I work at a tiny ma and pop restaurant, where 8 people total are employed. My job is to take calls, and help prepare food and do the jobs nobody wants to do (probably because I'm a 19 year old girl). Keep in mind that I'm the youngest, and they are almost all 30+. My SO works there, but he usually isn't around. Among the people who work there, there are a few people I've become close with. There is an old navy guy named "George", a gruff but sweet old guy, probably about 75 years old.
But then, there's this other guy, about 35-40 years old, named "Juan". The language barrier between us is pretty outrageous, but he's nice, and seemed like a good guy, until he started getting progressively more touchy with me.
Ill start off saying that I am overly friendly with men. I've always felt comfortable around them, because I never had female friends or anything like that. Men are easy. It started with me getting close to George. George is genuinely nice. He asks how school was that day, asks about me about my home life, stuff like that. Usually we talk about his dog or what he saw in the the newspaper horoscopes. A basic old guy. Sometimes George will give me a bit of a side hug and say something like "Hey sweetie, how are you?". Normal side hug, only lasts a few seconds. Sometimes he'll jokingly say "if only I was 90 years younger...". No red flags, at all. My gut says it's fine.
Me and Juan never touched in the beginning, and because of the language barrier, we didn't really speak. After a while, I warmed up to him and went to being my normal overly bubbly self. Then I noticed that he would hold my hand for a few seconds, mostly when he greeted me. No big deal. But Juan never did anything in front of other people. George would give me that side hug surrounded by people watching. Juan keeps it secret. First red flag. The one day Juan started to touch my hands longer, when I gave him tickets, (he made the food). Without saying anything, but looking at me with an odd expression. Red flag number 2. After that happened for awhile, with nothing new, I wrote it off as a cultural thing. Then as I was in the walk in refrigerator, he followed me, "wanting a hug". Why couldn't he do it in front of other people? why did he have to trap me? REDFLAGREDFLAG.
At that point I avoided touching him when I gave him the tickets, but he overcompensated to hold my hand. I tried to make sure I was never alone with him, because when I was, he wanted a hug from me. First it was a side hug, then he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, then it was around my back, then it was tentatively around my waist, but i broke out of that very, VERY, quickly. At one point, he was patting where my curves are, as if he wanted to touch as much of me as he could while he blocked the door to the walk in. REDFLAGREDFLAGREDFLAG. Two days ago it happened, and I swear he asked me for a kiss, but his accent was too thick for my to hear clearly.
But I ignored it to long. I let it go. My SO will be mad at me, so I'm afraid to tell him. I'm scared, I feel vulnerable, but I did it to myself. I let it go. I smiled and I let him do this, way past my comfort zone. Ill be the stereotypical "slut who led him on too long" or the "attention seeker". I don't know what to do. Please help me.
Tl;Dr: I let sexual harassment go on too long. I should have stopped it, and it's all my fault, and i'm scared to tell anyone for fear of being "and attention seeking slut".
Submitted September 28, 2015 at 12:22PM by lilram17 http://ift.tt/1MzYxbd Advice
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