7 rules of office romance

How to follow your heart and at the same time remain professional.

When people regularly spend time together, a romantic relationship will inevitably develop between them. Back in the late 1960s, social psychologists discovered that we tend to find attractive those we often see. During the study, subjects were shown photographs of multiple faces. Some pictures were shown up to 25 times, others appeared only 1–2 times. The more often the participants came across a photo of a certain person, the more willingly they reported that they liked that person.

This theory is also confirmed by statistics. The Research Service reports that 41% of employees had relationships with colleagues, with 18% of such relationships leading to marriage. Apparently, people cannot do without office romances. Here are some tips on how to make them enjoyable and painless for both parties.

1. Find out the position of your company

It is possible that the organization has some kind of attitudes in this regard, they just are not too advertised. At the wrong time, information about your personal relationships can come up and play against you.

Of course, you have the right to privacy and the ban can only be unspoken. However, if the management does not approve of such things, the situation can become unpleasant. So it’s best to carefully find out everything in advance. Sometimes it is enough to look around: if someone meets in your or a neighboring department and they treat this normally, then no reprisals will follow.

2. Think about the consequences

You should always think about how our actions will affect your future life, including starting a romance. However, if the acquaintance took place on neutral territory, you can relax a little and just watch where your feelings lead you. After all, nothing binds you except the desire to be together. But in the case of an office romance, the stakes are high.

If something goes wrong, the further career of one of you may deteriorate or being in the same office will become unbearable.

3. Avoid Power Imbalances

The hardest part is when one of you is the boss and the other is a subordinate. Dismissal, salary, participation in important projects – when the chosen one or the chosen one affects these aspects of your career, it is better to avoid a relationship or start it in a different status. If you are in a higher position, it is in your best interest to avoid favoritism in order to remain professional. In any case, a situation in which one person is dependent on another is fertile ground for abuse.

4. Do not sort things out in the workplace

One of the main questions is whether to advertise the relationship or not. However, the problem for the collective is not the very fact of your novel, but what may follow from it. For example, a violation of boundaries, in which personal life affects professional. Therefore, you should not sort things out right in the office. This is not very ethical and provides food for gossip. The same applies to manifestations of affection: colleagues do not need to see this, unless it happens in a bar where you all went for a drink in the evening.

5. Talk less about dating.

Each of us has a whole set of social roles. To some we are children, to others as parents, to others as neighbors. For the chosen one or the chosen one from work, we are both a personal partner and a colleague. Balancing these roles can be difficult.

Of course, you can’t do without talking about business at all, especially if you are workaholics and work for you never remains outside the office. But for the sake of relationships, sometimes it’s worth imposing such a moratorium. On the other hand, maybe your passion is fueled by the way your partner solves work problems, and this is how he attracted you. The main thing is that relationships are a priority when you are alone.

6. Be prepared to take drastic action

Life can give you a choice: career or relationship. At the very least, you have to choose between this particular relationship and this particular job.

7. Finish beautifully

Staying friends is a challenge that many broken-up couples fail. However, if you met with a colleague, and now you are trying to forget about what happened, this is just the case when a bad world is better than a good quarrel. Provided, of course, that both of you stayed in the same company. If not, and the relationship ended badly, you can safely block your former partner in all social networks, after sending an angry rebuke.

Have you had an office romance? Share stories in the comments.