In junior high, I took Texas History as a required class. My teacher wasn’t great by any standards and was a major creep. He was the type to lean way too close to female students under the guise of “helping” with classwork. 

[Teacher] was almost fired that year because numerous female students who sat near his desk saw him watching explicit videos in class. Unfortunately for the students, and fortunately for [Teacher], the school cameras didn’t work, the district didn’t care about the students, and he used incognito mode. There was “no evidence”, so he continued teaching. 

Ten years later, my mother and stepfather split up. My mother changed her relationship status to “single” and immediately started getting messages. She liked to complain about the men messaging her and used last names to differentiate between them when talking to me.

One day, she mentioned a very familiar last name.

Mother: “I keep getting messages from one guy near here. [Last Name].”

Me: “I had a teacher who was a [Last Name]. At [Town] Junior High.”

Mother: *Goes to his profile* “[Teacher’s Full Name]?”

Me: “Sounds right. He taught Texas History.”

Mother: *Looks at his occupation* “Yep, ‘Teacher at [Town] Junior High’.”

Me: *Laughs* “Gross. My old teacher is flirting with you?!”

I told her the story about [Teacher] almost getting fired.

Mother: “So, block him?”

Me: “Block him.”

My old history teacher legitimately tried to hit up my mom on [Social Media].

This is still the most baffling interaction I’ve had in the last year, mostly because of how unprepared I was. I’m nonbinary transmasculine (I use he/him pronouns but I’m not quite a man), which isn’t hugely relevant to the story except to explain why I’d been taking testosterone for about eighteen months at the point this story happened.

I’m heavy-set and hairy, but my face is still quite feminine despite the neck beard I’ve been cultivating. It was also nearly 30°C (86°F) outside, so I was exhausted and sweating like a pig wearing a T-shirt and shorts with my arm and leg hair on full show. Basically, I didn’t look anything like a conventionally attractive woman and certainly wasn’t expecting to be hit on.

I got off the train and was hauling myself up the steps to leave the station when a guy ran past the opposite way shouting for someone to hold the doors. I didn’t react in time and the doors closed before he got on, so I threw out a “Sorry, dude” and thought that was the end of it until he decided to catch up to me at the exit.

Guy: “Excuse me. You’re beautiful. Can I get your number?”

I was fumbling with my pass card and didn’t fully hear him.

Me: “Huh? What?”

Guy: “I said you’re gorgeous, and I want to get your number.”

I was still confused and brain-fogged from the heat.

Me: “My number? Why?”

Guy: “I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Can I take you out on a date?”

Me: “Uh, no, sorry. I’ve got a boyfriend.”

Guy: “That’s okay. He’ll understand.”

I finally got my brain into gear.

Me: “What? No. I don’t want your number, thank you. Also, I’m not a woman, so unless you’re bisexual, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”

Guy: “You’re not a woman? So, you’re a man?”

Me: “Close enough, yeah. I’m a man.”

Guy: “Well, I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, then. Have a good day, brother! Stay safe out there!”

Then, he gave me a high-five and wandered off to the platform opposite where he’d been trying to go earlier. I was so bewildered yet pleased it had turned out so amicably that I stood there for a few more seconds just processing until I had to move to let someone else use the card reader.

It’s been months since, and I go to that train station one to three times a week depending on work. I’ve never seen that guy since, but every time I’m there, I wonder what he’s up to and hope he found the hairy, sweaty girl of his dreams that I couldn’t be for him.

I’m a man in my early thirties, and I work in semiconductors. Recently, a female employee in her early twenties was moved to my area, and I had to train her. It’s a well-known fact at work that this girl is flirty and inappropriate. She has gotten several men fired and reported just as many to Human Resources. Her file must be thick.

As soon as she was moved to my area, I could see that she was shy with me and a little flirty. As the days went by, she became more and more flirtatious, very hands-on, and touchy-feely. She would even say how cute she thought I was, etc. I admit I played back with her but never in an inappropriate manner. She added me on social media, and we exchanged information as she had expressed interest in hanging out.

I guess one weekend [Employee] saw on social media that I had gone to the park one day, and when I came back to work the following week, she acted very odd and angry. It turned out that she was upset that I had never called her. She was acting very immature, and overall, it was just crazy that someone would get that mad considering we had never officially made plans or anything.

