I have spent over 23 years in information technology, and most of the companies were large IT companies. Large IT companies tend to emphasize diversity, equity, and inclusion more than smaller companies, which have to perform in order to stay afloat. And that means making sure there is an equal balance of genders, ethnicities, etc. in every different area.
Here is a very interesting post on the relationship advice forum of Reddit:
Hi all I’m posting this on an alt because I know a few of my friends are following me on here and I don’t want this spilling out until I have some clear thoughts on what I want to do.
The author – who uses Commonwealth spelling – has a short summary of her post at the top:
A colleague (27M) joined our firm last year and since then he has had zero issues socialising with the guys we work with but always finds an excuse or says no to hanging out with the girls after work, even if we go out together as a whole he rarely talks to us and its making some of my friends uncomfortable.
And then here is the long version:
So early last year our firm hired Dan (27M). In the first few weeks he was really quiet and didn’t talk much and that’s just how we thought he was. Every conversation with him was short and to the point and never deviated from work, asides from pleasantries (Have a nice weekend etc). About 2 months in he started becoming a bit more friendly with the guys in our office and they would hang out every so often and have normal conversations. However, whenever any of the girls in the office tried to do so he would quickly change the conversation back to work or just not reply. Even now after a year of Dan working with us he straight up refuses to socialise with the girls in the office and it is making them feel uncomfortable. He avoids any discussion of himself outside of work related events and future plans and doesn’t ask any of the girls either. Where as he is, what I can only assume, pretty good friends with the guys in the office.
Even on work meals out to celebrate events he is only doing the bare minimum when it comes to conversation with the girls where again with the guys he talks to them like there is no problem whatsoever. I don’t know if I’m overreacting but one of the girls is considering go to HR about this because she is saying its creating a hostile work environment. Dan treats us like he treats clients we work with; cordial and strictly about business and its wearing thin now.
Any advice is appreciated.
Many young people today don’t see the workplace as being about work. They see it as a time of socializing. And they get angry when people don’t socialize with them. They want to be allowed into a man’s personal space, even though they are the kind of people who go straight to HR whenever anyone disagrees with them, or refuses to make them happy. Many of these women are single mothers who divorced the father of their kids.
I actually left my last job and took a lower salary job, because I was being harassed by a woman who had no college degree. Her official title was “Software Engineer”, but she didn’t write code. She just supervised deployments to production. She was very attractive, and had had cosmetic surgery done – her chest was super-sized. (I heard her explaining why she did it to one of the Indian workers one day). She was also about 6-8 years older than me. She started to get very angry with me for not giving her attention at work. She would come to my desk and talk about how politically conservative she was (she must have heard that I was conservative). But I didn’t want to have anything to do with her.
I blogged previously about a woman who accused a man of grooming her because he didn’t want to get more serious with her. Men are getting tired of this. If you know any young women who are wondering why men don’t talk to them, maybe it’s because many young women are not pleasant or safe to talk to. Even if a particular young unmarried woman is safe to talk to, men will judge her based on the majority of single, unmarried women. It’s just not safe for men to have non-business conversations in the workplace with young, unmarried women.
The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Most women are rarely happy no matter what. Men know it and are avoiding them in record numbers. Women have priced themselves completely out of the social construct of dating and companionship
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I do essentially the same thing as “Dan” in that I only associate with the women I work around down business lines. It’s become a bit more difficult recently as I have been hitting the weights hard, and I have noticed little grins and side- eye looks with smiles from them. Ugh. I want nothing to do with them. If God drops someone in my lap, fine, but He will have to clonk me over the head so I’ll know He did it.
I read about this previously, and have already decided if some woman tries this on me, I’m getting a lawyer immediately. I’m in a red state, so I’d probably win a legal battle, and I’m afraid that’s the only way this madness is curbed. If more troublemakers find themselves in a courtroom having to explain their false accusations, maybe it will send a message to the rest.
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You’re smart to be reserved with women af work.
I’m not sure about the courts though. They seem to hard this view that men should be covered so that women get what they want regardless of their actions.
Personally, I am just looking forward to my retirement and having peace. I don’t want to deal with people who go straight to authorities when I don’t validate them or commit to them. A lot if these women smash themselves up with bad boys in their 20s. And they don’t want the good men they rejected to be able to reject them, once they reach their bitter 30s.
I think this using the law to force men to commit is going to become more popular. Not just things like alimony and child support, but actual forced marriage and forced kindness. Where courts compel high-status men to serve women who don’t even respect them.
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Good grief. A guy acts professionally towards his female co-workers, and this is ticking them off? Bizarre!
