Every Man You Work With Thinks You Want To Sleep With Him

[CactusCarlos]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/07/26/every-man-you-work-with-thinks-you-want-to-sleep-with-him/

A new study suggests that—no matter how platonic you imagine a relationship may be—every man you know but aren’t related to is trying to sleep with you. And what’s worse, they think you’re trying to sleep with them right back.

Yes, really.

According to the research, reported on by Scientific American, which looked at 80 man-woman platonic relationships in “emergent adulthood” (read: twenty-somethings), men were more attracted to women than vice versa. Men also consistently and mistakenly assumed that their women friends were harboring a secret sexual crush of their own. The best part? The men surveyed didn’t care if the woman was involved in a relationship; their feelings and assumptions didn’t change.

And while this unique insight into the male brain is troubling for male-female friendships around the world—including your insistence that you “stay friends” with all of your exes—the findings are much more disturbing when put into the context of the workplace. What about the platonic relationships you have with your male colleagues? Do male supervisors believe their female subordinates are in love with them? How does that shape corporate culture, the assessment of female employees and women’s advancement in the office?

My gut tells me this: “Not well.”

Here’s the abstract from the referenced study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships by researchers from the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire:

We propose that, because cross-sex friendships are a historically recent phenomenon, men’s and women’s evolved mating strategies impinge on their friendship experiences. In our first study involving pairs of friends, emerging adult males reported more attraction to their friend than emerging adult females did, regardless of their own or their friend’s current relationship status.

Now. If we accept this as true, that guys in their late 20s (and, increasingly, early 30s) are incapable of respecting platonic relationships, the scenario could play out something like this. You’ve worked your tail off all year, meeting quotas and volunteering for projects to prove your commitment to the team. You’ve worked late nights and even weekends to show your supervisor he can count on you. But your boss hasn’t gotten the message; instead, he’s filed those nights and weekends under “romantic pursuit” and your hard-work as pleas for his attention.

Stay with me. Because your boss believes you’ve been working for the last 12 months not to, say, score a plum promotion, but to get into his pants, he’s not going to be thinking about your career, and how big of a role his review plays in your long-term advancement. Not at all. Instead, he’s downplaying your accomplishments and deciding whether or not he should sleep with you. (Because remember, he already believes you’re into it).

And that, dear readers, could be the very reason you didn’t get your last raise.

[JohnnyReb]

Sounds like to me that DUmmie wymins did the research...you din't get a raise because you didn't give the boss a rise.

[seahorse513]

I have NO desire to sleep with any of my male co-workers. I don't think any of them desire me either...

[NHSparky]

IOW, what Billy Crystal observed in "When Harry Met Sally" was in fact correct.

To which I say, 1--no shit, 2--you wasted money on researching this, and 3--I wasted precious seconds of my life reading an article which I already knew and accepted?

[Karin]

I disagree with this.  First, it paints every male with the same broad brush, particularly at the end.  I have a 25 year career under my belt.   I've done the hard work described in the article, and my male bosses have always specifically recognized it, in writing.  It did result in raises and promotions.  The author assumes zero professionalism in the male population.   

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

The study was based solely on feedback from actors and actresses within the porn industry.

[njpines]

Probably not the ghey ones . . .

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Probably not the ghey ones . . .

You make an interesting backhanded point: why is it only hetero men who are considered libidinous wretches possessed of predatory eyes? Are we to believe seriously believe that gay men don't view the objects of their sexual attraction the same way hetero men do?

[DumbAss Tanker]

Yeah, I can see the vast majority of men fantasizing about sleeping with any half-way attractive woman they work with, and a large percentage of the less-attractive ones, that's pretty much Man Biology 101.  I don't think there are all that many men who have such a loose grip on reality as to think the women are walking around thinking the same thing, that seems like a pretty curious interpretation of the results and begs for examination of the data and methodology used to get to that finding.

[njpines]

You make an interesting backhanded point: why is it only hetero men who are considered libidinous wretches possessed of predatory eyes? Are we to believe seriously believe that gay men don't view the objects of their sexual attraction the same way hetero men do?

I meant sleep with 'me' as I'm assuming this was written addressing women in the workforce.

[vesta111]

I meant sleep with 'me' as I'm assuming this was written addressing women in the workforce.

ODD survey, this is more of a Employee -Boss situation the just everyday workers that are equal to each other.

I, as we all have seen the less qualified passed over for the bosses girlfriend or some woman that is the secret girlfriend in case the Bosses wife or official girlfriend  works there also.

NOT JUST MEN, watched a supervisor with no real authority go after a male worker and when he turned her down she gave him such a hard time he quit.   Oh yes he bitched to us girls low on the totem pole at lunch that he was married and our Supervisor was giving him crap.   Being woman we kept an eye out, watched and tried our darnedest not to elbow each other when the Supervisor approached him.   

Same with the males, we kind of knew when a young girl came to work that one of the old goats would hit on her.  We long time employees would set up a pool on who, when, and where the new girl would be hit on.

Very strange that it was the Male employees that spread the gossip to us, without the male in question telling another male what he was up to, we woman would have been in the dark.

A fact is men brag about their conquests to other men, these other men pass the news on to others that tell some woman and next thing one knows all the woman are watching like a hawk and cozening up to the talkative males.

Woman only gossip about what they have been told usually by a male coworker.   If the High Honcho would keep their mouth shut, not go bragging about their deeds, us woman would have a very boring time at work.

Today I thought this thread was about a closet gay in high status hitting on a new male employee.   YIKES this also does happen but as neither the Boss or new man want to talk about it, we woman just have to go with the Heterosexual gossip.