What we all tend to underestimate is that Gene's "knees" - if your hand is forced on them - are a spiky affair:
Ouch!
And now for something completely different:
I have a daughter too and she made her first serious entrance into the world of the workplace (as opposed to making a few bucks as a waitress) about two years ago. It's where men meet women (over time it actually becomes THE place where the two - or three - sexes meet each other for longer periods of time), rub shoulders and are not always eye to eye as regards what still constitutes "rubbing shoulders" and what doesn't.
Her boss was very nurturing, furthered her career (nice pay check too), gave her an unusual amount of responsibility and then - you knew it was coming - got a crush on her. Except that she didn't. (
"He's almost as old as you, dad, yikes!!!" )
And then there was this one after-work dinner which my daughter thought became a little too romantic, candlelight and all. After which she had a sleepless night (and lengthy tel cons with her parents) and then invited him for lunch the next day or day after to tell him that she was happy to learn from him and liked working with him, but that he had crossed a line that last evening that he should not cross again and that, thank you, no, she would definitely not want to be his mistress and that she though that his approach tainted everything
*** he had done for her. And he accepted that.
*** I told her that was nonsense: "Men can appreciate your work wholeheartedly and still want to have sex with you, it's one of our few real multitasking talents." And while she has meanwhile moved on to studying again and finishing her Master, they still see each other when he's in town - for well-lit business lunches I am told (and she received another job offer from him to help him in his new lobbying position - she declined, but felt flattered).
I don't think the guy did anything criminally inappropriate (and told my daughter at the time:
"Welcome to the real world, unless you are butt-ugly as a woman, this will happen to you again and again, you will have to learn how to handle it gracefully."), but I was actually proud of her reaction. She became neither a victim nor did she go on a vendetta character-assassinating him.