The Quick Guide To Office Romances
Most offices have all the ingredients needed to spark a romance. In fact, you’ll find a lot of the same elements in an office that make high school and college the fertile dating grounds that they are. Every office romance has the potential to end badly. They can destroy careers or make a once great working environment intolerable. Finding your perfect soulmate at work is also possible - just ask Bill and Melinda Gates.
Although many companies and employers have rules against dating in the office, they usually only manage to protect the company against litigation and dissuade people from inappropriate flirting. Rarely will they stop two people from starting a romance once the chemistry between them takes charge. The best thing that you can do is be aware of the risks and the benefits of romantic relationships at work and figure out how it will affect your work, your career, and how those things will affect the relationship itself. Then you can decide whether it’s the right thing to do.
How office romances happen
When men and women spend forty or more hours a week together they get to know each other pretty well after working together every day for several months. You get to see each others strengths, weaknesses and everything in between. After awhile we all tend to gravitate towards people who share similar interests, a similar outlook on life, or a sense of humor that never fails to make us smile. All this time we spend with the people we work with is the first part of the equation.
You probably spend more hours each week with your coworkers than you do with your friends or going out to socialize and meet new people. That’s the second part of the equation. It’s pretty simple - you’re most likely to find a romantic spark in amongst the group of people that you spend the most time with. Especially if it’s a large office with a diverse collection of people.
The single biggest advantage to love that starts in the workplace is all the time you’ve spent getting to know each other. You already know what it’s like to spend a lot of time with them - maybe even in high pressure or competitive situations. You both know all the same inside jokes. You might even share your individual strengths to manage the work load more easily.
Bad ideas for office romance
There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you’re sleeping and working with someone. Here’s a list of things to be aware of, and to try to avoid.
- One of you might have to fire or demote the other, or you might both be competing for the same promotion.
- A personal relationship can create favoritism for your partner that leaves others you work with disillusioned. On the other hand, you’ll both expect a certain sense of loyalty and inner circle treatment and disrespecting that will hurt the relationship. This is a difficult thing to balance and can force you into having to make very difficult choices.
- Spending all day and all night with each other can get on anyone’s nerves after awhile. Every couple needs some down time to hang out with other friends or enjoy personal pursuits. And all the time spent together at work may not count as the real quality time that you need to spend with each other to really enjoy your relationship.
- Rumors and gossip will start to spread as soon as the office chatterbox spots those innocent smiles you throw at each other that aren’t so innocent. If you manage to keep your dating a secret then the flirtations of other people in the office towards one of you could spark jealousy or even confrontation.
- If you break up, and especially if it’s messy or sudden, your workday could turn into eight hours of absolute hell. Sometimes the best thing you can do is throw yourself into your work after a breakup to move on and get your mind onto more productive things. That’s not going to help you if you have to see this person every day.
Office romance etiquette
- Always be professional at work. Kissing, flirting or talking relationship stuff is only going to annoy or distract everyone else. And it will make the higher ups question your ability to focus on the job.
- Don’t put little hugs and kisses on memos or in your emails to each other and never talk about personal plans or intimate encounters. A lot of companies monitor email to monitor worker productivity. They also store copies of emails and instant messages in case they need a record of internal or external communications for a legal dispute.
- Never gossip with each other about anyone you work with or about the clients, suppliers or other companies your company does business with. If the relationship goes sour, this will come back to haunt you in a big way. It could destroy your career and your options for finding employment elsewhere if you can’t continue to work with each other.
- Sooner or later everyone will find out what’s going on. If the relationship is serious then it’s often best to demystify the speculation and let everyone know that you’re dating. Don’t make a big production out of it - just state the facts briefly and segway the conversation back to work related topics. Keep the private details private.
Office romances are like any other romance - some turn out great and some don’t. The best advice is to take it slow and get a feel for the good things and the bad things that might come with it, and how you’ll handle the road ahead no matter what happens. Hopefully, your next step will be to figure out how to make moving in together work.
