phobia of men
The story
Ok so I have never typed this out anywhere, not even in my notes app. I have a phobia of men. Not the "I'm a little shy around guys" kind, an actual phobia, the kind where my hands go cold and I forget how to breathe normal. I'm 29, I work in accounts payable for a mid size logistics company, and for almost three years I had the quiet luck of being on an all female team. Then on October 6 my manager walked in with a new hire, Daniel, and said "he'll be working with you on the Q4 vendor reconciliation." I smiled, said welcome, and spent the next twenty minutes in a bathroom stall trying to get my heartrate down.
I looked it up once and apparently the clinical word is androphobia, which honestly made me feel worse, like it's a real thing with a name and I still cant fix it. I know where my fear of men comes from and I'm not going to get into it here. What matters is that it isn't about Daniel. He has been nothing but polite. He makes a joke about the printer, he holds the door, he asks if I want a coffee from the machine downstairs. Normal stuff. And every single time my brain treats it like a fire alarm.
The problem is the work. The reconciliation project is maybe 40 percent done and we're supposed to deliver it by the end of November. That means two or three sit downs a week, side by side at the same desk, looking at the same spreadsheet. On Tuesday he leaned over to point at a line on my screen and I flinched, like physically rolled my chair back. He noticed. He said "sorry, I'll give you some space" in this really careful voice and I wanted to disappear. Now I'm pretty sure he thinks I don't like him, or worse, that he did something wrong, and he didn't.
I have tried the obvious things. I suggested we do most of it over Teams even though we sit 15 feet apart, which is weird and he definately knows it's weird. I book our meetings in the glass room where everyone can see in, because being alone with him in a closed office is the one thing I truly can't do yet. I prep every question in advance so the conversations stay short. It works, kind of, but its exhausting and it's starting to make me look difficult. My manager already asked me, half joking, if I "had a problem with the new guy." I said no. What else do I say?
What scares me most isn't even the next few weeks, it's what this means for my career. I want to go for the senior role when it opens next year. That job means managing vendors, doing site visits, sitting in rooms full of men I don't know. If I can't share a desk with one nice coworker without panicking, how am I supposed to do any of that? I know "just get therapy" is the answer and I actually did book a first appointment for the 18th. But the project is now, and Daniel is now.
So I guess I'm asking two things. Is it unfair to Daniel to keep managing this around him without telling him anything? Part of me thinks he deserves at least a vague explanation, part of me would rather quit than say the words out loud at work. And has anyone here actually worked through a phobia of men while holding down a job that puts you next to one every day? I don't need to be fixed by Monday. I just need to know it's possible.
