Communications that are subtle and ambiguous are highly likely to be misinterpreted, and it is not reasonable to assume that the recipient reached the intended conclusion. Depending on what the above poster meant by escalating to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" I may or may not agree with the above commenter's statement that the person being approached acted irrationally.
If the person being approached followed up the ambiguous rejection with something along the lines of, "I don't want to go out with you, please do not approach me again" then that's a totally reasonable response; it's escalating from a soft "no" to a hard "no".
If the person being approach said something to the effect of, "you're harassing me with repeated advances after a rejection" then I'd consider that behavior to be irrational. The person who approached communicated denial in a very ambiguous manner that could easily be interpreted as asking for an alternate time to go out. It isn't rational to call a co-worker a harasser for asking somebody out after giving an ambiguous denial. Granted, if they continued to make approaches after giving an unambiguous denial, like the one written in the 2nd paragraph, then by all means this is harassment.
I assumed literal "you are making me uncomfortable" - I think it is best to go with what parent wrote. The "you're harassing me with repeated advances after a rejection" does not sound how real people talk.
I also think that saying whatever gets the person away is rational - through it might be rude in context. I mean, you assume that saying something insulting or exaggerated is irrational, but that is not how we judge rationality in other contexts.
My experience was that when collegues started bullshit (not harrasment but they had many jokes about women targeted at me), being nuanced and nice and "rational" did not made situation better. Just longer while they had fun and I definitely did not. Answering in hostile rude way right away turned out to work much better - issue largely ceased to exist.
I think that the expectation that women should be the nice one is what creates a lot of problems. It is teaching girls ineffective communication (which leaves them thinking only two options are HR or leave). People on the spectrum honestly don't get nice, people who test boundaries don't see nice as boundary and jerks find nice funny.
I really doubt you truly mean "whatever gets the person away is rational". Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to discourage subsequent approaches? There's a vast difference between a firm rejection and accusing a co-worker of a fire-able offense - potentially even a crime. If somebody is insulted by the former then the have their only their own insecurity to blame. On the other hand, even if no complaint to HR is made the latter statement is going to make people stress over the possibility of losing their job, potentially even facing legal repercussions.
> I think that the expectation that women should be the nice one is what creates a lot of problems. It is teaching girls ineffective communication (which leaves them thinking only two options are HR or leave). People on the spectrum honestly don't get nice, people who test boundaries don't see nice as boundary and jerks find nice funny.
This is essentially what I'm trying to say. The hesitation to unambiguously accept or reject advances and instead expect people to communicate indirectly by "reading the signs" is an inherently broken situation because it's inevitable that those ambiguous signs will be misinterpreted at some point.
> Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to discourage subsequent approaches?
The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same.
For that matter, rational is different category then "fair". Unfair or even unethical dudes don't get to be called "irrational" (unless someone defend their harassment by calling them dumbass).
> This is essentially what I'm trying to say.
In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her uncomfortable. That is not even as open rejection as can be, but also feedback on what the reason for not continuing conversation is. You are extrapolating her rejection to entirely different things as words says. That is expecting her to walk the fine line, guess in advance how you re-interpret words and come up with answer perfectly tailored to your personality.
She tried nice as overwhelming majority of dudes would understand correctly, did not worked, she started to be direct. But she apparently should not be too direct.
> The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same.
Please re-read my original comment in this chain, I'm dealing with two hypotheticals depending on what exactly is said.
> In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her uncomfortable. That is not even as open rejection as can be
If that's what occurred then this is the situation I describe in the 2nd paragraph, which I explicitly write is a reasonable thing to do.
> but also feedback on what the reason for not continuing conversation is.
Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on what exactly is said.
> You are extrapolating her rejection to entirely different things as words says. That is expecting her to walk the fine line, guess in advance how you re-interpret words and come up with answer perfectly tailored to your personality. She tried nice as overwhelming majority of dudes would understand correctly, did not worked, she started to be direct. But she apparently should not be too direct.
I am not expecting any line to be walked. She should not avoid trying to be too direct, but just the opposite. This whole problem likely arose because the first response was interpreted overly optimistically (thinking she wanted to see the movie on a different day, when she just wanted to say "no") and interpreted the second response overly pessimistically (thinking there's a good chance she was going to report him or her to HR, when she just wanted to say "no"). Again, indirect speaking is exactly what I'm attempting to dissuade because it creates situations such as these.
> Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on what exactly is said.
Well then, leave her alone.
However, she literally said "you are making me uncomfortable". That is neither threat nor rude. It is literally direct and honest communication.
You are not trying to dissuade indirect speaking, you are complaining that she started to talk directly when indirect failed.
And it invites him to try to make her feel comfortable until she freaks out and goes to HR or NYT. Sometimes it's better to just say no. You don't owe explanation to anyone.
Social politeness dictates we approach high intensity situations with some grace and tact. It really hurts to be rejected and it really hurts to do the rejection because the rejecter knows he or she is going to cause another human being who took a risk and put themselves out there to experience negative feelings. Only psychopaths enjoy rejecting people. So we say "little white lies" to make it easier on both parties. We say "I can't make it" instead of what we really feel, which is "you are very sexually unappealing to me." Part of "being polite" is understanding this and playing along.
BTW, if you have trouble with this sort of thing I recommend Miss Manners books and newspaper columns. They are both very informative and entertaining. Plus they make me feel good that I was not as bad as some people who write to her. I was raised by my parents who are truly evil people and are assholes to boot, so I never learned manners or proper behavior and I'd like to not be an asshole myself, so I needed help.
If the person being approached followed up the ambiguous rejection with something along the lines of, "I don't want to go out with you, please do not approach me again" then that's a totally reasonable response; it's escalating from a soft "no" to a hard "no".
If the person being approach said something to the effect of, "you're harassing me with repeated advances after a rejection" then I'd consider that behavior to be irrational. The person who approached communicated denial in a very ambiguous manner that could easily be interpreted as asking for an alternate time to go out. It isn't rational to call a co-worker a harasser for asking somebody out after giving an ambiguous denial. Granted, if they continued to make approaches after giving an unambiguous denial, like the one written in the 2nd paragraph, then by all means this is harassment.