The Hay Tosser and the Lingerie Model

Once upon a time, toward the end of my time as a grocery store supervisor, one of my coworkers asked me out.

We'll call him Carl. He was fairly new at the store, and a true farm boy. He was nice, and often had funny things to say. I enjoyed talking to him during down times at work. At a certain point, I realized he had a crush on me, but there was nothing I could do about that; I just tried not to say or do anything that he might misconstrue as romantic interest on my part. I didn't want to date him.

Unfortunately, he didn't pick up on that. He asked me out, and I asked for some time to think about it. That may sound cruel, considering that I was just going to say no to him. But it was a delicate situation. I was about six years younger than him, and his supervisor. Regardless of what I said to him, we would have to keep working together. So I wanted to come up with a gentle way of saying I wasn't into him.

After asking for some time, Carl and I had a conversation wherein he tried to impress me by talking about things like how far he could toss hay bales. This may have impressed a girl specifically looking for a strong guy and little else; for me, it just reinforced that I didn't know him and wasn't all that keen on knowing him more. (Hay bale throwing contests aren't really my thing.)

I decided to break it to him by saying I wasn't interested in dating anyone at the time, which was true - this job was in my hometown, and I was heading back to college soon, three hours away. I also threw in the issue of me being his supervisor, and not wanting things to be awkward at work. But apparently those weren't very good reasons for him.

"That's okay," he told me, in a tone that said it totally wasn't okay. "I already told all my friends that we were going out. And that you're a lingerie model."

Wait, what?

To say the least, that did not end up going like I had hoped. Carl was so rude toward me (then and when we worked together) that I ended up taking it to the manager and asking to be scheduled separately from him for a month or so. It never did get resolved; every time we worked together, he had some surly comment or dirty look ready for me. I couldn't understand his immaturity in the matter.

It just made me even more glad I'd said no.

Comments

  1. LizApril 17, 2012 at 8:39 AM

    Ugh! I remember that!!!

    I had problems with Carl too. He seemed to have problems with females in authority positions.

    One day I finally had too much of his snide comments. I shoved him against a wall in the back room and asked him what his problem with me was. I told him that I treated him fairly and with respect and I demanded he do the same.

    Surprisingly I never had a problem from him after that!

    ReplyDelete

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