SenorKeed, you must literally like have never had a job.

The stuff about solicitation isn't an accident, it's an analogy. The policy against solicitation is so that the workplace doesn't turn into a carnival with a bunch of co-workers turning into barkers trying to hawk Tupperware parties and school raffle tickets on co-workers.

If two people go transact out of work for Girl Scout cookies or fund-raiser candy bars, does HR *really* need to care? Maybe not? I don't know how HRs typically deal with that, they probably don't give a ****, it happens and everyone goes on their merry way. I only know the stated intent of the rule and the behaviors it's meant to control.

Do they have to date in secret? Get married underground? How the **** should I know? Probably not?

As I said, surely like 5 or 6 times now ITT, the idea is to protect women from unwanted sexual and romantic overtures from dudes who are idiots. If it's truly wanted attention and the people start happily dating, OK? Doesn't seem like it's devastating for the policy nor something anyone needs to police that vigilantly. What needs to be absolutely policed vigilantly is the whole "he said / she said" with an victimized women and a guy claiming he was just trying to date. The policy puts the guy out of bounds, full stop, no questions asked.

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I maintain it's a really bad idea to date at work anyway, but like, I'm not asking for HR to go fire a happy couple. Fire dudes who walk around trying to turn work into Tinder.

So you don't want to forbid coworkers asking each other out on dates, you want to forbid coworkers from unsuccessfully asking each other out on dates?

Sounds like a good and workable policy, surprised HR departments worldwide haven't already adopted this.

Right. You're being sarcastic but the policy is meant to deter unwanted attention, written broadly in a way that I acknowledge chills some percentage of potentially wanted attention - but thems the breaks.

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm literally re-stating your insane proposal to make sure I'm being fair and not misrepresenting you. Apparently I'm not.

So, here's a question for the lawyers. Let's say in DVaut Inc., the following happens:

-Dick asks Jane out at work, they date, and get married, still work there
-Bob asks Sue out at work and Sue reports him to HR. HR sits down with Bob and officially reprimanded him. Bob says, "WTF, you didn't do **** when Dick asked Jane out". After the meeting, Bob decides to call up his attorney with the intent of taking legal action against DVaut Inc. for this unfair treatment.

-Assume that Dick and Bob were in the same relative positions to Jane and Sue respectively. Also assume that the initial asking out was done similarly in both cases and in some traditional non-creepy way.

Does Bob have any sort of case?

So are all outside of office social interactions going to be banned as well? If a group of co-workers has a party outside of work and HR hears about it, they should fire everyone????

What about employees who meet at a work-sponsored happy hour? Are they prohibited from socializing in any non work-sponsored outside of work events?

What if a person meets a co-worker outside of work before they even realize they work together? If they go on a date and then realize they both work for the same company, do they both have to hand their employee ID the next day?

How far should this policy extend? Should the federal government prohibit U.S. attorneys from dating postal employees?

Dvaut,

I know a lot of women who have been asked out on on unwanted dates on the train, at the bar, online and everywhere else you can think of. Many blind dates end up bad. Family and friend set ups come with pressure to say yes is greater you would encounter in many above board coworker situations. None of these should ever happen because of the bad results that can sometimes occour?

How are people supposed to meet? What's the approved method? Why do you assume that all women would be okay with never being approached, complimented or allowed to form platonic relationships with coworkers (or even date them if they are interested) based on some bad actors making some women uncomfortable? The damsel in distress being enshrined aspect of this line seems a little condescending.

I get what you are saying about being forced to answer the unwanted question being a problem in and of itself, and it is a good point, but as others have said it is similar but not the same as predatory use of that dynamic. I am far less interested in a man presenting this pov to a bunch of other men on behalf of women than I am in asking actual women how they feel about this idea, but I have misinterpreted your arguments before as literal when they have apparently been a device to teach. Clarification would be appreciated.

The definition of sexual harrasment includes "unwanted", at least in California. I have also not heard of a woman filing a claim for being respectfully asked on a date, but that is anecdotal.

In dvaut Inc. Dick, Jane and bob broke company policy regardless of the harrasment laws and should be reprimanded according to his policy.

Fyeah, that Tinder really adds a couple of difficult steps....

What if Dick and Jane are friends and Dick asks Jane out a date outside of work but Stalker Steve spies on them and anonymously reports it to HR? What does HR do?

That's true. But let's say that didn't actually happen. Only Bob was reprimanded and consequently Bob feels he has been treated unfairly. He wants to take legal action. Does he have any recourse?

