I’m the woman who Julia asked on a hunch about her experiences with Owen, and one of the women who Owen refers to when he says there have been four other less egregious occasions where he expressed feelings of attraction that he regrets. I’m sharing my experience with Owen below, because I think it’s probably helpful for people reflecting on this situation (and by default, it would remain confidential indefinitely), but as an FYI, I’m probably unlikely to participate in substantive discussion about it in the comments section. (I’m posting this anonymously because I’d prefer to avoid being pulled into lots of discussions about this in a way that drains my time and emotional energy, not because I’m afraid of retribution from someone or negative consequences for my career.)
Several years ago, I stayed at Owen’s house for a while while I was visiting Oxford. Owen and I were friends, I had been to his house several times before, and he had previously offered that I could stay there if I was in Oxford. I was working at an EA organization at the time that was not professionally connected to Owen.
Towards the end of my stay, Owen and I went on a long walk around Oxford, where we talked about a lot of different things, including my romantic interests. At one point in the conversation (potentially adjacent to me talking about my romantic interests, though I can’t remember), Owen told me he was attracted to me.
I didn’t feel pressured or particularly uncomfortable hearing Owen’s comment, but I found it somewhat jarring, given Owen was someone who I perceived as influential and meaningfully senior to me in the community, and I remember feeling worried about the possibility that Owen would make similar comments to other young women who might feel more uncomfortable. I don’t remember exactly how I responded– my best recollection is that I told him that that was flattering to hear (pretty sure I said this), but also felt a bit weird (less sure that I said this, but I do remember that he apologized to me, so presumably I communicated this somehow, though it may have been implicit), and that I thought he shouldn’t say this kind of thing to younger EAs in the future (I’m sure I gave him some kind of feedback like this, but I don’t remember how specific it was, e.g. whether I said “younger EAs” or some other reference class). Owen apologized to me, and we continued the conversation; we remained on good terms afterwards.
It didn’t occur to me to tell anyone about this at the time (I’m not sure I even knew there was a Community Health team that I could report things to), and I basically forgot about this interaction until a few years later (within the last two years), when Julia Wise emailed me asking me if I had had any experiences with Owen that seemed a little off. (She also gave me some vague, high-level information about a minor-sounding experience someone else had had with Owen, which I won’t share here to protect that person’s confidentiality.) I recounted the incident above to her, and told her I thought it would be good for Owen to receive feedback about how senior he seemed to others in the community, as it seemed to me in our interaction that he hadn’t perceived or internalized this, and wasn’t considering how it could create power dynamics that changed how certain personal interactions came across.
I’m the woman who Julia asked on a hunch about her experiences with Owen, and one of the women who Owen refers to when he says there have been four other less egregious occasions where he expressed feelings of attraction that he regrets. I’m sharing my experience with Owen below, because I think it’s probably helpful for people reflecting on this situation (and by default, it would remain confidential indefinitely), but as an FYI, I’m probably unlikely to participate in substantive discussion about it in the comments section. (I’m posting this anonymously because I’d prefer to avoid being pulled into lots of discussions about this in a way that drains my time and emotional energy, not because I’m afraid of retribution from someone or negative consequences for my career.)
Edited to clarify: My interaction with Owen happened after the interaction reported in TIME, but before Owen received feedback about the TIME interaction from Julia.