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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/hello_oscar on 2023-09-16 01:26:20.

I work in a small department of about 12 people. We all know each other pretty well and go out together often. Eight of us went out to dinner to celebrate a colleague’s birthday. I decided to wear a dress to the dinner, which is rare for me as I usually wear pants. It was a nice, tasteful dress but flashier than what I usually wear at work. One male colleague, who I will call Eric, was pretty drunk. He was sitting on the opposite end of the table from me.

Out of nowhere, Eric loudly called to me that I looked really good because of what I was wearing. I thanked him. A few minutes later, he did the same thing again. I said I just wanted to dress up for our colleague’s birthday to celebrate him. Eric said “you know he’s gay right?” (this is true, not a dig or something). I said, “Fuck! I can change him!” to try to lighten the mood, and everyone laughed. This situation played out a couple more times, i.e. the conversation went back to other topics and then suddenly he called out to me about how good I looked. Each time, conversation at the table stopped and everyone else was looking at me quietly. After the third time, I started to try to show that I was uncomfortable by using facial expressions and sliding down exaggeratedly in my seat. However, he kept doing it.

Then he started to say that how I usually dress at work is different. He said something like “I don’t mean any offense but…” and was obviously going to say that how I dress at work is not as attractive or something. I became very upset and just said “Stop.” He looked confused and asked me what I meant, and I just kept repeating “stop.” I was so upset that I couldn’t say anything else. He stopped. Later, he asked if I was really mad at him for what he said, and I said yes. He asked me why and I explained to him how it made me uncomfortable to point that out in front of everyone multiple times. He apologized sincerely and seemed to genuinely feel bad. I said it was okay.

Even though he apologized, I am still upset about it and I feel like I was humiliated in front of my colleagues. What should I do? Should I just ignore it? I wrote out a message and was thinking of putting it in our group chat. This is the message:

.

I would like to say that last night i was uncomfortable with one of our colleagues repeatedly “complimenting” me on my appearance in a way that crossed professional boundaries. Saying that someone looks nice one time is fine, but repeatedly saying that over and over, pointing it out loudly to everyone made me very uncomfortable. I tried to show that i was uncomfortable with my body language and facial expressions, but that was ignored. The way it was said with such emphasis moved beyond complimentary and bordered on sexual harassment. Making comments implying that how i dress at work is comparatively not as sexually attractive in front of multiple colleagues is appallingly disrespectful.

Women have enough trouble getting respect in the workplace as it is, so it would be nice if our male colleagues could be allies to us and help create a respectful work environment.

This person has already apologized to me and i do not need another apology. I do appreciate the sincere apology. But the damage is already done and i would like to point out to everyone that this kind of behavior is unacceptable and contributes to a negative work environment.

Please treat your female colleagues with dignity and respect.

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Should I send it? Or is there a better way to handle it?

EDIT: Also I should mention that Eric is black and I am white, and I am aware of the racist history in the U.S. of white women unfairly claiming that black men harassed them. So I would like to be sensitive to that dynamic and to the disadvantage Eric has as a POC.