Should You Date Someone You Work With?

Oh it all sounds so convenient.
You’re sick of trawling the dancefloor at 3am, tired of Tinder, and so over your mates’ tireless efforts to set you up with their boring friend, Betty.

You’ve spotted someone you fancy at work – this is brilliant; you can practically get paid to flirt with her. Once she inevitably decides that she loves you back, your life will be so much easier; you can go to work in one car, lunch together and have sneaky supply cupboard sessions when nobody’s looking.

It all sounds positively idyllic until your at-home conversation starts to sound like this:

“How was your day?”
“Yeah fine. Did you manage to finish those accounts for me?”
“Yep.”

And that’s it.
If you’re lucky.

The other distinct possibility is that you start bringing work irritations home with you until your front room is just a slightly comfier extension of your desks.

Soon, the only earth shattering change to the routine will be when one of you buys a new coffee mug.

We jest, but part of the fun of dating is learning new things from people, and having someone to vent to about how ridiculous your job can be.

If the person you’re talking to shares the same space with you all day, you end up with precisely nothing to talk about apart from how hideous your co-worker’s new suit is.

Dating someone at work is admittedly exciting…

It can feel so decadent in the initial stages, but if even the slightest thing goes tits up (and not in the good way); it can ruin so much more than just your relationship.

Your office dynamic, your happiness at work, or even promotion opportunities. Plus, it’s hard enough finding out on Facebook that she’s seeing someone else – imagine what it’s like to hear her talking about it in the canteen with HR Sandra. Especially when HR Sandra was your friend first.
Cheeky trysts over the photocopier might seem like a tantalising option at the time, but you need to consider whether your job requires you to work harmoniously if the whole thing goes disastrously wrong. Because believe you me, there’s nothing harder than maintaining a professional air when you’re furious with her over something that’s happened at home, whether she’s just left her dirty clothes all over the floor, or left you entirely.

There’s also the fact that it might not actually be allowed under your work regulations; which might seem incredibly archaic, but there’s probably a reason behind the rule. That reason is probably that at some point, a warring couple brought their cat custody battle to the office with them, and nobody wants to work in that atmosphere.

We don’t want to sound like doom-and-gloom merchants; we just know it’s quite hard to take board meetings seriously when you’ve seen some of your colleagues in their pants.

So we recommend having a serious think about whether it’s worth having a crack at the new girl in accounts, no matter how hard she rocks that pencil skirt.

She can walk in heels, but can still put up a mean shelf. London lesbian at large Ami writes about London, lesbians and being perpetually disillusioned. She also co-edits Reprobait Magazine, which is pretty good, even if she says so herself.

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