Harassment and a Kind of Blindness

Here is a reasonably good piece about the gray area between workplace harassment and acceptable flirtation. For now I will simply observe that for me, it is virtually impossible to detect certain social cues. I would compare it to a kind of blindness, the lack of some essential sense organ that could help me navigate this terrain. Of course this can be debilitating in all kinds of situations, but it makes workplace relationships especially difficult.

So in other words, I think these discussions should probably take account of the different ways that people will experience whatever social expectations are decided on. That's why this line from the piece is so important:

It feels great to be chased when you are attracted to the person doing the chasing. Otherwise, the chaser might be seen as a predator.

This is a dynamic that might be a trivial concern for some men, but it makes dating prohibitively risky for others. (I would add that "predator" would apply to "chasing" in the workplace, while "creep" would generally be the term for "chasing" in ordinary social life.)

Not trying to troll here, obviously women's experiences shouldn't be held hostage to socially awkward men. On some level if you can't recognize the boundaries then you shouldn't play the game. Just pointing out that people are going to have widely divergent experiences with whatever system we end up with.

[updated to clean up word choice and formatting]