.lloyd dobler needs a restraining order.
other people go to happy hour after work. my work has happy hour right on the spot. 4:30 on a friday and out come the martinites. i always think to myself: bad idea. don't let yourself be vulnerable around co-workers. you can't hold your liquor. it's 4:30 in the afternoon. and every week when a drink is handed to me, i gratefully gulp it down.
we sit on stools in our bleak work kitchen: brick walls, toaster oven, industrial coffee maker, vinyl floor. everybody loosens up noticeably with each sip. by the end of a hard week of ten hour days and fending off near-misses with crazed clients, we're all lightweights. voices get louder and more eager. laughs come easier. and i start talking more than i should.
today the conversation rolls around to sexual harrassment. how it is unacceptable, hands down. we wouldn't think twice about letting go of a client who crossed that line. but we've been hoisted up on high horses by vodka and gin, and our ideals have eclipsed reasonable expectations. in my limited experience, innapropriate behavior is never obviously so. nobody ever steps up to you, unzips, and says, "fuck me or you're fired." it's always some confusing shade of gray. a look, a graze, an innuendo. nothing that– if you actually were attracted to the person– wouldn't be welcome.
it's the fine line between stalking and romance. romance is welcome; stalking is not. either way, the behavior is creepy.
the romantic notices the way your lips curl into a sneer before you laugh, how your voice drops suddenly when you're surprised. the romantic remembers that you salt your food before you've tasted it, and passes you the salt before you've asked for it. persistance is the mark of the romantic stalwart, and every romantic comedy since the birth of the silver screen corroborates this: lloyd dobler waited outside ione skye's bedroom with his boombox, and every woman who survived the eighties salivates at the thought.
it's unfair, but if john cusack were fat and pimply, we'd call the police.
we sit on stools in our bleak work kitchen: brick walls, toaster oven, industrial coffee maker, vinyl floor. everybody loosens up noticeably with each sip. by the end of a hard week of ten hour days and fending off near-misses with crazed clients, we're all lightweights. voices get louder and more eager. laughs come easier. and i start talking more than i should.
today the conversation rolls around to sexual harrassment. how it is unacceptable, hands down. we wouldn't think twice about letting go of a client who crossed that line. but we've been hoisted up on high horses by vodka and gin, and our ideals have eclipsed reasonable expectations. in my limited experience, innapropriate behavior is never obviously so. nobody ever steps up to you, unzips, and says, "fuck me or you're fired." it's always some confusing shade of gray. a look, a graze, an innuendo. nothing that– if you actually were attracted to the person– wouldn't be welcome.
it's the fine line between stalking and romance. romance is welcome; stalking is not. either way, the behavior is creepy.
the romantic notices the way your lips curl into a sneer before you laugh, how your voice drops suddenly when you're surprised. the romantic remembers that you salt your food before you've tasted it, and passes you the salt before you've asked for it. persistance is the mark of the romantic stalwart, and every romantic comedy since the birth of the silver screen corroborates this: lloyd dobler waited outside ione skye's bedroom with his boombox, and every woman who survived the eighties salivates at the thought.
it's unfair, but if john cusack were fat and pimply, we'd call the police.
posted by .i'll never tell. at 6:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home