I am fasdf. Basically, I had already been so misunderstood, I thought the best approach was to say no more on the matter. Given how seriously she misunderstood one comment, who's to say how she could misinterpret another? (thinking that I was implying she was unattractive, etc.) She would say, as a group of us headed to an event, etc., "XXXX, we're just going to this as friends, I'm not interested in dating you, you know that, right?" (she would literally say things like this). I'd just nod and say "mmhmm" because anything else felt risky.

Yeah that's a tough situation to navigate if you know the other person isn't a rational actor.

In my experience, you have two real options:

1. Add no new information

2. Add new information as unambiguously as possible

I've personally found that dealing with the matter up front and letting the issue burn itself out is the best long term approach to keeping your own sanity.

There's a technique to the second one for making sure your bases are covered professionally since you're in potentially risky territory. Part of it is reporting what's happening to your manager and HR (paper trail). The second part is saying something like "Look, I'm not interested in you, never was. You're not even my friend. You're my co-worker, and we're going to hang out with co-workers. Are you okay with that?"

That's too bad. Maybe there is nothing you can do, since your nod and "mmhmmm" was not noticed. Maybe you have to mention a girlfriend to maintain symmetry, or something. It is uncomfortable to be misunderstood in this way; it's not necessarily all under your control. For what it's worth, I think it's fine to say directly, "I'm not interested in dating you," and let the chips fall where they may, but I understand that makes some people uncomfortable.

"Letting the chips fall where they may" can include permanent unemployability. Let's just say I'm not going to be asking anyone else to catch up over coffee.

Will you be believed when you clarify, that's then another thing...

One can't live one's whole life worried about this. When I (female) ask male colleagues etc for informational interviews, work coffee, other meetings, I face the same problem. All you can do is be clear in the first place and exit gracefully if misunderstanding persists.

"Hey, I'm really interested in your experience teaching kids how to create GUIs using tkinter. Could I ask you about that over coffee?" If there's a persistent misunderstanding that this is a romantic conversation, you just gotta leave it -- nothing else to do.

The natural conclusion of this train of thought is to never ask someone out for coffee to begin with as the OP was suggesting.

If you're going to take it that way, don't interact with humans ever. You do you, my friend. But that's black-and-white illogical thinking. "Once I asked a woman to discuss a tech thing and then she mentioned her boyfriend forever." Who cares? One person had a hangup or a bad experience, and the horrible outcome is that she mentioned her boyfriend a few times. Try again with someone else, guy or gal. Try asking two people to coffee at once. There won't be any tragedies if you are polite and professional.

I care.

I care when a woman takes a totally innocuous statement or question the wrong way and thinks to her self "That guy is creepy."

I care when she tells her friends "stay away from that guy, he's a creep."

I care when she gets promoted and becomes my boss and thinks "that guys a creep."

>the horrible outcome is that she mentioned her boyfriend a few times.

You're missing the point. The horrible outcome is that she will forever hold the irrational concern that you're hitting on her. It will colour everything you say or do.

I think he/she got the point, but just doesn't see it as a big deal. I don't either, though I can understand the hesitation.

The parent poster's point is that you really can't let that bother you, and that in situations like these a thicker skin for awkwardness pared with straightforward but polite communication will serve you better in the long run.

Exactly.

Since my bad experience inviting a female colleague out to coffee, I've never really gotten too socially close to my female colleagues, and it has harmed neither my professional career nor my social life. I have female friends, I just don't make them at work.

There will always be people who take things you say or do the wrong way. That just comes with the territory. If you want to be good at your tech job, you won't be able to avoid working with other people in some form, so you might as well make the best of it.

Your best move is to play the game with both hands above the table, not to avoid playing the game at all.

Here's a suggestion for what to say: "Sounds like there's some sort of misunderstanding. I'm not interested in you as anything more than a coworker. We're on the same team and I need to know how to work with you. If you don't want coffee how about we just chat sometime in a meeting room?"

If they're still being weird about it, then it's probably worth discussing with your manager because that other person is probably generally difficult to work with. Also to cover your own ass from the specter of future sexual harassment issues if that's what you're worried about.

If you're just worried about the other person making it weird... I don't mean to dismiss the concern, but there are plenty of weird people out there, and it's unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

>bad experiences

This can swing both ways of course. I've had situations where colleagues were interested in me, and got nasty when I made sure they knew it was professional coffee.