I (27f) recently moved to the countryside for a six month internship at a small museum, and I’m on my fourth week so far. All was going well, and one seemingly nice older male colleague (in his 50’s?) had been making an effort to get to know me and make me feel welcome, which I appreciated as I’m still not close to fluency with my Japanese and have found it hard to bond with my colleagues. Last week he invited me out to dinner and a concert with his wife, and we all had a really nice time. We talked about my LDR boyfriend coming to visit and he suggested we all go out to onsen / restaurants etc together. Sounds lovely. Then yesterday he invited me out on a ‘デート’ (his choice of words) as his wife had a work event and she was okay with him asking me to dinner so he wouldn’t eat alone. I thought why not, show willing. We have a nice dinner, (during which he says he is glad to share dinner with a 美人) after which he proceeds to try and show me the stars (he is a scientist) and finds any excuse to touch me – putting the binoculars over my head, standing behind me and lightly touching my hip to show me which star he’s talking about, holding my hand so I don’t slip down a very shallow hill. And then in the car on the way home, getting far too close to me and gently grazing my leg (he has a stuffed bear he brings everywhere that belonged to his dead mum that was on my lap, and he would pat the bear and talk to it and then graze my leg on the way back. Or leaning into my personal space after he stopped the car to look at the view outside my window so if I turned around his face would be all up in my grill. Subtle things. But I picked up on them, they were not accidental, absolutely not necessary, and made me very uncomfortable.
Problem is, I don’t have a car yet, and being in the countryside, I am reliant on lifts, particularly in the morning due to bus times, to get into work, and he will be giving me a lift tomorrow and occasionally into the future until I get my license secured. I just don’t want to be alone with this man. I’m not sure he’d do anything extreme – if he did I’d fucking deck the cunt, but I don’t want to be made to feel uncomfortable every time I see him. But if I were to refuse a lift from him, that would cause tension and drama.
How the fuck do I deal with this?
Side note. The museum owner in addition to this man have made a few comments that just wouldn’t fly in my home country (things like – your job is to stand at the door and wink at people) and has used the term デート to describe giving me a lift home once. So, offhand comments said in a jokey way. I chose to consider this sort of thing as a cultural difference, and didn’t want to make a fuss about anything, plus it seems a デート can describe a friendly outing, albeit a cheeky choice of words. So up until this point I have been willing to accept a small amount of whatever you call it, sexual harassment? That feels extreme to say. But I don’t know how else to describe it. Suggestive comments that would get you sacked in Europe.
So to what extent should I put up with all this?
Thanks for reading, I appreciate any advice.
by chairvibesonly