I’m a straight, very happily married man. My coworker, we’ll call Jake, is recently divorced. He’s a bit of a goofball, but I’ve never really had any ill will towards him in the 8 years we’ve worked together.
Anyway, other day I’m chatting with a coworker, and Jake walks by, plucks at my shirt, and makes a weird noise and says “looking good”. Okay. Whatever. Guys have been making passes at me and hitting on me my whole life. It’s whatever. I’ve been sexually assaulted by some guys in the past.
Anyway, when Jake comes back by, he rubs his whole body against me, as if we are in a very tight corridor, and made another weird noise. There was a whole room he could’ve moved in but decided he needed to rub up against me like that.
I snapped and said “What’s your problem dude? Are you cruising? What’s that about??!” and he looked genuinely confused.
Like, he literally didn’t know what I was talking about.
While I’ve been able to work past things that happened when I was younger, this just really upset me and I can’t stop thinking about it.
Maybe it’s minor, I don’t know, but in a generally quiet work environment, it seemed extremely uncool.
We are a small office, maybe 30 people, and I’m fairly sure that if I bring it to HR, it’ll become my problem, not Jake’s.
Does anyone have any constructive feedback on this? I’m really not sure how to proceed.
I’m nearly 50, so this isn’t by any means the first time this has happened but it’s the first time in decades it’s happened in a work environment.
Help?
Thank you kindly.