Asked out? No. Mutually agreed to meet for clandestine sex? Yeah, and what a mistake that turned out to be. Eventually her husband found out; she blamed him for being inattentive to her needs. We continued being coworkers. Awkward.
Well that sucks man.
I forget who asked who, but I became friendly with someone at work and then we started seeing each other. We’ve been married for a long time now, and he’s wonderful.
Back in the '60s, when I was a supervisor, I somehow wound up in bed with one of my workers. The details escape me now, but I do remember his unusual penis.
I dated someone from work for about 3 months. She talked about her “nasty” divorce but now she was happy. Found out her daughter worked for the same company and we had a chance meeting in the cafeteria. She told me her parents had been separated for a couple years after the gal I was dating was caught cheating on her husband. Her husband wanted a divorce but she didn’t. And I was her 5th or 6th hook-up since the separation. I ended the relationship at that time. She just moved on to someone else. In the end, I think I dodged something that could have ended real ugly.
When I was in retail I dated a few coworkers but it never went more than 1 or 2 dates. And it was never awkward afterward, it was just, well that didn’t work, back to being coworkers. (My first job was at Toys R Us, and for some reason at one time or another I must have dated the majority of the single women who worked there, which is weird because I am not a “ladies’ man” or anything. I guess I wasn’t bad-looking back then or something.)
Years later, a few years after my divorce when I felt ready to date again I asked out a coworker who I really liked and who I thought was interested in me. At this point I was a professional working in an office environment. She turned me down but somehow she did so in such a kind way that I somehow felt better afterward. I can’t for the life of me remember how she did that but she was an amazing person.
Weirdly enough, my best relationships have come from women I met online. That doesn’t seem right but that’s just how it is. My first marriage which lasted 7 years (and was mostly happy) was with someone I met in an online game. My wife I am with now is someone I met through an online dating service, and next year we’ll have been together 10 years (if you include the time we started dating then got engaged).
In my experience, dating coworkers never worked, but it was also never a disaster either.
Well… I was and still am very good friends with a girl from a previous job. It was shift work so during our time off, everyone else was at work. We hung out quite a bit. Really best friends. But not dating, though I did want more from the relationship, and she knew it. Breakfast after work or a matinee. That kind of thing. Shift work can be odd.
Fast forward 30 years, I’m married, she’s divorced, and while there was about 10 years where we didn’t communicate at all, we are good friends again. We both have similar jobs in government, and met again through that. We hang out a couple of times a year. She lives ~80 miles away, I bring the beers, she buys the pizza, and I spend the night in a guest room.
I’d avoid that with the same intensity I’d avoid a plague of poisonous locusts that were also on fire, and the poison they spat was also flaming. Just yikes, no. I have been attracted to colleagues, but I kept that to myself.
I have had a friend who did not follow this advice. Out of respect for him, I will be vague. He had a habit of asking colleagues out for dates. While his intentions were benign, and I believe him, there was a growing perception that he was abusing his position to do this. He had a fairly high-profile job and his fall from grace was rather Icarus-like. The gulf between his intent and the perception of his intent was too large to ignore.
Sometimes he can be a bit of a goober. But he’s still my friend, and he’s been quite chastened by the experience.
Thanks.
Yes I have and we will be married 30 years next week.
Oof.
My story is a bit similar:
After my high-school girlfriend dumped me for an older woman, I’d graduated and was working at a bakery, and I asked out a co-worker. We ended up going to a Hallowe’en party in someone’s hotel room, and a different girl there was super into me, all but undressing me right there in the room. But I was focused on the girl I’d come with because, y’know, she was my date. (And also the other girl had about five giant flashing DANGER WILL ROBINSON signs hovering over her, including being pregnant and being engaged and being 17).
Nothing happened between me and my co-worker (or me and the other girl). The next day my co-worker and I were chatting on the phone about the party, and she complained, “It sucks that all the guys at that party were gay.”
Uh.
“I’m, uh, I’m straight,” I told her, and she was all, “Oh, you are? Okay…” I think she was very quickly reassessing my asking her to a party.
Nothing ever came of it.
In 1988, I married someone who worked for me. Strangely, her best friend and co-worker was very interested me and the two of them spent a lot of time trying to get me hooked up with the friend. I eventually had to come right out and tell both of them who I wanted to date. I know this was (by today’s standards) an unwise thing to do. When we got married, company management moved her to a job where she was not under my direct supervision.
I was happily married to her for 18 years until she passed away.
Yes, when I lived and worked in Budapest for a local English-language business paper, it was pretty common for workers to date each other. I dated the front desk woman (who became researcher) for about two and a half years. The editor-in-chief dated another researcher for a few years. A reporter colleague dated one of the ad sales reps. Another reporter dated another ad sales rep. This was an office of about 40 people, so almost 1/4 of the staff were dating someone on staff. There may be another couple or two that I’m forgetting about, though.
Plus the ones you didn’t know about. A lot of couples prefer to stay private IME, but I don’t know Hungarian culture on this.
Had a fling with a boss one time back in my wild and crazy youth. It did not end well. A case of horny kid meets psychopathic shrew.
Yeah the one or two I’m forgetting is allowing for that scenario. I don’t really know what was going on in the ad department, but in editorial, we all pretty much knew each others’ business. There is one possible affair I didn’t count that was likely going on.
I’m imagining the call tree when one of you got the test results for why it burns when they pee.
My cafe job in college had a reasonable amount of co-mingling between workers and workers and patrons, as well. But we were college students, so I’d think that’s somewhat to be expected.
Change “cafe” to “pub” in my case.
I was never in a job where there were any woman my age around. But my daughter dated a coworker from another department briefly. He was three years younger and she decided he needed to grow up. Then she left that job (and he was transferred to her job, curiously). A few later, he had grown up and they started dating seriously. They’ve been married for nearly 17 years. He is one of the kindest people I have ever known.