At my new job, I work with (and am the leader of) people in their 20s and early 30s. Most of them are dudes, but there is one woman engineer (yes, only one) on the overall team. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a job site where she was working (along with several other engineers) to be trained on how to do a site visit.

I feel like every time I happened to look her way she was looking my way, as if she was “catching” me doing something I shouldn’t be. Now, to be fair, I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t — I didn’t ogle her, didn’t touch her (except to shake hands one time), didn’t make any inappropriate remarks; I acted as a leader should do. And in fact she taught me several things that are good to know in general about job sites and site visits.

I just felt… weird. Self-conscious, I guess. She’s the only woman in the room and I’m sure all that male energy can be overwhelming. But I was observing everything I could observe — all the engineers, my mentor, the job site, you name it. As a trainee it’s my job to observe. And she didn’t say anything or act any type of way; in fact, she was very friendly and kind, and we had a few good discussions about things like cooking shows.

It was most noticeable to me when I drove us all (five in total) to lunch one day. She was sitting in the middle seat in the back of the car and, as a result, every time I checked my rear-view mirror I saw her. It felt like she was looking at me every time I looked in the mirror. Who knows; maybe she was. Or maybe that’s just where her eyes happened to be as I drove.

I think that by being conscious of my actions I’ve taken the first step toward not being the creepy guy. It just worries me — the fact that she’s the only woman on the team, the fact that she’s about 15 years younger than me (maybe more), the fact that she happens to be conventionally attractive and probably is quite aware of how men can be in general. However, the only time I ever made a somewhat-inappropriate joke toward a female co-worker was more than 20 years ago — we were working in very close quarters (I was training her) and she happened to have very large breasts. I was constantly moving my arm closer and closer to my own body to keep from touching her inappropriately (very close quarters, very large breasts). I eventually said something to the effect of: “My left arm is being as chivalrous as possible, but I need to apologize in advance if something happens.” She took it in the way it was intended and to this day we still laugh about my “chivalrous left arm”. Nowadays, and now that I’m a people manager, I’m way more conscious of the types of jokes I should and should not make, and I would never make an inappropriate joke or reference, especially to a female co-worker or subordinate..

But I still felt the potential to be the creepy guy on the site visit. No matter how hard I tried, the feeling didn’t leave me. I just hope I didn’t make the engineer uncomfortable.