Hi all! -sorry in advance for the length-
So this will be my first time posting, and it's come to this because I can't take my lovely friends' advice.
I work at a fast food joint and one too many times a few of my managers seem to comment on my apparent "flirtatious" nature towards the guys at work, myself being a girl, but the most recent caught my attention and now I need to know whats up.
Although, when I look at the situations myself, I have the same kinds of conversations with my female and male co workers, im just a- for lack of perfect wording- playful (?) person. I joke around a lot, just in general conversation, I don't like to take things too seriously because life's too short you know? So if boys are being boys and say a jokingly flirty line (my friend called it "flirtatious banter" if that makes any sense) I tend to brush it off in a joking manner as well because im just a little immature to take guys seriously right now. Im 17 (going on 18), and a lot of people see that as the perfect age to whisk yourself into a teen romance, but i haven't figured out how to do that yet, so im just trying to be positive with everything else in my life.
The way I deal with the guys at work is how I deal with everyone, maybe its just too friendly? Like theres sexual jokes thrown around, but thats just the kind of immature conversation people my age, whom are mostly the people i work with, have- right? Then theres jokes thrown around about me being one of the guy's girlfriend, that we just joke around with being like "oh yeah, we've been dating for 5 years now" etc etc, like it's all taken so light heartedly and everyone, including the managers, knows that- they just call it out rather than join in. Its a fast food joint so its a very relaxed atmosphere in general and everyones really friendly with each other, I just don't know why im such an outlier.
Anyways, with that background, a recent matter kinda irked (?) me a little, if thats the right word.
Pretty much theres a guy that I get along with well, except he's 9 years older. Only reason we get along is because he's very immature for his age. He's still a man and I still recognise him as older than me, except he acts as if he's like 20, when he's in fact 26. A couple days ago, at one of my last shifts a recently new manager was listening to our "flirtatious banter" and then said "Wow, Im feeling a lot of sexual tension between the two of you." which both of us looked confused by that statement, but we kinda just joked along with it saying stuff like "oh yeah, so much tension, so much" etc etc but then on my break, me and this guy were talking and the same manager was walking towards where we were sitting talking to the rest of the crew. We could hear her coming and then she said "I'm fully expecting to walk in on them going at it in the crew room".
Again we kinda just looked at each other confused, then she arrived to where we were and said "hey, why aren't you guys on top of each other?" and I don't really know why she was being so forward with the situation? We were honestly just talking, and yeah we do talk a lot, but there's never anything remotely sexual- and if there is its always an obvious joke, just like with everyone else.
I told my friend, pretty much everything above, and she insists that because she knows me and sees the way I behave around everyone and that im just a playful personality and the new manager just doesn't get that yet. But I just don't understand why my conversations, or just me interacting with the guys at work, is flirtatious. I know when I flirt, I know how to flirt, and I don't do it at work, but why would my new manager pick it out like that?