Office Romance Gone Wrong

What you need to know about office dating

Photo by Trinity Kubassek from Pexels

Romance in the workplace is not a new phenomenon. There are times at the office where you can get romantically attracted to a particular colleague.

This usually happens in companies that are in high demand for your time that you barely have time for a social life.

Most companies strongly prohibit it, some do but not outrightly. That’s why office romance must be carried out with the utmost discretion of the parties involved.

There are a couple of things that can go wrong when both parties are not on the same wavelength.

Here is a list of possible things that can go wrong.

Rejection

This may have happened to you before. You have a crush or you are in great admiration of your coworker, be it male or female. You flirt at first, there seems to be a connection and then you go directly to make your intentions known only to be turned down.

When this rejection is not handled maturely, your ego seems to be bruised. This can lead course resentment and may lead to conflict between you both in your respective job roles.

Prying Eyes And Intrusions

Have you ever been in a situation where you tell a co-worker “I like Ann, she’s hot" and your co-worker is like “Really?”.

Before you know what’s happening, that co-worker goes like five paces ahead of you and starts flirting with your target to spite you.

There was this manager I had that liked women a lot. I always had hand creams in my drawer, so the ladies of the office always come by to request some.

I would normally have humorous conversations with them that made them laugh.

This usually pissed my manager so much that he would constantly interrupt or intrude with questions like “have you treated the mail John sent?” or he would retract his questions to the ladies and cause a break in my interaction with them, bringing them over to his desk🤣.

Relationship Gone Sour

If you guys ever succeed in hitting it off, be it a serious relationship or a fling, chances are you both may at some point hit rocky situations like all relationships do.

In the situation its a fling, when your company hires another hot employee and you have your eyes all over him or her, there might be a conflict or jealousy of the former.

If the one you had the fling with is your superior, they may make work-life unbearable on you or the new recruit.

If it’s an ongoing serious romance or relationship and there’s a little misunderstanding between both of you privately, it may lead to conflict openly if not handled maturely.

One major way to avoid these aforementioned conflicts in office dating or romance is to work in separate departments far from each other.

For example, Mark works in the Technology department, while Jane works in Marketing. Two separate departments in different buildings make work perfect.

You guys only get together maybe on your way home, but rarely see each other all through the day.

Office romance or dating a coworker or colleague is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it must be dealt with the most uttermost discretion and maturity between both parties.