Don’t give your phone number to these men under any circumstances. No matter how simple.
Hey everyone. I really wanted to rant about this so here goes.
I’m a 22 year old blue collar woman. On the jobsite, workers greet me sometimes and I’ll say hi back, if it’s a girl I’ll sometimes initiate. Majority of times I do not initiate with greeting men. Sometimes we have conversations, I’m in a relationship so I maintain and enforce my boundaries.
To preface a little bit, I’d bet majority of blue collar women are aware of this of course, that being this visibly young but mainly being a woman on the site attracts a lot of “helping” people. Of course no doubt this can happen for any age of women, but I feel it would be a lot more common the younger you are, I’m starting my 3rd year of my apprenticeship but people talk to me and ask to help me carry a 10 foot ladder up the stairs like it’s my first day.
Also one more preface: I should not have to bring up my relationship status for a man to finally understand to stop interacting with me. Relationship status does not matter when it comes to protecting your peace from these types of men. But it’s crazy these types will rationalize it like if a girl is single that means they have a chance and they will keep pursuing (this is not the first or weirdest interaction). Just because a girl is single does not entitle you to having access to her.
Anyways, that brings me to my rant. I’m chatting with a worker that I see around, very obviously around 45-50 years old. I’m talking to him about how the work I do has me looking for some uv protection arm sleeves to protect my arms from the material, while not being too overheated.
He tells me that he got his son a pair of them and his son chose two colors and he has two more that he doesn’t need and he can give me. (At this moment to my knowledge, this was the last day on that site, but I would be going to a site very close by.) He offers to give them to me, and I mention it might be my last day. I let him know about this other site nearby, and he insists we swap phone numbers so we can coordinate him handing them to me.
So everything seemed okay.. he offered to buy me coffee and a lot of people offer to and usually it leads to nothing, so I accepted because I was hungry. My first mistake. At least when it comes to this man. I usually try to view it from the perspective of “if I was a man.. would this man even be doing this for me right now?” and the answer is almost always a no.
I thank him over text for it, his apprentice hands it to me but I never see the guy for the rest of the day. As I’m heading out, he sends me a “hey hey create a great rest of your afternoon” message. I didn’t respond immediately. I was thinking ehh he’s being a little extra but it’s not CRAZY.
I don’t reply for about 20 minutes, then at the same exact time I sent my reply: “thank you, likewise,” he sent me two pictures of him walking outside smiling… and this when I realized what this is about to be.
At the end of the second picture he says “lets go ‘insert state sports team’” and I say I don’t watch sports. He uses this to then ask me 3 questions back to back about what I do in my free time. I give him the driest answers possible and then that was my last answer for the day. the next day he texts me some weird sh*t about how he loves my name like “Good morning…. Insert name…. I love that name it’s so unique!!!”so I just say “I appreciate it” and then I get on the topic for the ACTUAL reason I even allowed him my phone number. Because it for sure damn was not to chat with his old ass. I tell him if the job is too far, I can just pick it up when I get back to the jobsite of which I found out that actually was not my last day there.
He doesn’t get a chance to drop the sleeves off, which was the entire reason of even obtaining his phone number the day prior, so there’s no real reason for me to text him. I thumbed up his last message and didn’t reply.
Later after work, he tells me he’s sorry that he didn’t get a chance to text a lot and asking me how my day was. Why the hell are you apologizing to me for💀. I don’t reply.
Then this morning, he texts me saying “hey hey good morning.” I didn’t reply. I bet he doesn’t text his male apprentice good morning every day.
Then just now, what was the final icing on the cake to trigger me to make this post, he sends me a picture of him being outside with other work buddies from HIS local, and asks me where I’m at… Can you not take the hint??
I don’t want the sleeves anymore. From now on, I’m not giving out my phone number for any seemingly minuscule, innocent reason, unless the person is in my company. This is ridiculous. I hope this story may have helped someone younger like me that also is still learning how to come into their own and handle themselves around blue collar men doing bullsh*t like this, and thinking because the girl is young that they will be easily manipulated when they gain access to you.
Working in construction made me learn to stand up for myself which I used to never used to do especially times when I should have. And especially times when people catch me off guard now, I tell myself that they caught me off guard this time, but I won’t let that slide next time. Of course it depends on who it is.. If it’s someone who I’ll never see again, I couldn’t care more about talking to them about how they treated me. If it’s a classmate, I’ll call them out on it the next time I see them.
You don’t owe these type of people anything!!! Not an explanation, not a reply, nada. I’m on a journey where I’m learning to be intentional with the people I keep close to me, and have access to me. These kind of men can’t find women their own age to manipulate, so they look at younger women and try to find any way to get access to you to do just that, and it’s disgusting.