Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Don't Shit Where You Eat(?)

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This is the running mantra for office romances. Don't Shit Where You Eat. Corporate Executives and Secretaries be dayumed, office romances have taken that concept and shot it into a time capsules. Workplace Romances, as they are called, have eclipsed into a totally different concept these days.

HOWEVER. . .

Most of the time when you are in a location where you are spending the majority of time with a group of individuals. Sparks will fly; attractions run amok. There are innumerable relationships that have started by hooking up from movies (Brangelina, Cruise/Kidman, I could go on an on). Late Night Meetings, traveling, Working Together on Projects that are either extremely stressful or equally rewarding, can trigger feelings, that, acted upon, turn into a steamy, passionate fling.

How many of us have seen, heard, and smelled the stench of an office/job romance from a mile away. Everytime you turn around these folks are either in each other's faces too much, or act like they don't know each other at all (a dead giveaway). They appear to be engrossed in work, but are indulging in Instant, Text, and Email Messaging, that becomes increasingly more passionate.

In the interest of fairness, I believe that many powerful relationships between John and Jane Doe progress to serious commitments up to and including marriage as a result of meeting on the job.

HOWEVER

Dr. Shirley Glass, author of Not “Just Friends” states "The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they’ve crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love. From an infidelity standpoint, Shirley Glass discovered in her practice that 50 percent of the unfaithful women and about 62 percent of unfaithful men she treated were involved with someone from work who was "Just a Friend" at first. And it happens to the best of them. Even those that help us fly the friendly skies. But It's NOT just physical affairs. Often times emotional adutery causes the most appeal, attraction, affection, and connections. That is extremely powerful (least that's what somebody told me).

BUT

How many of those relationships are the exception, rather than the rule. Are there more successes than failures? More makings for Reality TV? More Fairy Tales than Kissing Frogs? More room for Liars - (er, I mean LAWYERS), to get their hands on something that Georgie Porgy did to kiss the girl(s) (OR BOY) and make her cry? Does it produce a blossoming working environment, or does it call Psycho Betty to come out ot the closet?

Now it's time to turn it over to the readers:


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How do you feel about office dalliances?
Have you done them? Seen them? Any horror stories?

19 comments:

That Girl Tam said...

Well, let me say this I have been known to dabble in the office romance area a couple of times...ok - more like 6 or 7 times during my entire working life. I never really had a problem breaking shit off or moving on.

I remember this one guy I worked with...cute as all get out. I was trying to play coy with a touch of hard-to-get. There was another girl in the office that I thought I may have to fight with in order to get his attention. Little did I know that he was already checkin me out.

When we finally DID start dating, we kept it on the low for a couple of months - until our company Xmas party (our official "coming out").

By Christmas we were engaged. 6 months later we moved in together and a year from then we were married...yall know the rest. Now we've got 3 crazy children and a shitload of stories for them when they get older! HAHAHA!

chele said...

I met my sweetie at work 3 years ago. It started out innocent enough. We worked in two different departments so we didn't really have a lot of interaction at work.

At first.

Soon he started coming to my office more often. We'd meet in secret places. It was fun but it was getting out of hand. Eight months after we began dating I got another job. Not soley because of our romance but it did make things easier if we weren't working together. I mean, if we had an argument everyone knew. It was a pain.

P said...

By the way. . .

Don't get it twisted. . .

I've had my share of dalliances.

Makes it easier if they want to 'come' to HR about it.

HAHAHA! I crack myself up.

Cool AC said...

I have done the office thing once and you are right it started just like that, we were friends...talking in passing, emailing, going to lunch and then talking on the phone...I thought I could control it, but I got emotionally attached where I shoud not have been as he was married, so I had to cease all the chatting! He would still e-mail and come by my desk ALL the time, and that started to annoy me, so I had to threaten to tell his wife (which he would include on group fwds). He stopped after that.

P said...

Cool AC:

And yeah, Emotional Affairs, count. . .Those are the WORST, in fact. Imma edit my post because of you. . .

PS: No, he WASN'T including his WIFE on the forwarding emails. . .

Eew.

Lāā said...

I had one a looong time ago and it started out so innocent. He would talk to me about his baby mama drama and I would talk to him about my drama.

Initially I had no attraction to him because he was the type to only date white girls. Then it evolved. He was coming to work on his day off to see me. I was making and bringing him lunch daily. We even slyly coordinated our lunches together.

I ended up getting another job and we weren't able to see each other very often. I'm still friends with him to this day, but it just feels a little icky (lol) to be around him as a platonic friend, so I avoid him.

Msnhim said...

Hmmmm.... we dont really have any that i know of at work. I always advised against it cause if things go bad then you have to still see the dude.... no thanks

A.u.n.t. Jackie said...

i have done this one every which way but the right way.

there was my communter boyfriend, whom i would drink with allot, commute with, make out with on occasion, have occasional slumber parties, with (which mainly were him passing out on my couch after drinking) umm, limo rides..now he lives in LA and we are the closest of close friends, although we've never really worked together he counts.

then there was my other work boyfriend when i moved to LA. this was darksided because i was technically living with someone, but i never told him, but when he found out, we had a huge fight and he broke up with me in front of thirty or so of our coworkers....

not so good

then there was sweet baby who lived around the corner from our office when i lived an hour away. we were a marriage of convenience, that ended when our job ended..


then there are the things that happen on the road, that stay on the road.


i always swore i'd only date outside of my industry, but unfortunatly that's all good in theory but not in reality!

Rashan Jamal said...

Sheeeaat!! Have I?

Back in the day, I worked in a call center and was one of the few straight men in there, so I was like Denzel up there. But it wasnt all just casual stuff. I met a 2 year girlfriend and a 1 year girlfriend at work. Now, I am 'noid about the work relationships and sexual harrassment so I keep it completely professional.

I understand the appeal of it. You spend most of your time with these people, so occasionally you are gonna find someone you wanna get down with.

nikki said...

i've done it and i will never do it again! considering the fact that i work around a bunch of withered white dudes who get a chubby over splitting molecules, i don't have to worry about that happening.

Anonymous said...

Since I am in a predominately female occupation-NO. And there is not one man at my school that I find attractive anyway.

I've never really worked in an office setting. Just once, as an intern at a publishing company. I don't recall anyone being my type.

Would I ever? Probably, but it wouldn't be so smart, unless they ended up being my boyfriend/husband or something.

African girl, American world said...

too crazy to deal with.

hey P :)

Organized Noise said...

I've been in two office relationship. One was good and kept on the low. The other one was public and didn't last long. Would I do it again, probably not at my current job, but you can't help who you fall for.

Carmell said...

office what? what office? hee hee

Miz JJ said...

Never have. Most of the people I work with are considerably older.

Rose said...

I wouldn't tread at the office. Ususally these relationships go wrong and the mess or residual ends of affecting your job and reputation.

Sangindiva said...

Girl unfortunatly I have had one.
When you are on the road all the time with people-
shit just happens :(

But I don't reccommend doing that shit...
I hate when everyone knows my damn business!
I'm too private for that.

NegroPino™ said...

I wish there were some cute Doctors where i work......i know of only 1 office romance here and that ended with somebody being FIRED but only after HE fell in love...oh how cna i remember our young testosterone when I used to work @ Toys R US....i flirted with this guy and he used to give me rides home and then one nite.......his girlfriend worked with us too........then one time cuz the boss used to be nice to me they thought we was humping but he only liked big fat white girls....

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