you. No thanks, I don't have time to meet for coffee. Mention you partner if you need to.

The bin thing is odd. It's either some power move - signalling that you're subordinate to him - or it's a way to get your attention.

Do you have any female friends in the lab?

By asking you to throw away his rubbish for him he is reminding you that he has authority over you. It’s such a small task, and as you say there were many reminders. Why didn’t he do it himself?

And starting a chain of “owing you one” — well apart from it being a weird way of thanking you in advance for your generosity of spirit, it implies a chain of favours.

Are you in the uk or america? Phds here are different to the usa so advice about what is normal in terms of communications and meetinf with a supervisor will be differenr. I am aaking because i havw never heard of an associate professor in the uk. You are either a prof or not a prof.

Why would I need reminding of his authority? He is the one making things weird, I know he is my supervisor and have been acting professionally…

In the UK. We have assistant professors here!

It's a domination tactic. It's a subtle, unspoken reminder to you that he has power over you. It makes you less inclined to tell him to fuck off when he oversteps. And in fact, he's succeeded with that already, because you're already worrying that you standing up to him will affect the quality of his supervision, which will affect your PhD.

And I agree with PP about this:

"And starting a chain of “owing you one” — well apart from it being a weird way of thanking you in advance for your generosity of spirit, it implies a chain of favours."

Not true, the UK now calls senior lecturers Assistant Profs in some institutions.

So he had a meeting with my main supervisor a few days ago. There’s a certain thing we use in our lab, which he’s having trouble getting himself. When I had my meeting with her after him, she said whenever we get this thing we need to let him know to see if we can share it. So, I think our interactions are only going to increase throughout my PhD (I only started in October) especially since his bench is directly behind mine. There’s someone else in my lab group, who is encouraging me to try to work on his projects because it would be good for my work, but there’s just so much tension and it’s awkward.

What is your relationship with your main supervisor like? Most women scientists know all too well what you're experiencing. Part of their role as supervisors is to help their students manage it and to protect them if necessary.

That’s exactly how I read it 😂

Funny how we interpret stuff completely differently.

Asking you to empty his bins was possibly a mildly dick move, though labs are pretty collegial places so I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t have done this without thinking twice rather than make someone come in on a day off. I’m in the humanities, but have a lot of friends in the sciences, and people in one friend’s’ lab had a rota to feed someone who was sleeping under his bench for the duration of some particularly crucial experiment that needed a lot of monitoring. I don’t think colleagues stand on ceremony much in a lab.

All you’ve described is someone who seems rather socially awkward and/or who is ill at ease with new supervisees. It’s possible he thinks you’ve got some kind of issue with him if he asked what the ‘tone’ of the meeting was. Keeping his phone propped up may have just been so he didn’t miss a crucial notification because he’d turned on silent mode for your meeting. Or, alternatively, he notices you keep staring at him, thinks you have a crush on him, and was trying to head off trouble by making it clear he’s married.

I’m not seeing evidence of sexual harassment here. Obviously, should anything concrete occur, you take notes, report, keep yourself safe etc.

Maybe suggest an open system for using the equipment? À sign up sheet or something like that, so all is explicit & clear. Avoid secrecy & favours.

And if you’d like more informed responses, have this moved to the Academic Common Room board, where there will be academics in the sciences who are used to a multiple supervisor set up in a lab environment, working relationships between colleagues etc.

It’s really good, she’s great. It’s a completely different vibe compared to him. I’ve also had a male supervisor before, and it was not like this. I would definitely go to her, I just don’t want to sound like a delusional student, as PP said, there isn’t anything concrete and he hasn’t done anything wrong but I don’t know if it looks like it’s heading towards being that serious.

I haven’t been staring at him at all, I catch him staring at me and he doesn’t look away which makes it awkward. He doesn’t come across as socially awkward when he is interacting with other lab members

You could tell her what you've told us: that you're not sure what is going on but that you feel uncomfortable, what does she recommend? She will likely talk to him and he will back off.

If you're going to be working with him a long time, it's best to nip this in the bud now.

I would feel so silly, and I don’t want to be seen as the student that accuses the male supervisor. I’m hoping that this will be something that just stops happening,

He could be socially awkward or ND or just have an intense resting face?

Stop making eye contact with him. It doesn't sound like he's actively flirting with you. So just keep things professional and try not to think about his actions and ways of communicating too much. You don't need to be best friends.

I don't see the problem with asking you to take out the bin. If you were working really near to where it was located. It's true it would show you were willing to muck in and help with grunt work.

You can say that too. You're not accusing anyone, you're feeling uncomfortable and would like her advice.

Btw, an older man staring at a young woman and not looking away is an aggressive intrusive act. It doesn't matter whether he is ND or socially awkward, he is an adult male who is responsible for his behaviour.

I'm really sick to death of hearing the "maybe he's ND" from people on MN every time someone talks about the shitty behaviour of a man.

Ah thank you, that would be a better way to put it. Not sure if it matters, but I’m an older student, I would say we are 3-4 years apart in age.

@Ellabootoo "I just wanted to ask if anything’s wrong, did something bad happen? I was taken aback and said no, I just wanted to give you an update on my project. He then seemed relieved and said he just wanted to know the “tone” of the meeting."

This is for sure a strange reply from him. But if anything it would suggest that he isn't romantically interested in you. He sounded "relieved" when you said you only wanted to talk about course work but if he was lusting after you, surely he'd sound deflated or even pissy. As for the "I owe you one" comment about emptying his bin. I would just take that as a fairly standard, throw away comment when you've done a favour for someone you don't know very well. It's pretty common speak when you're working in an office for example.

It doesn't matter. He's in a position of power over you.

Staring and not looking away is an aggressive act. He wouldn't do that to a man or a male student, I am certain.

I have observed a certain type of person who likes to think that they are irresistible and will put a lot of effort into proving it to themselves. They flirt or ramp up emotional tension until they get a response and then they can initiate The Talk, about how you’ve misunderstood them, or seem to be obsessed with them, and so sorry but we need to discuss (possibly repeatedly!) how to move past this.

I’m wondering if you’ve got one of those.

Why would he think that in the first place though? As a supervisor, if your student emails you to ask if they’re available for a catch up meeting, what else is the meeting going to be about? Of course it’s going to be an update on my project, there is no tone. When I email my main supervisor asking for a catch up she doesn’t ask if something bad has happened and wonder what the tone of the meeting will be.