A few weeks later, the same flirty behavior was still going on. I ended up missing a few days of work due to a bad stomach bug. I couldn’t eat or drink anything. After a couple of days of being in bed, I felt well enough to look at my phone, and I had a ton of notifications. A few were from [Employee]; she was so angry that I left her on read, and she had tried to get ahold of me multiple times with no success.

The following Monday, I got to work, and of course, [Employee] was angry, but I just ignored her and kept working. Shortly after, the manager came up to me and told me to get my stuff because I was being moved. I kind of figured this had something to do with [Employee], but I wasn’t sure, so I asked. It turned out that she told them that I had asked her out repeatedly, she had turned me down every time, I’d been mean to her ever since she turned me down, and I refused to help her with work — all very untrue.

This was escalated to HR, and soon after, I got a call from HR explaining that there was an open investigation on me for what [Employee] had said. I denied all accusations and told them I had no problem sending them screenshots proving that she was lying.

I sent them all of the messages with her calling me “honey” and telling me I was cute. I sent them a message from three days before her complaint, where she had asked me to hang out when we had time off together. The last message I sent to HR was a message from [Employee] apologizing for slapping me in the face at work twice. She did this in an immature flirting type of way, but I was pretty mad and never said anything, just kept the texts.

After she made up lies trying to get me fired because I left her on read for too long, I figured HR would like to see a message from a girl who was admitting to assaulting someone at work unprovoked.

Needless to say, a couple of weeks after the investigation began, [Employee] was fired, and all was right in my world again.

I’m the author of this story, and I’ve shared the following story as a comment on this story. The way the guy was schmoozing the ladies in said story reminded me of my sister’s one and only attempt at having a sisters’ fancy night out.

It was 2013. I was nineteen, and my sister decided to celebrate my getting a job at an airline by going to this fancy hotel restaurant — think a posh setting with a snobby maître d’ where you had to make a reservation a week in advance.

We put on our nicest dresses and went to the restaurant. During the meal, these two guys in fancy suits, who looked to be in their twenties, started chatting us up. They offered to buy us drinks and pay for the meal, and they invited us to continue at the hotel’s bar. (You can probably guess the rest.)

I decided to nip this in the bud.

Me: *Showing them my wedding ring* “I have a one-year-old at home.”

That was the moment when one of them turned to my sister with what seemed to be genuine enthusiasm in his voice.

Guy: “Congratulations on your first grandchild, ma’am.”

His buddy gave him a discreet but shocked look, they walked away, and I started laughing at what had just happened, which my sister still hasn’t forgiven me for.

We look quite similar and my sister is twelve years older than me, so I guess it’s theoretically possible for her to be my mom, and the men were hitting on us both, but my sister still doesn’t find it funny that those two might have been going for a mother-daughter duo.

I’ve lived in the same town all my life, in the same house, which I inherited from my parents when they died when I was twenty-four. I always shop at the same grocery store — the same one my parents were bringing me to when I was knee-high to a bee. You could say I’m a creature of habit. I’ve worked in the same local government office ever since I got my degree, in the same department, gradually moving up the ranks over time.

The point is, I was friends with all the workers and all the managers in the store (and still am). So, seventeen years ago (I was twenty-six back then) when they got a new employee, of course, I noticed immediately.

“Vicki” was tall, brunette, and supremely voluptuous, and she had beautiful brown eyes. I instantly crushed on her, but I was too shy and tongue-tied to say anything. So, I asked the manager for a moment of his time, and after we went into his office, I suggested that he tell Vicki that one of the customers thought she was gorgeous but to not say it was me.

For the next several months, I quietly admired her from afar, but I couldn’t so much as make myself go down an aisle she was working in. That might mean I would have to speak to her, and I knew I’d turn into a mess.

One day, right as it was going to be my turn to check out, the cashier behind the register needed his break. And Vicki was the one who filled in for him. I’m sure my face turned red. I tried to speak, just to make the usual small talk, but my vocal cords seemed frozen in place. I turned into a catastrophic mess, as anticipated.

The next time I was there, as I was walking from the car to the store, Vicki was pushing carts. She ambushed me as I was about halfway across the parking lot.

Vicki: “When I first started, my manager said the oddest thing. One of the customers was crushing on me, but he didn’t say who. Is it you?”

I stared at the ground, wanting it to open and swallow me up, and managed to croak out:

Me: “Yes.”

Vicki and I have been married for ten years now. She’s even more voluptuously beautiful than she was then, and I’m still shy and tongue-tied around her.