How to address when you rubbed someone the wrong way?
After my virtual summer internship I asked my boss (who is not much older than me and is no longer at the firm) to coffee because I really trust his input and wanted career guidance. While I know he had a good impression of me during the internship (he said I was the best intern and has said other positive things about me to me) I think I may have rubbed him the wrong way during our coffee chat.
When I first met him in person, he right away offered to pay for my coffee, and I blurted, “oh, you don’t have to.” I was nervous to begin with and had planned on offering to pay for his coffee since he was doing me a favor by meeting with me. He reacted by shaking his head and in an annoyed tone of voice said under his breath, “no, it’s not like that.” (I’m a female so I think he thought I assumed he was hitting on me, which I didn’t.)
I blurted a few stupid comments after that because I was in shock and felt embarrassed, and for the rest of the almost two hour coffee chat he barely looked at me which I interpreted as him being uncomfortable with me. I sent him a thank you text later that day, and he didn’t respond until the next day.
I want to reach back out for more guidance because he’s given really good advice, especially during the coffee chat - he was incredibly helpful and kind, but I don’t know how to approach him because I feel kind of foolish for some of the things I said and while he told me to definitely keep in touch I feel like he’s just a really nice person and was being courteous.
It probably wasn’t THAT bad. You said you were nervous and you may just be over analyzing the whole situation. Act “more normal” next time and don’t over think this. I’ve had some awkward networking moments as well, it’s usually never as bad as it is in your head.
When I first started reaching out to people, I had an analyst hang up the phone on me. I imagine I made a fool of myself on that one lmao.
lol its not like that? Did that really happen that's hilarious. Also, what max ebic said.
Yeah - it really did happen. I was so shocked by his reaction that my jaw literally dropped. Luckily I was wearing a mask.
if you rub someone the wrong way, well, you just gotta rub 'em the right way twice ;)
I'm betting he doesn't even remember the interaction being awkward and you're reading into it too much. sometimes I take 48 hours to respond to students, it's not deliberate but sometimes fires need to be put out and responding to a thank you note is low on my list of priorities.
on eye contact, it could be cultural (don't expect eye contact from some Europeans, Africans, Middle Easterners, and some East Asians), it could be you're intimidatingly beautiful, it just may not be his style, or you may have caught him on a bad day.
as for how to reach out, do so as if the conversation wasn't awkward at all. thank him for his time and his advice (maybe mention a specific nugget of wisdom) and when you have something else substantive to talk about, ask for another coffee chat
I am not really sure why the OP has turned this into some kind of romantic encounter. Men and women can get together for business purposes.
I wasn’t making this a romantic encounter..
The whole point of my thread is he’s a great resource and I don’t want to rub him the wrong way..?
Overanalyzing here. Think about it this way, the coffee chat lasted two hours which is insanely long for a casual chat like that so he clearly wasn't repelled by you and probably liked getting to know you better
100% overanalyzing.
He's likley actually referring to "not like that" as in your a frickin prospect. He's in industry and actually makes money. 9/10 times the industry worker pays, not the prospect. It's just the way it works which is why he said "it's not like that"
Okay that makes much more sense. Thank you for the clarity - every other coffee chat I’ve been to I’ve showed up first and paid for my coffee so I didn’t realize that, but very useful input.
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