Can't you see past the fact that she's a woman? Don't you see how demoralizing any of this would be?
Advances have an unknown state until they're responded to. If she had accepted it, it would've been a welcomed advance. There's no way to know that until you walk up to a woman and say "Hey, I think you're pretty cool. Want to go get a drink sometime?"
If she says no, that's unwanted, but I don't see how it's inappropriate.
I'm saying as a general concept, the very phrase "unwanted advance" has lots of implications of sexual misconduct, when it really can just be as simple as a guy asking a girl out, and her saying no. I don't see what's inappropriate there.
I don't want to be hit on at work. It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional. And if I were a minority in my office I would find it very hard to deal with.
From the article, he did not say "Want to get a drink some time?"
> [He] asked himself over to “talk,” and then professed his love, and “hesitated” when asked to leave.
But she did get hit on at work and started dating a co-worker (I'm assuming the guy she's dating initiated contact). If that was acceptable by her, then this logic about it being "totally inappropriate and unprofessional" is moot.
I do not agree with what the co-worker did in terms of reverting commits and all that, but his initial behavior can be chalked up to all these romantic comedies where the protagonist professes his love for the cute girl and it all ends happily ever after.
All I'm saying is that you can't demonize his initial approach.
It's inappropriate for your other coworkers to hit on you if they know you are in a relationship, regardless of whether that relationship happens to be with a coworker. Where her and her partner actually hit on each other may not have been at work.
I've successfully done stuff with co-workers before, but it happened in undertones. I did not go to anyone's house to profess my love. That's creepy no matter who's doing it.
The coworker knew of her relationship, and after the rejection "started passive-aggressively ripping out my code."
That is a terrible thing to happen to anyone.
This is why it's better to make an early advance with some plausible deniability, so you can back off if there's no mutual interest (e.g. backing away: "Ha, just kidding ... what, you thought I wanted to date you for real? That's crazy talk ... we're co-workers, and it would never work out, we're so different.")