Point taken, however. Even if he did not ignore Blondie's feeling and respectfully reject her I doubt the situation would be far from what happened due to her personality. She'll continue to be Jealous towards a Janitor which she'll may cause more harm in the future.
Blondie's just too spoiled no matter what society she's in, not even the other girlies as pushy as her. she's basically just too much.
Nah, in Japan if you’re being rejected, it’s considered to be more strict decline. They don’t even use word “no” when decline offer to go out and eat with friends, you always have to give proper excuse and apologize like your life on the line, cause otherwise it’s crazily impolite. That’s why office workers suffer from drinking parties, cause they would rather go than decline. And here is situation even worse, this girl is colleague from work.
It would be enough if he just said something like “you’re not my type” and she’d go separate ways with him. One polite “no” it’s already a big thing.
Well, anyways , it’s a work of fiction, so I’m just assuming based on my knowledge.
Yes yes, I totally get you and we won't really conclude anything here as I did not live long time in Japan anyway. I'm just saying that any public tantrums isn't justifiable whatever the reasoning is.
You guys don’t quite realize that this story is set in Japan, author is Japanese, and manners and stuff also Japanese.
Of course no one obliged to respond to someone else’s feeling towards them. But, it’s Japan. So, there are 職場の人間関係 aka manners between co-workers. Also 上下関係 aka why janitor has anything to do with higher positioned person. Also, not sure if you know, Japanese people have, like, a life credo: to work for the sake of society; to not ruin established rules by your own feelings. And by ignoring that girl feelings (that everyone knew about, and were bothered by it) Tooru basically made everyone uncomfortable for his own sake (there even was a moment when Tooru asks some random co-workers about this girl and realizes that she talked to basically everyone around him, desperately trying to get closer). He could have dealt with it long ago but preferred to just ignore the matter.
Once again, it’s how I see it from perspective of a person who knows some Japanese and read some books and articles on their society.
And well, I’m not actual Japanese so take it with a grain of salt.