All my life, I’ve had the hardest time understanding women and how women think. It’s been very hard for me to develop friendships with other women, and when I did, they were almost always “outsiders” like myself. I always preferred the company of men. They were always so much more … real. Authentic. Logical. No frikkin’ game playing like with groups of women.
Having said that, I strongly believe that men need to have their male spaces and their male friendships, and would not want to intrude on them. Why do these women think they have any entitlement to a man’s social sphere? Especially at work! Bizarre.
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Not being close to my mom, I have sought out relationships with older Christian women. And they all say the same thing. They don’t like women’s bible studies or women’s conferences or books targeted to women. They like to hang out with men.
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Yep… me all over. I am the woman who doesn’t even hang out after work with women at work. My work life and private life are totally separate. Fortunately though my colleagues accept this. But sadly Christian women’s functions leave me cold. I prefer the conversation of Christian men – but then you have to exercise caution around married Christian couples because single Christian women are often not well accepted by Christian wives. It can be really hard sometimes to have decent theologically rich conversation and to fit into fellowship as a single mature aged Christian woman.
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Thanks so much for this comment!
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I don’t like the “women’s ministry” things either. I have women friends at church who are at least 10 years older than I am. I have a younger woman friend who I’m deliberately discipling toward being a godly woman. If the women’s ministry is organizing meals for someone, I’ll do that (albeit I take people meals sometimes when they are ill and nothing is organized). I run the Awana program, and no one thinks I’m uninvolved at church. However, I assume that women’s ministry in general is a shallow, social club unless proven otherwise (and thus not a good investment of my time).
The guys are generally more intellectually interesting and would be better friends; however, given the need to avoid any appearance of impropriety, friendship is generally limited to public conversation and join activities including my husband.
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Excellent approach.
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In 2011, I was accused of sexual harassment by a co-worker because I impulsively laughed when she told me she had breast reduction surgery. I laughed all about 3 seconds and immediately felt, “that was a bit much, Rock. Come on.” I was 24, but was accused anyway.
After that, I tried to be more cautious. But everytime I joined a potluck, everytime I tossed a joke in a social setting, or tried to congregate with my Millennial peers, 8 times out of 10, I’d get a “someone took what you said the wrong way” complaint. And you knew…these people weren’t truly offended and the worse thing about it…was that I actually heard them say worse things than me. They came into the office dressed like they were going to the clubs, and one woman carried the same girl who accused me of Sexual Harassment into a meeting like she was carrying a baby. This girl had the nerve to say, “why can’t any guy carry me like this.”
Eventually, I stopped going to potlucks and social events. I kept my circle small and we met up in the shadowy places that were far out of earshot. It wasn’t until 2018 that I finally started meeting with new managers to explain why I didn’t go to social events because I was hands down their best worker. And managers back then had a problem of promoting the people who socialized the most, more so than worked the hardest.
In 2018, I met with the manager who’s my current manager and he understood. Together we changed the culture, and I eventually started going to potlucks again because I joined a different team where most of the women aren’t Millennials. They’re much older, not the type to complain about hurt feelings.
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It seems like everyone who has worked for a few years has experienced something like this, or seen it happen to other men.
Older women are the best. Especially older married women with lots of children. I try to make friends with them if I can, you can get a lot of good advice out of them.
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I know a few people where I work are glad to live in our province where the likelihood of something like that happening is low.
But in a large city like Toronto I would just go to work and keep to myself
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My new job is 100% work from home.
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very interesting article. As a retired ‘IT’ professional, a Christian since the age of 26 and also a former decathlete who always stayed in shape, I literally had dozens of issues happen to me almost yearly with regards to not only the opposite sex but also gays hitting on me. I early retired in 2016 at the age of 54, before most of this ‘woke’ nonsense went nuts. I can only imagine how difficult it is now in the modern work place. As a Christian, I adopted some simple rules to avoid entanglements and despite many temptations, never once cheated on my wife of 40 years. The achilles heel for me that could have gotten me into trouble, but thankfully never did thanks to the Holy Spirit, was when a women’s life was falling apart and they would over share with me knowing I was a caring Christian. Several times, I would have a girl literally throw themselves at me, crying, sobbing and clinging to me about their failed marriage. So I would share my faith in Christ, pray with them and that usually would stop if they were just looking for an affair. But a few times I saw a real difference in the woman seeking the Lord later on.
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This was such a great comment. I think it is much worse today than it used to be. Where I work now, (working from home), I don’t have as many problems. But I will still try to retire (unmarried) at 50 to keep out of trouble.
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