There is a huge difference between ordinary collegiality and an interest in flirting, a difference most people at work easily understand. When you greet someone by the coffee machine, hold the door, or laugh at a joke in the kitchen, it’s simply a sign of normal human interaction in a shared office. But for a lonely man in his forties, stuck in the rut of a broken relationship and caring for a child, even basic politeness can turn into a fateful sign.
I’m twenty-seven, I work in marketing, and it would never occur to me to look for a relationship at work, let alone with an older colleague. On our floor sits forty-one-year-old Tomáš. A divorced dad with a little boy in shared custody, who always walked the halls with a troubled expression and used every opportunity to complain about his ex-wife and how hard it is to handle everything alone. I felt sorry for him as a person, so I treated him normally and kindly. When we met in the hallway, I smiled, exchanged a couple of words about the weekend, and sometimes we’d send a few messages in the team chat.
The week before last, he posted a funny football video in the group Slack channel. I happened to be online, so out of pure courtesy I clicked on it and sent a laughing emoji. No private message, no chatting, just a single reaction.
What landed in my private chat an hour later literally glued me to my chair.
Tomáš sent me a long, melodramatic paragraph:
“Hi, I just can’t keep this inside anymore. I know there’s an age gap between us and I have a child, but what’s growing between us is incredibly strong and deep. Ever since you started here, I can’t stop thinking about you and I know we’re meant to be together. I see it in your eyes every time you walk by me. The chemistry and connection just can’t be denied. I know you feel it too, maybe you’re just afraid of it. I had to tell you.”
I stared at the text, feeling my stomach turn from sheer embarrassment and shock. I’d never even had coffee with this man, our longest conversation was about where to find spare printer cartridges, and from a single emoji and a hallway greeting, he’d built up an entire fantasy in his head about fateful love and “chemistry in the eyes”.
I realized there was no point in being diplomatic here. As soon as you write something vague to a man in this state, he’ll just take it as a sign to try even harder.
I replied to him immediately, directly and uncompromisingly:
“Tomáš, I’m going to stop you right there. I don’t feel anything like that for you and I never will. I was just being polite to you, as I am to everyone else on the team. You’re over forty, we have a strictly professional relationship, and you should know better than to write things like this to young female colleagues. You’ve completely misread the situation and I want this to end here.”
Instead of backing off in embarrassment, he sent another unbelievable response. He started defending himself, saying that he’d recently been asking himself if he still had a chance at love, and when I asked him at a meeting two weeks ago if he could hand me the folder with the documents, he took it as a clear sign that a spark had passed between us.
It was a total loss of perspective. A forty-year-old man had turned a twenty-five-year-old colleague into a lifeline for his loneliness and twisted normal polite behavior into a romantic story in his head.
I didn’t reply to a single word after that. Since then, work has been incredibly uncomfortable. Whenever we meet in the kitchen, Tomáš stares at the floor in offense, doesn’t even return a greeting, and acts like a betrayed victim.
It was a clear lesson for me: even ordinary human kindness can be a double-edged sword at work. Some people are so desperately stuck in their own problems that they see every smile as an invitation to a relationship. And in such a moment, the only thing that helps is an immediate, cold, and firm stop from the very first second
