WomensStuff

I'm really sorry this has happened to you, it's shitty. You should be able to come into work without being sexually harassed. You're clothing says "NOT INTERESTED GO AWAY" and you're literally verbalising it. As always this isn't a misunderstanding, it's harassment and it's wrong.

Feeling bad for asserting ourselves is natural, women are taught to be polite and assertive women are bitches, arrogant etc. You're also neuro which adds an extra layer of difficulty.

What would you say to another woman? Would you say she should feel bad, or tell her she's doing right protecting herself? It's the latter and you deserve that same kindness. Always remember as well, what he's doing is literally unlawful!

The law didn't spring up overnight, people pushed for it cos there was a need. Courts, politicians and practitioners had to agree that it was wrong, pass the law and make it fact. That's a lot of work in a male dominated system, but still it was seen as wrong.

I'm a DA outreach worker and I reckon although you're safe, he's a domestic abuse perp. Its impossible for him to just not know this is bothering you, itll be obvious from your reaction. The obsession with sex, the refusal to accept a no, the blatantly ,making you uncomfortable... it's red flags. You really don't need to feel bad about saying no to a man that could hurt you if you got involved with him.

Overall, you really deserve better than this and you've got an army of sisters here backing you up.

(despite my very clear “no, thank you, you know I’m really not interested in that with you or anyone else. That doesn’t sound fun to me as much as you think it should, so I’m not interested, but thank you for being honest about it so we could be entirely clear, now please stop commenting on what you want to do to me..”)

Respectfully, that's far too many words. He said he knows you're not interested, so everything after that is deliberate harassment. So if you're comfortable with it, you should say "you know I'm not interested, now quit harassing me!"

I wouldn't normally give this advice but since you've said you can handle physical confrontation, the direct route may work for you. You're being too nice to a guy who is being zero nice to you. I also wonder if this guy is taking ace/aro the same way some guys take lesbian - as in, they see it as a challenge and think their magic dick will "fix" you. (Obviously you're not broken).

As far as the guilty feelings, I get it - society trains us to care about others' feelings more than our own. But try to remind yourself that he's being deliberately offensive and it's OK to be rude back sometimes.

As for the young guy, that kind of situation happens. It sucks but that's life, and honestly, it's good you gave a firm but kind rejection. I think you handled that one fine! I can't tell from the story if he was hitting on you or just awkwardly trying to make a new friend, but either way, 'no' is a complete sentence. 'No, thanks' if you want to be kind. You don't owe anybody an explanation.

Since you're asking how to feel better about saying no, consider that these men (especially your coworker) aren't taking the time to feel badly about imposing on you. They aren't giving you due consideration, so why feel badly about giving them the same energy? Give yourself permission to not care. They'll live.

Good luck!

I'd recommend a job not in a drinking establishment. Alcohol's a helluva drug. I know that's not a great answer, it just seems most pertinent.

those I can mostly handle as ex-military, former wrestler, badass chick 💪

I'm not ex-military, nor a former wrestler, nor a particularly badass chick. But my father was a Chief Warrant Officer/RSM and he taught me a few things I've used to my advantage in altercations. (This included basic knife usage.) So, with you here all the way sister: make unwelcome advances uncomfortable the other way!

I’m ace/aro, not very social, and somewhere on the autism spectrum, and getting hit on at work is nothing but wildly uncomfortable.

It's wildly uncomfortable for those of us classified as "oversexed" by their prudish coworkers too. It's that whole "consent" thing that so many people have such a basic problem with. 😥

He rushed out after but it legit wasn’t personal.

He has to learn the bitter lesson that being attracted in one direction doesn't mean being attracted the other. Yeah, I'd feel a bit bad for hurting a decent, super nice guy, but if I'm not interested I'm just straight-up not interested.

(You sound really nice, mind, for actually caring. By now I'm long past that point.)

How do I deal with feeling like crap about other people being gross? Or risking their all to be turned down by someone doing a job? I know how to be strong and upfront and honest, to do the work to be clear about my intentions, even if I’m nice about it, but I don’t have a clue how to feel better about it…

You have a lesson to learn like the nice kid had to learn.

You're going to hurt people. Sometimes (hopefully most times) without intending to and without malice. You can't stop caring; that way lies madness. But you have to learn to just understand and accept that you are not responsible for how other people feel. And that's a particularly hard lesson for women to learn because we've been brought up all our lives, in most cases, to be the "caring" and "nurturing" ones.

Some people are going to smash their face into a brick wall. That's on them. If they do it on accident, or because they didn't know brick walls hurt, be sympathetic and help them out if it's applicable. But if they smash their face into a brick wall because they're too stupid to link that to pain, that's on them, not you. And if they smash their face into a brick wall repeatedly because "this time will be different" that is again on them, not you. You just have to accept the fact their feelings are theirs and not your responsibility.

And it's fucking hard. (Tough as I talk I sometimes feel bad too even today.)

But you know what? Talking it out here or with your friends who 'get' you (especially with the added complexity of aro/ace) is definitely a good thing. Wounded birds flocking helps all.

I think you might have some issues with internalized ableism. It's something I didnt fully realize and understand until just recently but being neurodivergent led to me experiencing a lot of social trauma growing up. Like saying the wrong thing, responding the wrong way, and then losing friendships and experiencing social ostracization and even outright violence at times. I learned that responding in ways that other people dislike or not providing the expected response is dangerous for me. I developed an incessant drive to people please, and have been taken advantage of many times throughout my life over that specifically.

I think a lot of neurodivergent people have difficult to overcome social trauma. The way you responded to your coworker very much like outright sexually harassing you, even going so far as to thank him for his honesty, reads to me like an automatic trauma response. Like attempting to empathize with him when he is being so wildly disrespectful towards you. And I want to be clear that its not your fault. Whether if it was a response from past ableist trauma or not doesn't matter. It can be really hard to respond to someone disrespecting your boundaries in the moment. Especially someone you see frequently and probably would rather have an okay rapport with. Be aware that he knows this too, he knows that since you work together you will not want to outright tell him off. He is absolutely taking advantage of that position of trust with you.

What's been helping me lately (I was diagnosed adhd at 5 too, actually, no one ever really bothered to explain to me all the parts of my life it's affected) is focusing on how id respond if it was happening to someone else. When someone crosses one of my boundaries I simply and firmly state that it wasn't okay, that if they continue disrespecting my boundaries I am going to cut them out of my life, and at work I'd report them. Youre not obligated to give warnings. Whether youre aro/ace or not what he's said to you is wildly inappropriate, disgusting, and would I think make just about anyone extremely uncomfortable at work.

But yeah like I just think I can see some ways that your experience in this situation might be affected by your being neurodivergent. Definitely worth examining further imo.

I don’t have much advice, I understand your place. I just wanted to chime in and say hey someone is listening. It’s Sad that you are not alone, but you are not alone. Some people are just dicks. Some people like you just wanna let it out and you were about. Some people get overtaken by the moment and it sounds like you handled that well. How they respond is on them and their emotional maturity.

Maybe make the decision to not to let others live in your head today. You make your head full of your happy thoughts.