You're right I don't see anything wrong with the situation as presented. It's funny, guy has some balls to ask for a date after that. I'll agree he was pretty stupid about it. But I see all the time much stupider advances that actually get accepted instead of rejected. I'd say forgive and forget but I don't see anything to forgive. Asking for a date is how you get dates, even if the context for asking is unusual. I'd like for shy men to still be able to hear the worst thing that'll happen is "she'll say 'lol no, loser'", but now the worst thing that can happen is she'll be so offended she'll throw a fit and publicly name you and destroy your career. Thankfully that hasn't happened here yet. "This made me feel upset. How should I handle this, random internet people?" is a reasonable way to approach this if you don't already have a philosophy that says "chill out and move on".

There's a side conversation here that I'm sort of interested in. There is a certain moral obligation to protecting the company you work for and not putting it under risk with thing like discrimination-based non-hires -- but why should sociopathic lawyers get to decide what risks are actually there or not? It's immoral some of the things many companies do in all legality, risk-free. You won't stir up an internet shit storm for every one of them, even if you can get a few. Not so long ago the behavior this woman reported would have not been cause for such outrage and moralizing displayed on this page. What changed in humans since then? I really don't think we've gotten all that more moral. I'd say instead what changed is the sociopathic lawyers became even more powerful, and saw a great and endless revenue stream for themselves by making it easy to destroy people and businesses for these very basic and human drives, faux pas mistakes at worst.

> I'd like for shy men to still be able to hear the worst thing that'll happen is "she'll say 'lol no, loser'", but now the worst thing that can happen is she'll be so offended she'll throw a fit and publicly name you and destroy your career.

Context is important. Asking a stranger out for a date at a bar has a worst case scenario of hearing "no". Asking someone out whom you just rejected for a job listing has a very, very different worst case scenario.

For fuck's sake, did I really have to just spell that out?

> why should sociopathic lawyers get to decide what risks are actually there or not?

Sociopathic or not, employment lawyers have a lot to say about liability and risk for business because they know the relevant laws very well and know how to make persuasive arguments in court for corner cases where precedent isn't entirely clear.

Again, did I actually have to spell that out for you?

It's worth adding, too: aside from the legal liability angle, what about what the invitation to a romantic encounter does to that applicant for the rest of the interview? Now the rest of the interview, from her perspective, is all about that dude's romantic interest in her, and no longer a professional encounter. It's all downhill from there. If she gets hired, how can she possibly work without the pressure of thinking that her job or advancement depends on her response to that guy's advances? If she doesn't get hired, how can she possibly think she was fairly treated?

I don't have an inherent problem with coworkers asking each other out on dates, or within a professional context in general, but doing it in an interview is beyond stupid.

Your argument seems to be, "If only I would appreciate how good this is for him, I would stop worrying about whether his choices are toxic for anyone else." Am I missing some relevant nuänce?

I don't think that's it. One should worry about toxic choices. I just don't think a culture of asking people out is toxic. Something I do find toxic is an environment of conformity that imagines itself so fragile that it overreacts to the slightest deviation from what those in power say as if it were an existential threat.