Intimidation

I'm sitting across the desk from my boss in his 1970's wood paneled office that overlooks the manufacturing floor.

"You're incredibly intimidating."

As the words come out of his mouth, obvious confusion crosses my face. It's not something I've ever been called before.

"You're beautiful and brilliant."

The confusion on my face turns into a deep blush accompanied by stuttering. My boss is a married male twice my age with two small children. If he hadn't come into my office that morning to announce that he quit, I would certainly be on my way to HR. Still, it leaves me confused, but instead of a quick jaunt to HR, we get into a conversation about lots of things.

I've been working with the company, with this boss, for about seven months now. It's my first rotation at my first job out of college from first job offer I received. I still view things naively and feel like I act quite childishly. In my head, I still consider myself a girl. I admit that I'm flattered by my boss's assertions, but I want to say that it's all a facade. The confidence he sees in my actions is actually my ego. The brilliance he sees in my actions are mere shadows of some of the brilliance I've encountered in my lifetime. The intimidation he attributes to these things really must be nothing more than bewilderment at this weird combination of a female engineer with an Olin education. I'm still just a girl and can't possibly intimidate men.

Still, my boss insists that I am incredibly intimidating. All I can think about is all the classmates I found incredibly intimidating. I want to tell him about Polina, the smoking hot Russian with more intelligence and drive than I'll ever have, who ran marathons and goes to Stanford. I want to tell him about Jeff who is the perfect all-American blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy that managed to finish all his homework in fractional time, was married, and still managed to be helpful without expectation of reciprocation. I want to tell him of professors who wrote research papers, grants, taught full loads of exciting and innovative classes, and still made time to know their students. I want to show my boss that I'm not these people, I can't possibly be intimidating.

If these examples don't work, perhaps my boss should try to see the world through my eyes. I'm intimidated by pretty much everyone I've met in the company. I'm not quiet because I'm thoughtful. I'm quiet because everyone knows more than I do and if I open my mouth I'll just be showing them my stupidity. I hate asking people for help because I'm afraid they'll tell me I'm doing it wrong. I work longer hours and focus harder than other people to make up for my innate deficiency and lack of working knowledge. My life is living in intimidation. How can someone so intimidated by everyone else be intimidating?

Even though I'm out of his office, I'm still kind of reeling. Did today really happen? Is this all some kind of subverted sexism? What makes a person intimidating and is that something I really want to be?

I'm so confused. Everything is so intimidating.