the original poster said he did not want to go as low as 30 because then she would have known he was patronizing.
If for some reason you have to guess, play the game and say 30 even if you think it sounds patronizing. It's the standard, expected little white lie, along the same lines as "Fat? In that dress? Hell no, you look fantastic."
The best advice so far was from the guy who said not to even play the age guessing game.
Yes.
Oh mann wrote:
foot in mouth wrote:Ha ha! That's nothing. I congratulated a woman the other day and asked when she was due. She sneared at me and said she "gained a little weight" and didn't realize it was so noticable. I swear, it looked like she was 7 months preggo. No joke. Needless to say, she isn't a premier member of my fan club.
Who in the world would EVER presume a woman is pregnant.
I don't care if she has a baby's head hanging out between her legs, you NEVER ask a woman if she is pregnant.
Agree 100%. This is a lesson ALL men learn and the earlier the better.
It would be awesome if she happened to visit Letsrun.com and saw this thread. She would see that you genuinely feel bad and genuinely meant no harm, and that you genuinely were trying to compliment her, but it just all went wrong.
After she saw your comments, and compared them to some of the crude comments made by others, she would probably apologize to you, and all would be okay.
She deserved what she got. She asked you to guess her age because she's vain and incorrectly imagines that she still looks 21, and it's not your fault that it backfired.
However, a correct thing to say would be "I wanted to ask you to participate because you looked like you might be a runner". It's general enough that it's not a direct commentary on her body. Oh well, at least you didn't say "because I was staring at your legs under the desk".
Go apologize to the woman (do this in private) and just say you didn't mean to offend her. Make it sincere and brief.
Then let it go. At that point the ball's in her court to forget the imagined slight.
Unfortunately the rules of the work place have changed since I was a young guy at work. You really didn't do anything terribly wrong and after all, she did ask. But age is one of those areas that are touchy. You walked into one of the traps. "Well, how old do you think I am?" Think Custer going down to the Little Big Horn.
When I am at work, women have no body. They could take off their blouse and bra and expose themselves and I wouldn't see it. I just don't see it even if I really do. I just keep my mouth shut about it.
Larry David without socialskil wrote:
being nice to you wrote:This is a woman's way of saying FO you dumbass.
Yes, I know she was being rude. And I don't really mind if all is forgotten tomorrow.
No, she was not being rude.
However, I do hope you get that job in the other department.
Always go insultingly young, just in case.
Let it go - don't mention it to her again.
This thread just shows how dumb women are.
5 relatively young bitches out of 10.
being nice to you wrote:
Larry David without socialskil wrote:Yes, I know she was being rude. And I don't really mind if all is forgotten tomorrow.
No, she was not being rude.
However, I do hope you get that job in the other department.
You said: "This is a woman's way of saying FO you dumbass" (as in "f**k off" you mean) and "No, she was not being rude." Since when was it not rude to say "f**k off?"
Women in the workplace... lol
yetanotherchick wrote:She deserved what she got. She asked you to guess her age because she's vain and incorrectly imagines that she still looks 21, and it's not your fault that it backfired.
That may not be entirely true. Rightly or wrongly she seemed to take a lot of offence at the notion that she was "relatively young." So I think she was sort of saying "just how old do you think I am?"
I'm just kinda annoyed at her for getting so offended at the addition of "relatively." For example, I heard her say to someone "are you married at all?" What sort of answer did she expect? I'm still married, but not as much as I used to be (though perhaps this does make sense - see the postnuptial shutoff thread). It seems to me that in both cases we didn't communicate what we meant to, but somehow when I say these things I've made a major faux pas, and if I said something about her f**kup, that would be another faux pas on my part.
Larry David without socialskil wrote:
You said: "This is a woman's way of saying FO you dumbass" (as in "f**k off" you mean) and "No, she was not being rude." Since when was it not rude to say "f**k off?"
But that's not what she said.