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Zarathustra's avatar

I recently had a friend tell a strange story about a guy at his office job at a Fortune 500. A few single women in the office complained to this guy’s boss that he doesn’t interact with them socially. He’s polite and professional in the office, and will go out for drinks with some of the guys, but won’t do the same with the women, even in mixed company. They said they are feeling discriminated against because they are women.

Apparently this guy was brought in for a talking to and he tried to understand what policy he was violating, but there is no policy requiring men at the firm to go out drinking with women. So his boss instead put some subtle pressure on him to ‘do the right thing’, the implication being the right thing was going out drinking with the single women.

Now this guy is in a position where no matter what he does he’s either risking annoying his boss or putting himself in a situation he doesn’t want to be in with work colleagues. Yet, still he refused to join the women for drinks.

These women didn’t give up. They went and complained again! Again this guy was brought in for a talking to. His boss knows full well why he’s not going out with the women but he has to pretend he has no idea and again tells him to do the right thing.

The poor guy resigned that afternoon.

So this whole story basically made no sense to me. Why were these women targeting this particular guy? Did he do something to them? Did they not like him? Trust me, when I tell you it’s all going to make sense.

The guy in question was previously a cover model for Men’s Fitness magazine. Drop dead handsome, super fit and smart as a whip, everything a single woman wants. These women wanted to get with this guy.

Our stupid society deserve an asteroid.

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Approved Posture's avatar

As for the paper it’s plausible but I’d like to see it replicated in other fields (which should be possible).

Personally as a straight man in my early 40s in a 50/50 field and I’m pretty conscious about this stuff. My job doesn’t involve much socialising or travel but I avoid if at all possible being alone with women >5 years younger than me.

There is a big asymmetry in the stakes of course. A 22YO intern can make a false complaint without too much professional consequences but for men of my age it is incredibly disruptive.

There are bigger consequences of this change in regime. In my 20s (pre #metoo, pre-dating apps, pre-social media) I got drunk with colleagues of all ages all the time and made some lifelong friendships, one of which is my wife! I think those kind of relationships would be much harder to make these days and that’s a shame.

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