Harassment At Work

Q: i recently started becoming friends with a woman I work with. In the pub after work she's been confiding in me about her personal problems, and complaining about how no one's interested in being her boyfriend, and that she's got no one to take care of her and hug her when she's depressed Anyway, we mustn't have been as close friends as I thought, because apparently the email really freaked her out, and one of my other workmates who she's been talking to has been warning me about sexual harassment. So all I want to know, is have I committed sexual harassment? Is it illegal to ask out people who you work with? Does doing it by work email make it sexual harassment? Can it even be sexual harassment when there was nothing sexual about it? (unless hugging a depressed person counts as sexual?)

A: Sounds to me like you have done nothing wrong. Are you sure she is the one complaining about this alleged harassment, or could it be your work-mate is jealous of you getting close to her and is trying to scare you off because he fancies her himself? If you think she may be serious about alleging harassment, it would be best to have no further contact with her at all, inside or outside work. but I would rather doubt that anyone would consider

that to be sexual harassment. OTOH, one might begin to get the impression that the woman was the sort of nutter who, when she'd encouraged someone to take their acquaintance a little further, immediately freaks out and starts to talk of harassment if not actually cry rape. I believe you should consider yourself fortunate that the silly woman declined the invitation. It would be best to avoid her like the plague anyway. If she was freaked out by that email the woman is a neurotic mess and would it could mean serious emotional trouble getting involved with her. Think yourself lucky you got a warning of her fragile emotional state and stay well away from her.