‘When we broke up, our colleagues chose his side’: why the office romance is always risky
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There’s nothing more sickening, is there, than having front row seats to the spectacle of two people falling in love. The misery is particularly acute when those seats are ergonomic chairs, placed at desks where you have to sit in order to do your job.
There is no escape. Every working hour is subject to knowing looks, simpering smiles and the couple in question devising ever more contrived reasons to be in the same square metre of space.
Not that they have any idea they’re being nauseating, of course. While office romances are nothing new, recent research by Frostburg State University, Maryland, and Weber State University, Utah, has found they undermine the trust colleagues once had in their now loved-up workmates, so much so, they become cagier about what they say and do in the lovebirds’ presence. They are also more likely to attach ulterior motives for the relationship and perceive unfair advantages in the workplace.
All in all, a situation not conducive to good team spirit. And as our writers attest, while great things (and children) can blossom from office romance, these workplace transgressions are not without consequence.
“When we split up, our workmates had to choose sides. They chose his”
It is a moment etched in my memory. There I was, in my work dress, beavering away at my computer, attempting to look competent as a trainee journalist. My boss – a news editor, three years older, handsome in a work suit – slowly approached. “Grace, I know you’re new… but can you perhaps stop day-dreaming and actually do some work?”
It was love at first sight. He gave me a story to write… on immigrants. I did my best, but my whole world had shifted. As my colleagues banged on about our terrible rota and lousy pay, all I could do was talk about him. I was a total love bore.
Inevitably, due to journalists being the most fiendish of gossips, he got told. And three months later, he collared me in the pub. “Do you actually like me?” he asked as if this was the most improbable thing on the planet. “Well…” I stammered.
We got together, snogging at an office party. All our colleagues knew and, I believe, embraced it. We were a large group of friends with no real responsibilities. We all went to the pub, drunk-sang karaoke, stumbled home.
Our friends didn’t seem to mind that their boss and I now messaged constantly, “accidentally” bumped into each other in the corridor, and used our press credentials to arrange cheap mini-breaks. I don’t think he gave me preferential treatment. I hope not.
But then it went wrong. He was a second-generation immigrant and had familial expectations for his life. Funnily enough, these didn’t include shacking up with a white bird, especially not a Welsh one.
After a year or so together, we split up. I was heartbroken. And, due to the extent of the pain involved, felt our colleagues and friends had to choose. Were they on my side or his?
It didn’t take long to find out. They were on his. I left my job, left London. He stayed friends with most of the circle, while I effectively lost them. Looking back, perhaps this was my own fault. But, there is a twist. After eight or so years apart, we got back together. We’ve now been a couple for five years and live in relative harmony, repairing all the damage done.
I am, though, still not really back in the fold of our previous work friendship circle. Would I like to be? Yes. Some of those friendships were from my early 20s, so pre-dated him. But that’s life. Do I recommend office relationships? Given the destruction they can wreak – no, absolutely not. But then, sometimes, you just don’t have a choice.
Grace Nolan*
“I was the office’s newest and most junior member of staff. He was 15 years older and far above my pay grade”
When I worked at a magazine in the early 1990s, the magazine was known throughout the company as “the love boat” because so many of the staff were dating one another (a consequence of the fact it was the only publication in the company that was mostly staffed by men).
The magazine’s editor had met his girlfriend when she worked as his PA, the female managing editor was having a not-so-secret romance with the male style editor, the mag’s male chief sub was sleeping with the female fashion assistant and – within two months of starting there – I was truly, madly, deeply in love with the deputy editor.
Back in those pre-Tinder days, office romances weren’t exactly encouraged, but they were often overlooked or tolerated. How else was poor Gen X going to meet suitable mates and reproduce when pretty much every graduate was working long hours and focused on workplace life?
But there were certain unwritten rules. Everyone was happier if you romanced someone who was on relatively level-pegging in terms of the office hierarchy and then, as now, no one was crazy about colleagues who ruthlessly disregarded their target’s current relationship status.
I have long remembered one beautiful, very ambitious intern who managed to alienate all the office’s women with her outrageous machinations; such as asking, with batted eyelashes, whether male editors could give her hands-on writing lessons after hours.
But people weren’t much happier with my relationship with the deputy editor. I was the office’s newest and most junior member of staff, he was 15 years older and far above my pay grade. Also, the editor was friendly with the architect boyfriend I had promptly ditched.
And, I began to realise, he was worried that the things he confided in me as his PA were rather different stories to the ones he told his deputy. A few months after we started stepping out, the editor and managing editor told me firmly: “This is not working out.”
I was let go with a tiny pay-off, while the mag’s deputy stayed on. I was almost sympathetic to HR’s point-of-view on the matter. Pillow talk can be undermining under certain circumstances. And everyone is unsettled if a junior might be getting preferential treatment – although I certainly wasn’t.
Thirty years later, almost to the day, I will say this in justification of office romances. Five children came into the world because of that particular magazine love boat. Two of them are mine and the deputy editor’s.
Rebecca Tilman*
“I was senior staff, had interviewed this man for his job, he had been successful in his application and now we were an item”
The desk manager rolled his eyes and audibly groaned while shuffling a pile of papers. It should have been the moment I realised that the coded chats with my beloved - and new team member – were perhaps not as clandestine as I imagined.
After all, I was relatively senior, I had interviewed this new man for his job, he had been successful in his application and now we were an item. Our colleagues were not impressed.
And who can blame them? Being a forced witness to simmering glances, private jokes and two people entering and exiting the building within five minutes of each other, day after day, is enough to make anyone want to vomit. In fact, it’s making me a bit queasy writing about it. That’s what 10 years of marriage does for you.
Because, yes reader, I married him. Which I like to think makes the whole affair a little more excusable. The years have thankfully softened the less palatable memories. I don’t know why one of our co-workers got quite so irate at the printer at 7pm when most of the staff had gone home, but I think it had something to do with our outrageous flirting that has no place in the office.
There was also that moment at a work party where another colleague called us out as a couple in a very aggressive manner, all spittle and red of face. Again, my brain chose not to log why he felt compelled to do so. Probably for the best, eh? Not that we cared. We skipped out of there, snogging in doorways on the way home.
But in our defence, the first few heady months of any relationship are a fog of wistful glances, unsure feelings and galloping hormones. There is no self-awareness, only self-absorption. No one else really matters but the two of you, engaging in this age-old dance of courtship, which in our case was forged from 60-hour working weeks and heavy drinking after hours.
Do I regret it? Not at all. It was thrilling and heady and, ultimately, very romantic. Do I want to apologise to my former colleagues for what they had to endure? Yes. And unreservedly so.
Amelia Forrest*
*Names have been changed
