I’m 25 F and my ex-colleague is 55 M. He and I were good work friends as far as colleagues go, but I was cool with everyone. We would make jokes or talk about random stuff, all innocent stuff.
I wore makeup once to work and he would tell me I’m beautiful and say he’s lucky I’m looking so beautiful in order to help me with a work task or something. I never wore makeup to work again after that.
Later once we became better colleague friends, he would continue to compliment and say things like “don’t tell anyone I said that ” right after… and it’s like, why? It makes me feel like you think you’re saying something you know is wrong.
He would make slight sensual jokes about my hair, and later that day I messaged him to let him know it made me really uncomfortable. I brought up the issue of him complimenting me, making sensual jokes to be uncomfortable and inappropriate. He apologised and stopped with sensual jokes, but he continued to compliment me every now and then which made me feel disgusted.
During work he would often ask me what I’m doing over the weekend. I told him I’m always busy, yet he persists to hang out occasionally or always invites me places which are extremely strange to me because we are very different people in very different age groups. Everyone told me to go to HR but he is a nice person and he is old so i believe he was unaware, but everyone else believed he knew what he was saying.
I had a job offer from somewhere else and he knew I was leaving, but he always was persistent to hang out with me.
During my transition to a new job, he messages me once a week asking to have lunch or dinner. I say no
We spoke over the phone to catch up on my new job, I don’t mind chatting with my coworkers But he asked me if I was down during our lunch together. I told him no. I told him even during working together that I have no interest in hanging out with him lol (i said that because he somewhat always creeped me out because of the way he spoke to me :/)
The next morning I woke up to a message saying let’s have lunch! After I had already said no. I feel so stuck sometimes. I never want to be rude but I have no obligation to have lunch or dinner with this person. I hate how persistent he is.
I told him again I don’t plan on ever hanging out. I can tell I’ve upset him but I feel extremely relieved because I think he has decided to ignore me and stop trying to be my friend.
I hope he is doing well but I don’t think he realised how he made me feel by everything. And I’m not sure why I feel so uncomfortable. This has been on my mind for close to a year now and I feel super unpleasant and grossed out and I haven’t spoken to anyone about it.
What can I do to get over this? Thank you.
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