Who do you turn to when you need advice? If a neutral sounding board is what you need, e-mail us! We are here to help you keep a level head and an open heart on life’s bumpy road to happiness.
Dating in high school and college is so easy. You may not think so while you are there, but believe us, having a select pool of candidates makes finding someone to date infinitely easier. Everyone is the same age and of the same mindset.
When college ends, the dating difficulty begins. You are no longer surrounded by hundreds of options. So where do you go to meet someone? Bars are the first choice, but it gets old and obnoxious after a while. Blind dates are not all they are cracked up to be. Which leaves Internet dating, and, well, you know how we feel about that.
So what about the tried-and-true office romance? Is it something to avoid like the plague, or is your future spouse sitting a few cubicles away?
Krystle thinks that work is a great place to meet someone. Granted, she doesn’t have a lot of experience dating in this setting.
She finds nothing wrong with dating someone at work as long as it is appropriate and you aren’t violating any HR rules. After all, it’s only natural to become interested in someone you see every day and have a good working relationship with. In fact, the way you work together may be a good indicator of how you would behave in a relationship.
If you don’t have a lot of opportunity to meet people outside of work, then work is as good a place as any. She would, however, advise you proceed with caution. Workplace romance should never interfere with one’s job. It should never be overly obvious that you are having a relationship with someone. It’s personal and should be kept that way.
Erin has a rule when it comes to office romance: It’s a no-no. After a relationship ended badly with a co-worker, Erin promised herself she would never date someone in her office again.
While in the relationship, you constantly have it on your mind that you don’t want anyone to find out. It becomes very difficult to focus on spreadsheets and e-mail when you are thinking about the other person or see them passing your cubicle. Forget about sitting in a conference room with windows. Have you ever tried to keep a straight face when your significant other keeps walking past with a smirk on their face?
If you continue dating after one or both of you move on to new jobs, it will be fine for you in the long run. But what happens when you break up while you are both working for the same company? You could end up like Erin, when she burst into tears every time her ex-boyfriend walked past or someone mentioned his name. It doesn’t look great to your boss when you suddenly cannot work on a project with that person.
Whether you believe it’s a good idea or a nightmare waiting to happen, we suggest that you proceed with caution. Do not carpool to work or constantly have lunch dates as you will only draw more attention to yourselves.
Keep your personal relationship separate from your work relationship as you would with someone you didn’t work with. Our feeling is that you will end up with whoever you should end up with in the long run, whether they are a co-worker or not!