If he was reprimanded for breaking the fraternization policy (not a sexual harassment law) and others were not then he would have a case were terminated based on that. That would also be true if he were fired for being late when others were not reprimanded.

In the experience I have had with wrongful termination claims (low level jobs) in ca, that would only mean he could collect unemployment insurance rather than not.

I think Steve misses a great opportunity for advancement by staying anonymous here. He is clearly dvaut Inc. management material.

Part of anyone's life is handling unwanted sexual attention of varying degrees, the question is what degree is "acceptable." I would suggest it's somewhere along the lines of politely asking them out or offering a compliment that you don't realize they don't want (along the lines of "You look nice today," or "I like that shirt." NOT "Nice ass.")

Also, obviously the power dynamic comes into play if it involves work or any other structure of authority.

I think it's very tough to define specifically the boundaries here, as they vary from person to person and situation to situation. If the person initiating is AT ALL unsure that what they are about to do will be appropriate, they should scale it back.

At the end of the day, I don't think we need to set up a society where in general men aren't allowed to ask women out on a date. Instead, I think we should address the three problems that drive a lot of this:

1. Guys who don't know how to politely show interest without being overbearing or harassing the woman.

2. Negatively judging women for saying no.

3. Letting uncertainty hang in the air. Example: Guy asks girl out, girl says oh sorry I'm busy that day. Guy doesn't know if he got rejected or she was actually busy. This is an area where you can get into really creepy/uncomfortable situations... The guy keeps asking, thinking she's interested but busy, and she's there like, "WTF, I told him no three times already!!"

As far as navigating workplace dynamics, I've been in a situation where I wanted to ask someone out, we weren't exactly co-workers, but we dealt with each other in our jobs and it would potentially be uncomfortable for them/both of us if they said no. I was about 90% sure she was interested, but I waited another month or so and let her demonstrate interest for sure before I asked her out. I did a lot of things to sort of give her an opportunity to display interest, but I'm also an overly analytical person with relationships and stressed about it a ton. Of course, when I asked, I got teased about it (What took you so long???).

Yeah, this is the big part of the problem and I had debate with an ex about something similar when I expressed my opinion that it was rude for a woman to literally not respond when a guy politely approaches her at a bar (we're talking, "Hi, how's it going?" or "Would you like to dance?" No more, no less). She said a lot of women have had such bad experiences when they reject someone that they feel safer just not responding at all. My take was that it would be safer to politely say, "Sorry, I'm not interested," or "Sorry, I have a boyfriend," but, then again, I'm not the one who's feeling threatened.

Unfortunately, nice people of both genders can miss out on pleasant interaction because of this... and more unfortunately, I think most of us are clueless as to the degree of harassment and rudeness women deal with day in and day out.

Factor in the mind games both genders play with dating/flirting, and it's really a mess and quite difficult to navigate.

That's open to interpretation...

1. "Hey Jen, a few of us are going to happy hour at the bar down the street after work, do you want to go?

2. "Hey Melissa, I'm planning on swinging by happy hour down the street after work. Care to join?"

3. "Hey Samantha, want to hang out and catch the game over at the sports bar after work?"

Are any/all of these asking someone out on a date? Can male and female coworkers hang out as friends after work? What about a gay man and a straight woman, or vice versa? Two gay men? Two lesbian women?

Same types of problems. I've been told I was flirting when I genuinely wasn't, I've been flirted with without realizing it, I've flirted without the person realizing it... There can be a really fine line between playful friendly banter and flirting with romantic interest.

Okay, this one's not hard, although complimenting someone on their clothes/accessories could be a little tricky. There are plenty of clearly okay examples that could be made, and plenty of clearly not okay.

This one seems easy, but I'm pretty sure that's already the policy in basically any professional environment, isn't it?

All of the above gray areas seem to me to be a huge part of why we have HR departments. It's really difficult to define a lot of this stuff while also trying to keep a friendly environment in which coworkers socialize before/during/after work, which is obviously good from a teamwork perspective.

I circle back to making sure people, but obviously mainly men, know how to politely demonstrate interest without being inappropriate, and making sure that women aren't slighted or villainized for saying no. Of course, if it were just that easy, we wouldn't be discussing it.

I snipped the rest just to address this part. Do these women wish they were never asked out or approached in public, period? If so, are they single?

As long as the request is polite, I think this is just part of the human experience, isn't it? I mean, how are single people supposed to meet significant others if they are't allowed to introduce themselves?

