Dating a co-worker: Half truths and full lies
Dating a co-worker may always seem like a good idea, provided you are not breaking any office rules and properly managing to follow office etiquette. However, dating your co-worker could and will eventually turn out to be the worst idea you could have ever come up with. Unless you are in love, which makes matters easier.
But of course you are not going to fall in love immediately and the time it will take you, becomes progressively harder as you wallow in the depths of your despair, cursing yourself for making what may just well be the dumbest decision you could have ever made.
The pros turn to cons faster than she rejects your wanton advances for office-hour sugar and you are left ruing what could have been. Before you know it, everyone considers you married, you probably have two kids and a lifetime of hours to ponder what could have been.
Dismal? I am just getting started.
IT AIN'T CONVENIENT, IF IT IS CONVENIENT
The first thing to-be office romancers think of are the many convenient benefits. You get to go to the same office together, lunch together, take a break from your routine and whisper sweet nothings until the dopamine hits again and so on. But once you realise what you thought was a break from monotony was going to become monotonous, you start realising things.
You realise that now, you will actually work in the same place together all the time and you will have to go to work together, with each other, all the time. Also, lunch means waiting for your significant other and same work place does not always equate same lunch hours.
HEY HONEY, GOING TO A WORK FRIEND'S HOUSE. NO YOU ARE NOT, IDIOT
You know how most people just go to work or make a work related excuse when they need a distance from their 'mi amour'? Guess what? Dating a co-working means forgoing even that tiny glimmer of a privilege.
Firstly, everyone knows there's no such thing as work-friends. Work-friends are basically our way of finally giving up our societal desires and fit in with whatever team of freaks and oddballs we are put together with.
The respite was always that work friends generally have a professional vibe around them and are terrific excuses to bail on your lover without having to truthfully tell him/her that it's because he or she is SUFFOCATING YOU! But when you work with your girlfriend or boyfriend, work related lies will catch up to you. And that really stinks!
BOSS, I CAN'T MAKE IT TO WORK, I'M ILL. NO YOU ARE NOT, IDIOT
Remember the good old days when you could tell your boss and all your co-workers how you were totally ill and literally on the throes of death itself? They would probably shrug, roll their eyes and let it pass because of the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' deal, while you could go right back to sleep, free of the burden of proof. However, once you have a co-worker as a lover, the ball game is completely different. See you may not always align your lies with your significant other and thus his/her answer may differ from yours. He or she may also choose to not even participate in your web of deceit thus leaving a big juicy gap where you will eventually spin yourself into. If that does not make you reconsider the idea, then I do not know what will.
BUT IT ISN'T ALL DOOM AND GLOOM
In a way though, dating a co-worker is kind of sweet. It's like love in high school, when you'd have to wait between classes to finally catch a glimpse of the person that makes your heart flutter. It is also a great incentive to show up to work well dressed as opposed to just dragging yourself into the office. Also, lunch with a lover every day is the best way to build a bond. And all the sneaking around even when you don't have to? That is an incredible rush by itself.
Co-worker love is almost the kind of shticks Amir Khan used to dance in songs about. Imagine, having someone to care for you at work and home and you doing the same for them; sure there are drawbacks but that is the case with everything. In the end, love does triumph over all.
While this conflicting narrative may leave you in a dilemma, truth be told, it all depends on how you handle your own personal situation. Plus, given you probably do not know my relationship status, I might just be biased in my perspectives. But if you find yourself falling in love, the only advice is to fall harder. It's a beautiful thing; whether it works out or it doesn't.
By Osama Rahman
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