TW: grooming? I guess?
Maybe I'm just being a big baby about all this, but I don't really give a shit, I'm fucking pissed off. Also, first time posting on here so let me know if anything about my post is a no-no.
A little backstory. I started working at this country club as a cook when I was 16. I'm 19 now, so this will be my 4th (?) summer working there. I've worked 60 to 70 hour weeks my whole time there, all while being paid minimum wage. At this recent meeting, my boss agreed to bump my pay up by $1, which really should be more, but that's not what I'm upset about.
So, when I was 16, I had a crush on this older cook in the kitchen. He was 26 at the time. Full disclosure that the age of consent in my state (NJ) is 16. But the thing is, this guy also worked in the cafeteria at my high school. Like a stupid kid, I flirted with him a little. To my surprise, he eventually started flirting back. He started texting me too. A few months after meeting him, he texted me something along the lines of “we both know what we want here, let's do something about it.” I was initially really freaked out, but at some point we ended up meeting each other in the woods every week. It would only be for an hour or two max because he lived with his mom and she didn't let him out of the house for very long. He didn't drive or have a car, so until i got my license i would walk 45 minutes just to meet him. I don't know how I didn't put together how ridiculous this all was, I feel really dumb in hindsight. Without going into detail, things started getting sexual between us a few months in, while I was 16. He also convinced me to send “”pictures””, saying that his ex had sent him pics as well and no one ever found out.
Blah blah blah, flash forward to me being 18, me and him had been on and off for the past year, but we talked every day consistently. At this point, I was the worst version of myself. As one might imagine, this relationship stressed me out INSANELY. He was basically a compulsive liar too, which added to the stress. Eventually this stress became too much for me and I would break into arguments with him at work. At this point, everyone in the kitchen (and my bosses) got the hint that we had been dating for a few years.
In summer 2021 we finally broke up, and I'm now in a healthy relationship with someone else. You may be asking: “what does this have to do with r/antiwork?” Well, let's revisit that meeting with my boss a few weeks ago.
At some point, he brings up the guy I dated (now 29) who is still working with them. He tells me that he does not want any drama between us this summer, and that we will both be fired if we start anything. Okay, okay, fair enough. But what pisses me off is when he says “I don't care whose fault it was, or who the bad guy is.”
Oh really? You don't care? I don't know about you guys, but to me, that sounds like refusal to admit that a 16 year old was groomed at your place of work. What hurts even more is that the head chef is sitting right next to me this entire meeting, someone who i had thought of as a father figure. He had known about my relationship with this man since I was 16. I confided in the head chef that this man had physically hurt me before, that he had lied to me and fucked with my head for years. Why am I taking the blame for any of this? Why is this man still employed? He is still employed at my old high school as well, where several, if not all of his coworkers knew about our relationship from the start.
I don't want to come across as looking for sympathy, because I'm angry more than anything else. But it does hurt, in hindsight, that all these adult men (most over 30) who I had idolized didn't do anything about this “relationship”. And I know when my ex comes back to work this summer, they will treat him like they always have, with high fives and jokes and smiles. And I will be remembered as crazy, as the girl who he got “mixed up with”. All the other chefs have daughters close to my age, and I know they would kick the ass of any adult man who tried to date their highschool-aged kid. Why am I different? Why was 16-year-old me seen as “adult” enough to have sex with and date a 26-year-old man? I lost my sophomore, junior, and senior years of high school to him. I lost friends over him, I fought with my siblings constantly defending him and insisting that our relationship was healthy.
I know I shouldn't be returning to this work environment, but I really need the money. I don't want to continue taking money from my parents, I don't want to be the reason that they can't retire. I don't know of any other place where I will have so many hours guaranteed to me. Am I being fucking stupid? Probably.
Sorry if this came across as attention-seeking or totally scrambled.