A co-worker saw a photo of a male celebrity on my computer

Any cover story you try to come up now will sound contrived and make it seem like you have something to hide or be embarrassed about. Which you don't. At all. Please let this go. Seconding this. A tame picture of an actor on your computer is nothing to be embarrassed about. If anything, your coworker probably sensed your anxiety and embarrassment and thought that maybe HE (not the picture) was making you uncomfortable. There's no need to explain or tell him who the actor is or why you had the picture on your computer. Nothing you say now can undo the past tension (whatever the cause really was), and bringing it back up will only result in more awkwardness. Just act normal the next time you see him. Nothing happened, so continue as nothing happened. You can resolve now to send him the story when it's finished. Absolutely not this. If a coworker sent me fan fiction about their celeb crush, unsolicited, this would make me super extra uncomfortable. Like to the point of involving HR.

No one can say with certainty, but from what you describe, it sounds like he was reacting to your own discomfort and awkwardness. Literally no one gets through life without occasional embarrassment. I find that the best way to handle these things is simply acknowledge them in the moment. Had you said "Oh don't mind these pictures. Just my current obsession. Ha, ha, I'm such a perv" and laughed about it, your co-worker probably would have laughed right along with you. These little foibles are endearing and humanizing! Any cover story you try to come up now will sound contrived and make it seem like you have something to hide or be embarrassed about. Which you don't. At all. Please let this go.

Embarrassment can be an extremely strong emotion and it can be totally gripping in the most horrible way. I do think your embarrassment is real. I also think that you're completely overreacting and the best thing for you to do outwardly is nothing. Next week, engage this coworker in some easy work-related conversation. That will give him reassurance that you're professional on the extremely slim chance that he's feeling weird about you. But really, truly, the issue does not lie between you and him. Anything like making up a fake relative, over-explaining your free time hobbies, assuming motives for his actions that he didn't actually indicate, all these will just make you act unprofessional and add more stress to your life, which you clearly do not need. Why are you feeling so embarrassed? Why do you think you have anything to apologize for? I don't think you have anything to apologize for - your race and gender and seniority in the company doesn't mean you aren't allowed to enjoy the business of celebrity like everybody else in this country is pushed to every moment they're awake. I think that a lot of your emotional reaction is from how women, and black women, and black women in their 30s, are socially conditioned to feel shame for daring to exist in the same sphere as other humans (white, male, young). This sucks and is not your fault. Since you say this guy is on the quiet side, the nicest thing you could do for him is allow him to be quiet. The nicest thing you could do for yourself is to figure out how to release these feelings of embarrassment, because they're not doing anybody any good.

You know how a professional gets over stuff like that? She makes a point of acting bold, cheerful and normal. She makes a point of addressing her coworkers in exactly the same way as before her embarassed moment. She initiates lots of positive and work related interactions and conversations, and buries the incident under them. She meets the people who she feels anxious about head on. Because what friendly coworkers want most of all is for you to stop acting weird. You panicked, your panic became palpable, it discomfitted your coworker, he gave you some space and now hopes you got over it ( or rather, he's probably forgotten it). The last thing your coworkers want is to have to deal with your fraught emotions. The picture may be mildly amusing to them. Your hangingabout anxiously, apologising, explaining, seeking reassurance would be seen as drama. Going into hiding would hurt your work relationships. This would be way, way worse than any of your pics or stories getting out into the open. If it ever happens again, and if your coworkers are people you share a laugh with now and again, I would laugh it off. Like, "whoops, now you know my biggest secret!" And then either change the subject, or let them tease you a bit. Either way: pretend this never happened.

Forgot to add, no, don't address this with him, don't bring it up with any other colleagues either. It's a non-issue, nothing happened and there is nothing to address.

Dude you are catastrophising something fierce. Take a deep breathe. Think about this, there could be a million reasons why you would have photos like that in your computer and he didn't give a shit, and if he does that is 100% his problem not yours. Think about this, why are you worrying that he saw a tame picture on your computer, why isn't he worrying that he might have freaked you out by moving away for no reason? I submit this is partly due to your clearly anxious personality, and partly because women are conditioned and expected to worry about men's reactions however justified in our sexist society . The fact it relates to something that is largely perceived as a gendered hobby makes this stand out to me. Also they're a million reasons why he might have looked away. Anything you say or do will be more unprofessional than the existence of those pictures on your hard drive

Uh... this just seems like a non-issue to me. Unless your company has a strict no-personal-files-on-work-computers rule? That would be something to stress over. Here's what your question makes me think: - She's young. - She's worried about looking unprofessional. - She may be attracted to this co-worker. - She's worried about looking immature in front of the co-worker. - She's totally over-reacting. - THAT is what will end up making her look bad, if anything does. If the pictures are as mild as you say, they're not the problem. Your self-consciousness is.

If it helps, I saved a picture of Patrick Stewart with his shirt off on my home computer once (for reasons) and didn't realise that the computer automatically stored it in the most recent folder I had used. Which was my screen backgrounds folder in Dropbox, which my work computer also syncs to for random backgrounds that change every hour. My boss was in the room working with me when the background changed to Patrick Stewart looking sexy. My boss raised his eyebrows. I said, oops! and changed the background. We both laughed and neither of us ever mentioned it again. And dude, your situation is so much less embarrassing than that. Your picture was clothed. It was not taking up your entire screen. The guy who who saw it was not your boss. You're fine.

Starpoint, that comment was deleted for good reason. I didn't catch it but it's probably not in this thread anymore because it was so flat-out wrong and so many people flagged it. Please do your best to detach from your feelings of shame. It wasn't porn, softcore or otherwise. It was a picture of a celebrity, the sort that is in dentist office magazines and on the sides of buses. You're having cyclical negative thoughts. Please go for a walk, listen to some distracting music, do some exercise, sing a song, watch an engrossing movie, do something to get your mind out of this spiral you're in right now. Anything that isn't self-harm, because that is what you are currently doing. Please stop hurting yourself about this.