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MARCH 04,
2002 |
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On-the-job romance: 5
do's and don'ts
Tom Milnes,
Match.com |
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Easy loving:
| From
manager to mail guy, odds are that you have been tempted to mix
business with pleasure. And who can blame you?
With the 40-hour work week nearly extinct,
holiday parties, client dinners and weekends at the
office sometimes can seem like the only opportunities available to time-strapped
professionals open to casual relationships or
something more. But multi-tasking can be a dangerous
business.
Few things disturb a serious work
environment more than simmering sexual tension between
co-workers. The trick is to blend the romantic and
professional worlds in a way that minimizes their danger
to each other. Here are five tips to help you out:
1. Flirting: Sizzle or fizzle?
Flirtation thrives in the fertile-but-delicate gray
area between conversation and innuendo. Balancing the
excitement of the moment and the necessity for subtlety
— no matter what side of the desk you are on — is key to
whether a possible relationship begins or ends before its time.
2. Look before you leap
Think you may
have found a possible Mr. or Ms. Right in the next cubicle? Employ
the time-honored institutions of the after-work drink
and long lunch before doing anything to tip your hand.
Things you learn about your prospective match outside
the office can mean the difference between making a love
connection and just making a mistake.
3. Keeping
it private
The convenience of an office romance
has a tendency to become inconvenient faster than you
can say holiday party or local hotspot. Keep your
private life your own by attending office functions
without your new flame, staying away from the gossip sessions at the
water cooler and ensuring planned and unplanned trysts
take place far from the prying eyes of co-workers or
bosses.
4. Being naughty and nice
The
same taboos that make an office romance so thrilling
also can lead to big problems when they go bad. Keeping the lines of communication open no matter what happens is the best way ensure feelings are not hurt and friendships are preserved to the best of your ability.
5. Love
outside the box: Going public
As time passes,
feelings about your fling usually end up end up either static or
ecstatic. If your romance has grown stale, choose to end
it gracefully. But if it continues to grow, you have
another, more complicated problem — going public.
Though doing so doesn’t necessarily
constitute a cataclysm, don’t underestimate the
consequences of outing an in-house relationship. If you work in
the same department or office, your affair could just as easily be
quietly tolerated as condemned as being against company
policy. Either way both of you should be positive that
going public is what you want before commiting to it since a certain degree of
on-the-job discomfort will certainly result.
If
you’re unable to announce your romance,
one solution could be for one of you to transfer into a different department. You
will be spared the tension of immediate proximity while
maintaining your emotional closeness. You also might
consider keeping your relationship private until one of
you can find a position with a different company.
Hopeful that one of your own co-workers is
single and ready for romance? Search
for his or her profile at Match.com!
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