I’m a flight director with a major airline. I was a flight attendant for nine years before my recent promotion. I had a layover of 24 hours in Paris, and the three pilots for the flight were going to have dinner, so they invited the flight crew to come along. This was the first time in Paris for one of the flight attendants, so she asked me to come along so that she wouldn’t get lost finding the place. It turned out that one of the pilots was in the same situation, so the three of us went together. On the way there, we stopped at a little café for a glass of wine. The pilot told us all about this wife and children, so we all shared a bit about ourselves and our lives. When we arrived at the restaurant, I sat between the pilot and the flight attendant I’d arrived with. It wasn’t long, though, before I felt his hand on my knee. Naturally, I was surprised, and I jumped. He made it look as though he’d done it by accident, and I was actually foolish enough to believe it…but a few moments later, he did the exact same thing. I felt really embarrassed, and I tried sending him “signals”, such as turning my whole body away from him. I mean, he’s married with children, and he just finished going on about how much he adored his family. I felt extremely ashamed and uncomfortable.
It never did go further than that, but I feel strange when I have to work with him, and now I find that I am much more stand-offish toward other men at work, when they really don’t deserve it. It really didn’t go further than putting his hand on my knee under the table, but I really didn’t like it, and I feel very awkward at work, and I think about it a lot.