I would put this into a similar category as being approached by a salesperson, asked to fill out a survey, asked for a donation on the street, or asked for money by a beggar. These can all be varying degrees of uncomfortable, but they are part of life that we can't really get rid of.

Now, I know there is an added dynamic at play with romantic/sexual interest involved, and an added threat, but surely the answer is in getting people to express interest respectfully, not in getting people to never express interest.

That's more or less what I wanted to know. Thanks.

Samoas are Carmel deLites.

This is my feeling tho I'm not closed off to changing my mind.

My biggest issues with the idea of no fraternization at work or outside of work between coworkers is that it takes the responsibility to learn how to be respectful away from men. It also assumes that any friendship between a man and woman is dangerous because men must be trying to dip their pen and women must be protected from same. Further it does not foster healthy, normal interactions between sexes to make socializing a taboo. The men who are so awkward as to ham fisted blurt out comments at the water cooler to attempt to get a date without reading disinterest will not get any better at understanding women if they are not allowed to be friends with them or interact with them like they are normal people. I don't see it improving men's behavior or understanding of how they should behave at all, only moving it out from one area it occurs. An area where there is more visiblity, recourse and motive to address it than many others places where everything from unwanted compliments to rape happens regularly.

Fwiw, my wife and I just talked about it. She has experienced the legal definition of sexual harassment at least 6 times, been made uncomfortable by coworkers of all ages countless times and been hit on by customers and coworkers including direct bosses numerous times. We counted 8 coworkers that showed interest in her at one job. Many times that took the form of flirting on the clock or at company events. This was the job where we met. I checked with her to see if her memory was the same as mine, and she agrees I never hit on her or flirted with her at all on the clock or at work events. She married me obviously. The problem is not coworkers dating. It is acting inappropriate at work.

She understands dvaut's point about having to turn down advances being a stand alone problem and also admits that because she was okay with refusing advances that doesn't mean other women wouldn't be more negatively affected. Her point in the end speaking for herself is that even now happily married with zero interest in meeting someone she would rather risk those interactions than eliminate the ability to bond with coworkers and make friendships. But maybe dvaut knows what's best for her.

DVAUT Inc... Patronizingly protecting women from potentially uncomfortable social interactions since 2017.

I don't mind DVaut's take here. I think it's a little bit like implied consent. Like everyone else here, I assume, I have fairly frequently done things sexually without seeking explicit consent, when I am confident my partner is consenting. I'm keenly aware though that if I get accused of not having had consent, that's going to be on me. So far neither I nor any of my friends have ever been accused of this, because we don't assault women.

It's a bit the same with workplace relationships - the rule should be that if women (or people in general for that matter) react poorly to an attempted romantic approach, then the person who approached them is automatically in the wrong. If you want to try to date co-workers anyway, fine, but you have to be aware that you're taking a risk. Worried about whether your partner is consenting or not? Ask explicitly, or risk being accused of assault. Worried about whether your co-worker will react well to being approached? Don't do it, or risk being accused of harassment.

That take is silly. A person, male or female, politely asking a coworker if they would be interested in getting coffee after work, going out to dinner sometime, etc... is not doing anything where they should be considered "automatically in the wrong". Just don't act like an a-hole when he or she says no thank you. It's really not that difficult.

Sure, it can feel uncomfortable when someone you are not interested in, expresses romantic interest. It might make you feel more awkward around that person, than you did before you knew of their romantic interest. Such is life.

Women get creeped on all the time! Why should a professional workplace be any different?!?

As ridic and disingenuous this reach is, why should it be? Do tell.

ETA: in before instead of answering a single question I have posed or addressing a single point I have made with an actual thoughtful response you rephrase the context to pretend my position is "dudes will be bros, man!"

Probably 2/3 of the long term couples I know met on the job. Some of you are just operating from the ridiculous premises of brainwashed university students who have yet to have a steady girlfriend because you are creeps and haven't figured out how to approach women. The thief thinks everyone else thinks like he does.

I mean I have avoided pointing out that these no contact dudes seem to think any time a man has a coffee, meal or makes a positive comment to a female coworker he is hiding a hard-on behind his briefcase, but as fly would say...kinda telling on themselves. I have quite a few very good female friends at who I work with and socialize outside of work with, and I am not trying to **** any of them. My wife who I met at work was never a sexual conquest for me. If you need a rule to keep you from acting like an ******* you maybe the problem, not the lack of formal guidelines.