Professionals often spend significantly more time at the
office than at home. So much so that there is always a generous
amount of single men and single women who don't have the time to
meet new people. So the logical choice for them to meet other
single men and women is naturally, the office.
When single people spend at least 40 hours, in some
professions 50 hours and more, with like minded people of
similar backgrounds and interests, relationships are a tempting
side effect. Although it's a logical choice to look within the
office for romance, there are definitely good and bad aspects to
the office dating scene.
The good in office dating
There are several advantages to office dating one of which is
obvious -- the time you have to check out the available singles
is during your work hours so no longer do the constraints of
office hours apply. Also the awkwardness of first introductions
is usually eliminated as initial conversations are done within
the pretense of a work environment once again relieving the
stress of having to make such a critical first impression since
the impression would be based on some sort of work objective as
opposed to strictly a personal objective like you would have in
the normal dating process.
A second advantage is knowing
the person before you date them, at least to some degree. The
truth is you may interact with a potential date several times on
a business level and get to know something about their
personality and themselves without being on the spot as you
would in a normal social setting. This helps avoid the common
pitfall of most early relationships -- incompatibility.
A final advantage, is the ability to quickly build a
relationship as the time you see each other is significantly
more than people who would meet outside the work place?
The bad in office dating
As with any dating scenario
there is defiantly a bad side to office romance. For example
just as being in constant contact with each other due to sharing
an office can be an advantage it can also be a huge
disadvantage. This amount of time spent together can cause a
relationship to fall apart just as quickly as it developed, why?
We all need alone time and seeing each other five days a week
for eight hours or more and then spending time together on the
weekends makes for precious little alone time.
Another
disadvantage to the office romance is when a person must
exercise their professional responsibilities which might include
having to discipline or even fire the person they are dating .
Although this might seem like a remote idea when you being the
relationship, I don't think you would be very comfortable having
to tell your boyfriend or girlfriend, "your fired". Another
example of this might be a need for one of the participants to
go out of their way to show the rest of the office they are not
playing favorites maybe even to the point of not promoting the
person even though they might be the most deserving.
A
final disadvantage to office dating could be jealousy especially
if the relationship is "under cover". If you see your
officemates flirting with your date the natural reaction would
be negative and why would being in a office environment generate
any other reaction than a natural one? With that reaction might
come a unnecessary reaction including punishing someone for
something that is not work related at all.
Before you entertain the thought of dating the cute secretary
on the fourth floor or the hot hunk VP you saw during the last
office meeting, entertain the consequences of dating that
person, balance the pros and cons and if you decide to move
foreward keep an eye out for all of the things that can go wrong
and have an understanding of how you might handle any of those
situations. Remember you are dating a professional single so to
keep your job keep the professional in front of the single.
About the Author:
John Jones writes dating articles from a professional single
standpoint. His website is
http://professionalsingles.netfirms.com
