Dear Coleen
I’m 29 and for the last few years I’ve been thinking of swapping careers and going from teaching into marketing.
One of my mum’s oldest friends works for a marketing company, so he offered to take me for a coffee and give me some career advice.
He’s in his early 50s and he’s married with a grown-up son.
He was very sweet and helpful, and told me how to get into it, what the job is really like, and said he could introduce me to various friends of his in marketing.
A few days after we met, however, he sent me a message quite late in the evening telling me how he can’t stop thinking about me.
I didn’t reply, and he then followed it up with a couple more flirty messages.
I was really shocked and then I got angry and sent him a message telling him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t interested, that he should be ashamed of himself and that I would tell his wife if he sent me any more messages.
But what I now want to know is, should I tell my mum? They’ve known each other since college and she thinks a lot of him.
What do you think?
What would you tell this reader to do? Join the discussion in the comment section
Coleen says
God, what a creep. Well firstly I think it’s brilliant that you told him to back off and threatened to tell his wife. That will definitely scare him and let him know in no uncertain terms that you’re absolutely not interested.
As for telling your mum, that’s a really difficult question to answer and only you can decide.
I think if he carries on texting you, or does anything to make you feel uncomfortable, then you should tell your mum, who will probably in turn tell his wife.
He sounds like an awful person, and I doubt you’re the first young woman he’s tried his luck with.
I think you’ve done the right thing for now and you can probably leave it there.
Hopefully he’s got the message.
