Man Implies Woman Colleague Is “Pent Up” At Home With Husband Gone, Doesn’t Expect Her Response

Many employees have had to deal with the awkward question of “How honest should I be with a work friend?” The lines between professionalism, humor and just being sincere are quickly blurred and it’s pretty easy to just say the wrong thing.

A woman wondered if she really was in the wrong for truthfully answering a coworker's question about what she does when her husband is gone. Instead of accepting the answer, he immediately went to HR, starting a chain of events that would lead to a disciplinary meeting. A heated discussion arose over the words used and the coworker's intentions in the comments section as readers reacted to the story.

On the whole, OP’s answer is debatable. Certainly, it would be strange to assume her married, male coworker doesn’t understand masturbation, however, perhaps it would have been best to steer clear of the topic in general. There are a few arguments to be made in her defense. First and foremost, she was neither lying, nor oversharing. While it’s possible that her coworker had something else in mind, it did appear that he was asking about her sex life.

Additionally, while both parties were coworkers, they are also adults and friends, which makes it all the stranger that he immediately reported her. This seems a particularly “scorched-earth” type of response when he could have ignored it, asked her to tone it down, or really done anything else. It’s particularly jarring, as his own question, about being “pent up,” can be just as easily misunderstood.

This misunderstanding is strange, seeing that both OP and John have been coworkers for around two years. While we don’t know the ins and outs of their days, we can assume that they spend at least ten to twenty hours a week, month after month, working together, talking and interacting. While issues can arise, on the whole, researchers see workplace friendships as a good thing. It increases employee satisfaction, teamwork, and motivation. Some studies even link it to higher worker retention and productivity.

However, this can lead to “dangerous” situations, like the one OP found herself in. Because she was friendly and comfortable with this coworker, it can be hard to understand where boundaries lie. Nothing anyone said in this conversation would seem strange among friends, but it is possible that OP overestimated how much of a friend she is and underestimated her role as a coworker. However, again, John’s reaction does seem excessive, as he had multiple other avenues to deflect or alter her behavior.

This overreacting behavior is likely what led to many commenters wondering if there is anything else going on. The aforementioned “pent-up” statement can be read in a lot of different ways and was enough for HR to shift the blame. That being said, if John had ulterior motives, it seems strange for him to react so aggressively. If anything, it shined a light on something he would have wanted to keep hidden. So perhaps many readers are “reading” too much into the whole situation.

All in all, this story serves as a reminder to always think twice when saying something. It can be hard to determine exactly who was in the wrong, but this story does illustrate multiple cases where all would have been better if different choices had been made. As some commenters note, anything even vaguely sexual is off-limits, but this ignores the realities of human interaction. OP was the best person to judge what would be acceptable to say in this scenario and she judged incorrectly, so it’s unlikely that random strangers would have done better.