Only Three Times

I ran into this article over on The Careerist about young women looking to men who are their seniors in the workplace for mentoring – but how invitations to dinner or lunch are commonly revoked by these men in seniority because their wives don’t like it, or because the men are afraid of being hit with a sexual harassment lawsuit.

I can personally see both sides of this issue. I have worked with men who never eat meals alone with a colleague for appearance’s sake – and I have friends who have worked with men who were repeatedly promoted over them for the fact that they are men. Certain employers/bosses who I’ve dealt with are enormously uncomfortable being in a car alone with a woman, eating a meal alone with a woman, and certainly would never travel alone with a woman.

I find this to be incredibly insulting. Treating women in this way not only makes it impossible for them to advance, due to not having that all-important face time, but it also is very insulting. It essentially communicates that the man cannot trust the woman to keep her hands off of him were they to be alone together. It is enormously frustrating.

On the reverse, I have had numerous men make comments to me or about me to other people, and I can very easily see that having personal or private interaction with these particular individuals would result in uncomfortable situations. But just as the number of women who would welcome that is small, so too is the number of men who would attempt such behavior with a woman they work with or supervise.

Personally, as a rule, I don’t have dinners alone with men. I am very comfortable having dinner with two men, or a man and a woman, but dinner alone in a restaurant can not only lead to witnesses making assumptions, but it can also result in miscommunication and mixed messages. Now, there have been a number of exceptions to this rule – when traveling alone with a man for work, for example, we obviously eat dinner together. But this is a known aspect of a trip, not only for me and he, but for others within the company, prior to our departure. I think that is different than meeting up with someone who I see on a consistent basis for dinner.

Those types of conversations, whether with a boss, a colleague, or really, any other professional male/female relationship, can take place in the office, over lunch, or at the most, over drinks. To me, dinner is to “date-y” and too intimate.

So while on the one hand, I fully understand the frustration of these women who are offended by their boss or colleague not accepting their dinner invitation, I would never ask a man to join me for dinner. Lunch, yes. Meeting in their office, yes. Dinner, no. Just my personal “line.”

Now, if I were turned down for lunch, or not allowed to go on a business trip or to a meeting, simply because I was a woman – then, you can be guaranteed to face my wrath. What are your lines? Have you been in these types of situations before?