So I was on an interview and the guy interviewing me touched my knee at one point, does that mean anything or do guys just do that?
People just do that sometimes, PG. Some people are just “touchy”. There may have been a time long ago and a place far away when and where not every touch was deemed sexual. This may be someone who doesn’t realise that here in America today, we are to think of ourselves as raging lustful animals, barely removed from complete savagery, who must take every precaution lest we reveal our true, brutish nature, which would lead to the collapse of civilisation.
Or he may think you’re hot, and just couldn’t help himself.
Hard to tell, from here.
Sometimes men do things like that to each other, but it’s more like a smacking.
I think it’s a little weird to be touching a stranger in a formal situation like an interview. But that’s just me; some people are more touchy-feely, I suppose? In the absence of any further context I would guess he kinda likes you, but we’d have to know more.
um well…it was like in the middle of the interview and he got up cause he had to do something and apologized and then I jokingly suggested that he just wanted to get away from me and then he was like telling me it wasn’t that at all and then like bent down and like cupped my knee with his hand and assured me he’d be right back. So…I dont know…
Maybe he wants to bang you. You weren’t applying at Hooters, were you?
Mabye he thought you were coming on to him…
yeah, sounds like you were both being a little flirty.
if he touched your cunt, THAT would be different…
ok, so it was nothing then?
That depends- did you get the job?
It doesn’t strike me as unusual, but I am not from wherever you are from.
As a woman, I would say it is highly unusual for an interviewer to be touching my knee. If you were a man or an older woman, I would venture that he woudn’t get away with it. Trust your instinct. If you are questioning it, it must be that on some level you feel uncomfortable with it. No, being touched in an interview is not on.
Obw, you are English. Where in English culture does it say that it’s ok to be touched by a stranger and particularly in the work place? You are out of touch mate. If somebody touched me in an interview where I work, according to my rights, I would be able to make a case for sexual harassment.
A
It was this clarification that changed my mind. From the initial post (and we really dont have enough info to go on here) I was thinking what you just posted, but upon reading the above I thought:
- PG is young and that the interviewer was considerably older
and because I am optimistic, then concluded:
- Because of her 'You just want to get away from me!" joke, he had attempted to reassure her nerves with a friendly pat on the way out of the room.
I would be disappointed to find out I am wrong, but not completely surprised I suppose. I still fundamentally believe people are professional in these situations, although there have been plenty of cases to indicate the contrary. Knowing only what she told us, if I put myself in the interviewer’s shoes then I could see myself doing the same action to someone who I felt was in need of a little reassurance.
Importantly, I was also taking into account the naivete of the questions PG has previously asked. A touch you might completely ignore or not even notice might strike her as worth asking someone about. Or I could be being unfair. I could also be wrong about you - maybe you would consider any touch of any kind in an interview to be sexual harassment.
Touching in interviews could be wrong, but there is touching and then there is touching. What we don’t see in newspapers is the number of sexual harassment cases that judges throw out of court each week.
I could be completely out of touch with how ridiculous things have become (in my opinion!).
You are right, things are ridiculous. Ridiculous!
However, the fact that PG questions the touch at all is the key. If she didn’t question it at all, then it would be likely that it was totally innocent. And this is regardless of whether or not she was flirting. A flirtatious comment is not an invitation. It merely signifies that she felt comfortable with her interviewer and perhaps he felt comfortable too. A little too comfortable?
And for the record, I would question any man touching me in any way that was uninvited…it seems that anyone touching me without my permission is lacking in propriety. End of story.
A
In the U.S., any touching between a managerial type and an employee (or potential employee) is inappropriate.
Reassurances can come in ways other than touching.
-Thirst
a harmless touch on the knee is nothing…
panting while fondling your elbows is another thing entirely…
-Imp
Holy moly.
This is what I mean. We have this barest of descriptions of a touch. Of a knee. That the term “sexual harassment” even arises is a symptom of how “bad” it’s gotten.
PG, I must congratulate you, again.
I really don’t know how you do it.
Yes I do.
For the record, I am anti-sexual harassment.
You dirty old pervert… 
-Thirst
You know, Thirst, when I was hiring waitresses last, I brought them before the Babitivity Rating Committee, which was me and two cooks. They had to score a 7.5 out of ten to get hired. They always thought I was joking, but I wasn’t. If one of the Committee wasn’t there, the prospective hires had to come back. We made one exception - because one of the cooks had designs on her, even though the other cook and I had given her a low score. He was successful, by the way. They dated for a while.
This was probably illegal. Immoral. Dastardly.
But we had some slammin’-lookin’ babes at that place.
I was the GM.
I have no regrets. No one was ever harassed on my watch.
It did come up on a previous management job. A girl was being harassed by another manager, who was very close to the owner. The manager wanted her fired, on some trumped-up reason, because she had resisted his advances. I drew a line in the sand, and staked my own job, which paiod quite well, in her defense. I had to, because the other manager had leverage with the owner that I did not. I made it clear that if she went, I went, too. I won.
I’ll let the reader draw their own conclusions.