Dear
Philip,
The company I work for threw an after-hours
party at a bar following a day-long conference.
Lots of alcohol was consumed. A
woman who works for one of our suppliers – I’ll call her Jill – started
flirting strenuously with a man who works for us, who I’ll call Pete. Both are married to other people, and both
live in the area.
By the time Jill and Pete started touching
each other in ways that some married couples wouldn’t be comfortable with, in
public, I noticed that several people were commenting on them, and many seemed
to be uncomfortable. Before the party
had wound down, Jill made a show of saying she had to get home…and left with
Pete. I know Jill’s husband socially,
and my wife is friends with Pete’s wife.
We don’t know what (if anything) happened between them, but we’re both
feeling like we should say something. Is
that our place?
Angry and Uncertain
Dear Angry,
You should absolutely
say something…but maybe not what – or to whom – you might think.
Before you asked
if it’s your place to speak up, you noted correctly that you don’t know what
happened between Jill and Pete, that night.
(Though I’d wager there’s a garage security camera that has a very good
idea.) You have your suspicions, but you
can’t say for sure.
And that’s just
the start of what you don’t know. You
don’t know what goes on in the homes of either party, or what their spouses
know or might even accept, and you certainly don’t know how either of those
spouses would react to what you have to tell them. Maybe Jill’s husband would become angry with
Jill…but maybe he’d turn his wrath on you, for suggesting that his wife was
anything beyond flirtatious. Maybe Pete’s
wife would take the louse to the woodshed – or the cleaners – but perhaps she’d
feel backed into a corner by your wife’s knowledge and involvement, and put her
efforts into badmouthing your wife to their mutual friends. I’ve actually seen that happen.
Again, that’s what
you don’t know. Here’s what you do know:
Jill and Pete made you and several folks that you all work with extremely
uncomfortable. You know that there are
other people who are in the same boat that you’re in, right now, wondering what
their ethical duty is to the partners who were home that night. You know that Jill and Pete have put you in
the horrible position of wondering whether it’s better to voice strong
suspicions and give the affected a chance to deal with a potentially hurtful situation,
or to stay silent, and become somehow complicit in that situation.
You’ve guessed,
correctly, that you and your wife can’t win here. If you speak to the spouses, you risk all
sorts of unintended consequences…and if you say nothing, and those spouses eventually
discover that you were silent about the night in the bar, they’ll partially
blame you for their misery. So my advice
is don’t stay silent:
The folks you and
your wife need to talk to are Jill and Pete. Chances are good that they’ll both deny they
acted on all that flirtation, and they’ll use your lack of absolute knowledge
to try to end the conversation. (They’ll
be all indignant, too. Count on
it.) Don’t let them. Tell them that your concern comes from the
discomfort they very strongly created in that bar. Tell them that you’re not alone in wondering
whether their spouses have a right to know how Jill and Pete behaved in front
of a room full of coworkers.
Tell them you’re
angry with them for putting you in this situation. Make it clear that you and your wife are not
the morality police, but rather two people who are adamant that your friends
(their spouses) are treated with consideration and respect.
Finally, tell Jill
and Pete that if they act like that in front of you again, with each other or
anyone else, you’ll be forced to take it up with their spouses. And mean it.
Yours in treading
carefully,
Philip
