Should you date your co-workers? Read this first
Chances are, you’ve experienced a bit of office romance — haven’t we all?
Ah, yes, the classic dilemma: Is it love, lust, or just the printer fumes messing with your head? Your colleague at work is suddenly giving you the butterflies, and you’re left wondering if it’s wise to feed the worms or kill them asap. I’ll tell you this for free: kill them with immediate alacrity, unless… (you’ll have to read till the end)
There’s something irresistibly charming about the “colleagues to lovers” storyline. You know the drill; it usually starts innocently.
You’re both always on the same team projects, or maybe different departments. Sometimes you notice their existence from the moment you set your eyes on their beautiful face, and other times, they are a colleague doing their own thing. Then one day, you grab lunch together or you attend an office retreat, and you notice this regular human is suddenly the best thing after sliced bread.
Your brain just keeps going, flipping through every interaction and breaking down every minute into endless seconds that are bursting at the seams with new reasons for you to love them. Next thing you know, you’re saving each other a seat at a team meeting and exchanging playlists. You tell yourself, it’s just good vibes. Plus, you don’t poop where you eat and a million and one sayings about not mixing business with pleasure. But there is something just thrilling and dangerous about liking the girl or guy in the next cubicle. So, you go through the confusion phase – do you tell them? Is it even allowed? Will it ruin the easy flow you both have at work?
Chances are, you’ve experienced a bit of office romance — haven’t we all? (sips tea).
Look, office romances aren’t rare. They’re like that suspicious leftover cake in the fridge, everyone knows about it, but nobody wants to admit they took a bite. Still, real life isn’t a rom-com, and the stakes are higher when your paycheck is involved.
Work is where you meet people. It’s where you bond over intense projects, present your smarter self as you solve problems, and share inside jokes about horrible bosses. And yet, the heart does what it wants. The truth is, office romances can be very tricky, and I generally will not recommend them. But they happen all the time, and when they do, there are three possible outcomes:
The relationship turns sour and your reputation and career take a beating; it ends, but you're both mature and cordial and don't let the breakup affect your work, or things work out and you get married. And I have seen these three outcomes work for different people in the course of my career.
If you must cross the line from “just coworkers” to “just us,” here are the Unwritten Rules of Office Romance:
Read the room and the HR policy. Some companies are chill. Others will have you escorted out faster than you can say "conflict of interest.”
Keep it low-key, not LinkedIn official. Your coworkers shouldn’t find out about your romance because you’re whispering in the break room.
Don’t date your boss (or your boss’s boss). This isn’t a shortcut to career growth, it’s a one-way ticket to Awkwardville.
Know your exit strategy. If things end, can you still say “Happy Monday” without plotting their demise over coffee?
Keep your gist off the grid. Telling just one friend in the office is like forwarding your nudes to a group chat by “mistake.” It will spread.
Don’t date someone who’s already taken. Office romance is risky enough without adding “Homewrecker” to your LinkedIn skills.
So… wondering how my own office love story started? Let’s just say you’ll need to subscribe to the newsletter to get the juicy details. Stick around. The tea gets hotter.
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