Why office romances are a bad idea

work relationships

Office romance success stories do exist, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be avoided. Here’s why that office romance you’re considering may not be such a good idea …

Working full time and being single isn’t easy. It’s hard to find the time to date and finding a date in the first place can be even harder. That’s why it’s so easy to fall for a colleague. You spend a large amount of your time at the office and you see the same people every day. Often friendships develop and occasionally feelings between co-workers deepen.

But dating someone you work with can add a whole lot of extra stress to the usual relationship difficulties.

You see each other every day

This may seem ideal at first. You know, when you’re all butterflies and daydreams. But when reality sets in it can add major strain to the relationship.

If things go well and you decide to move in together, you’ll not only see your partner every single morning and night, you’ll see them all day as well. You can’t escape them. Ever.

If you have a fight, you won’t have the luxury of spending a few hours apart during the day to cool off. You also won’t have anyone to talk to about your day, because they’ll already know everything that’s happened.

Office conflicts happen

If you work with them directly, this is a serious threat to your relationship. If either of you do something wrong, you have to address the situation as colleagues. This can become difficult when romantic feelings are involved as you want to protect your partner.

In your personal life you want to support your partner and their decisions, but you can’t do this at work because you have to put the business first. It can be incredibly difficult to tell the person you love that you don’t like their idea or that you prefer another approach.

If you have a fight, you won’t have the luxury of spending a few hours apart during the day to cool off

Work follows you home

It’s incredibly hard to completely avoid the topic of work when you’re spending time with a colleague, even if that colleague is also your significant other. Office politics, gossips and stress all come home with you at the end of the day, whether your partner works with you or not.

But when you both deal with the same people, work on the same projects and understand the context, work becomes a regular topic of conversation. It can be nice to have someone who gets exactly what you’re talking about, but it also encourages you to talk about it more.

And, obviously, you could have a bad breakup

There’s no way to tell at the beginning whether it’s going to end in flames. You may think they’re your soulmate at first, but things could turn ugly very quickly.

It’s hard enough dealing with a breakup without having to face them every day. There’s no such thing as a clean break with an office romance.

And that’s not the worst of it. Your ex could turn nasty and spread malicious rumours about you or even sabotage your whole career. You’ll be surprised how unpredictable and mean people can be when they’re hurting. You never know, it could end up with you needing legal assistance.

It is possible you could meet the love of your life at the office coffee machine. But it’s a huge risk to take if you’re serious about your career. So, if you do decide to date a co-worker, you need to come up with a plan to deal with these issues if they arise.

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