The Tinder Chronicles: The Office Misogynist

Fiction Friday

Charlie’s Tinder profile was all business — and I mean that quite literally. All of his pictures looked as though they were taken in an office, with Charlie posing in a suit and tie. His bio was similarly work-oriented: “Business Analyst at Freeman Marks. BA in Economics from the University of Georgia, 2013. MBA from Emory University, 2016.”

I’d tried the “fun” guys, I’d tried the jokesters, I’d tried the bad boys and the brainiacs. Maybe it was time to give someone more serious a chance.

So, of course, I swiped right.

Charlie was congruously businesslike in his communications. He asked me out for cocktails on a Thursday night after he finished up with work around 6:30pm. That worked for me, so I said yes.

Wanting to match his overall vibe, I dressed a bit more professionally than I normally would have for a date. I chose a fun but fitted shift dress and wedges, which to me said, “I’m smart and ambitious, but also cute.”

When I finally saw him in the crowd at the bar downtown where we’d agreed to meet, I was happy with my choice of outfit. Charlie was dressed in his usual suit, and he hadn’t even loosened his tie. What looked like some sort of vodka cocktail sat in front of him.

“Hi,” I said, pulling up a seat at the hightop table. “You must be Charlie.”

“Pleased to meet you. You must be Viggy,” he said, sticking out his hand for a shake. I was a bit taken aback by his formality, but I shook his hand anyway. His grip was strong and dry, which I appreciated. Nobody likes a dead fish handshake.

“Did you just come from an interview?” he asked, sizing me up from head to toe.

“Actually, I — ”

“Oh wait, sorry, never mind,” he said, shaking his head. “Stupid question. A woman would never wear informal shoes like that to a job interview.” He chuckled. I frowned.

I shook off my weird feelings and asked, “What are you drinking?”

“Just a ginger ale. Gotta stay sharp for work tomorrow.”

I laughed. “You know, we could have just gotten ice cream or coffee instead.”

“Nah. This place is actually really close to my work and my apartment, plus — I know the ladies love to drink.”

“I’m not really much of a drinker,” I said. “I think I’ll just get a cranberry juice with soda.”

He smiled at me, as if reappraising me. “Smart girl,” he said. “Keeping a level head for your studies. I like that. Especially since women can’t really handle their alcohol so well, in my experience.”

In his experience? Had he been a woman drinking alcohol before? I didn’t think so.

“Right,” I said, trying to get past his strange comments and evaluate what he was really like underneath — so far, he wasn’t making the greatest impression.

I went to the bar and ordered my drink, then came back to the table. Charlie was on his phone, looking like he was answering emails or something. When he didn’t look up even after I sat down, I cleared my throat softly but insistently.

“Oh. Sorry,” he said, stuffing his phone back in his pocket. “Duty calls.”

“What kind of work do you do, again?” I asked. “I know you’re a business analyst, but what does that really mean?”

He smiled, managing to look approving, pitying, and patronizing all at the same time. I was almost impressed by his facial flexibility. “Well,” he said, sucking on his ginger ale, “I have a lot of different day-to-day tasks, but my main focus is to analyze the business reports that our clients produce on a quarterly basis. You know, run the financial models, determine the best outcomes, that sort of thing.”

I most definitely did not know what “that sort of thing” was, but I pressed on anyway. “Got it. So do you like your job?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Freeman Marks is a great place to work. Almost perfect, actually. There’s just a couple of troublemakers in the office, but other than that, it’s great.”

Now I was intrigued — office drama? Yes, please.

“What do you mean, troublemakers?” I asked.

He chuckled. “Well, let’s just say the ladies of Freeman Marks get some preferential treatment, if you get my drift.”

I really didn’t. Was he talking about underlying sexual harassment? “Preferential treatment? How so?”

“Well… okay. Let me give you an example. So, we have a supply closet, and it has notebooks and pens and staples and stuff like that. I noticed the closet is getting depleted way faster than it should, so I started cataloguing where all the stuff was going. And, of course, it’s the women. I mean yeah, they’re the ones taking all the notes, naturally, but still — those supplies are a shared resource. At some point, you need to pay for the extra supplies you use.”

Oh, no. There it was. The whiff of misogyny I’d smelled in his opening comments was, underneath, a much stronger reek.

“Wow,” I said, unsure of how to respond, or where to start.

I didn’t have to keep the conversation going, though — he was really into it now. “I’ll give you another example. And, please take no offense at this, because it really illustrates my point. So I also noticed that the ladies in my office would be gone from their desks for way longer than it should take to use the bathroom. So, and I don’t mean this to be weird at all, I started timing their bathroom breaks. I mean, women have, you know, a lot going on down there.” He gestured in the vague direction of my abdomen. “And men don’t. It’s not really fair for women in the office to get preferential treatment by getting to use the facilities for excessive periods of time. When you really think about it, it’s time theft. I mean, come on. Their pay should be docked for that, right?”

“You really shouldn’t be monitoring your colleagues’ bathroom use,” I said, feeling completely appalled.

His eyebrows wrinkled together, but he kept on digging himself into that sexist hole. “You’re missing the point, of course. Think about it — women are taking almost an hour of every work day, total, to use the bathroom. That’s absurd!”

“Have you also timed the men in the office?”

He snorted. “Of course not. We don’t take long.”

“So you really have nothing to compare it to.”

“I don’t need a comparison. I just know.”

It was time to bring out the big guns — I’ve always admired women who can win by outsmarting stupid men. “You know I’m studying for my Masters in Public Health in epidemiology, and I’m currently working at the CDC on the national botulism guidelines,” I said, not waiting for his response. “So let me tell you, as a subject matter expert in studies such as yours, that lacking a comparison group, your results are completely invalid.”

He sputtered on the ginger ale he’d just swallowed. “I really don’t think you can say — ”

“Oh, but I can,” I said. “Also, from a different standpoint, I’d say that your excessive and obsessive monitoring of your female colleagues comes dangerously close to harassment, wouldn’t you?”

“No, I really wouldn’t — ”

“I wonder if Freeman Marks would see it that way?”

Now he turned beet red, whether with anger or embarrassment, I couldn’t be sure. “Are you threatening me?”

“Of course not,” I cooed. “No more than your weird obsession with your female coworkers’ bathroom breaks threatens their well-being and safety in the workplace.”

“I’m not threatening their well-being!” he yelled, loud enough for several tables of happy hour patrons to turn around in shock. He lowered his voice and leaned in. “I’m not threatening them.”

“That’s really not for me to decide,” I said, smiling sweetly. I stood up. “Now I’m going to go to the bathroom, and since I have so much going on down here” — I gestured at my abdomen — “I might be awhile. Feel free to time me. If I’m not back in ten minutes…just wait longer.”

I didn’t wait for him to say anything else, I just walked away from that table and right out the door to call my Uber. Charlie didn’t deserve a single minute more of my time.