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Dating at work: The good, the bad and the ugly
Alice
15 Sep 2015

Dating at work: The good, the bad and the ugly

Approximately 40% of professional people have dated a co-worker, and so it’s no surprise that dating at work is such a hot topic. Dating advice for the workplace is a whole new ball game – who knew that emails can contain hidden messages and the water fountain is a hot meet-up spot?! Think you’re out of your depth fancying your colleague? Fear not! I’m here to help.

The first thing to do if you find yourself fancying Susan from IT/Pete from HR is to establish whether the way you feel about them is real enough to warrant the minefield that dating a co-worker is.

Dangerous dating & how to make it work
Dating at work is risky – what if it all goes tits up? Unless you have a heart of steel it won’t be easy to see your ex for 8 hours a day with no room to breathe. Solution: if you’re in it for the long haul you’ll need to learn to separate home life from work life with your partner. Keep it professional. Don’t air your dirty laundry at work, and don’t argue about Q2 targets at home. This separation will set a precedent for if it does end, and should make it easier to see them as a colleague and not an ex whilst you’re at work. It’s also good to keep your relationship low key at work for the sake of your colleagues! Nobody wants to see you stroke their ear during a meeting. Just saying.

Find common ground that isn’t work. It’s super convenient that you have work in common, but be careful not to let extensive chats about work make you think you’re more into each other than you actually are. You could probably grab coffee and have laughs about the office idiot for a good couple of weeks without realising that you share no other mutual interests. Go out and make a pact not to mention work, and see how you feel at the end of the night. Hopefully you’ll have found out they have a log cabin in the Alps…

Will your colleagues know? A bit of secrecy is exciting, especially when you’re sharing bedroom eyes over the meeting table on a Monday morning. But, office gossip is ripe and eventually you’ll need to be upfront. Plus who has the time to work out what to say about your weekends when you actually spent it with your office beau?! Be careful not to segregate yourselves from your other colleagues. As soon as you’re ready, be upfront with them.

Think your colleague is worth the risk? Then we’ll cut to the chase and get straight to the good stuff.

Sex on the photocopier
Flirty emails a la Bridget Jones’ Diary and water fountain rendezvous are just the beginning of the fun that you can have when you’re dating your colleague. Going to work is suddenly sexy. I know right, can you even imagine actually wanting to get out of bed and shimmy into your suit. The excitement that surrounds a new relationship is with you at work, which is pretty awesome.

If you want to make it long term, keep an honest flow of communication between the two of you, your colleagues and your employers. You’ll be unstoppable. Now go takeover the world, you power couple you!

That’s all for now,
Sophie

Disclaimer/the ugly: if your office fling is your boss, or your boss’s boss, there’s not much I can do to help you here. Dating your boss is about as ugly as it can get. Has the object of your affections got the power to destroy your career? Unless they’re your soulmate, you should probably just find someone else. Sorry. Check out our singles events if this is the case!

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