Context: broke up with my girlfriend at the end of last summer. Haven’t seriously dated, or attempted to, since then. But I’m starting to think I’m about ready to.
I’ve recently become aware of a coworker of mine who has that ineffable quality that makes me think I’d like to know her a bit better. She works in a different department on a different floor, and we’ve had limited interactions to this point (and no real social connection - she’s not a friend of a friend or anything.)
So - should I ask her out, and if so how? I believe the answers are yes, because in the worst case, it’s not like we have to see each other every day so the normal reasons to be wary of dating coworkers don’t apply, and I should reply to her last email to me with something like, “Hey, glad that project thingy worked out. Are you free to grab a drink with me after work some day this week?” Mainly, I want it to be clear to her that I’m asking her out on a date, and not to further discuss some work project, which I think a drink after work accomplishes in a way that lunch/coffee does not.
Thoughts/suggestions? Pitfalls/warnings? Is this a terrible idea that I will regret for the rest of my life?
How often do you actually see her? Try to stick with the face-to-face thing rather than company email. Maybe something like, "Hey, that project turned out really well/decidedly average/like a disaster. I wish I knew how to write ad copy/change toner/dissect a frog/enter launch codes for a nuclear missile like you. Want to get a cup of coffee at breaktime tomorrow/when the vice present leaves early for his rendez-vous with his mistress/right after I pull the fire alarm in about seven seconds?’
No need to rush right to a date, how about just starting a conversation and getting to know her a little. Once you’re a bit more familiar with each other, asking her out will be easy. Just don’t milk out the getting-to-know-you phase for too long, or you’ll end up in Friendville.
Different department? Different floor? Don’t regularly deal with her in the course of your job? Go for it! My old roommate married someone he met at work.
The weirdness sets in when dating and work worlds are forced to cross paths too often.
If you’re dating someone who is in the same department, and you break up, you still have to deal with them at work. Or if you’re dating someone who is somewhere in your chain of command (boss or underling), you can’t easily be equals outside the office and unequals inside the office.
At the very least, if you both have work emails, don’t use yours to ask her out. Probably against company policy, plus it makes it that much easier to CC everyone in the office (accidentally or, perhaps, on purpose).
If I were you, I’d just find silly excuses to talk to her or visit her office. If she’s into you and not terribly busy at every turn, you’ll at least get some good flirting in before everything goes up in flames.
Yeah, friendville is to be avoided for sure, but also I don’t think that I could come up with a plausible work reason to have a cup of coffee right after I pull the fire alarm. I realize this might seem contradictory with what I wrote in my OP, but we’re far enough apart at work that our work paths just barely cross, but enough to make her think that I need to chat about the nuclear launch codes. Then we’re at coffee, and she thinks I need to know the launch codes, and being short with the small talk because she just wants me to ask for the codes so she can give them to me and get back to getting her ad copy written so she can get out of there for the day. I just don’t see that angle going well…
Screw the “getting to know each other as friends” phase - if you’re willing to put it on the line, just ask her out and get on with it. You can get to know each other over drinks in the evening as a real date as easily as over coffee in the “friends zone,” and then you don’t have to try to get out of the “friends zone” (and she doesn’t have to agonize over whether it’s a date or a date date).
I should say, you’re getting some fallout from me from all the posters before you who have agonized for days over whether to ask someone out or not, or if it was an actual date or not. Make it a date. Make your intentions clear. If she says no, you’ll know right away and you can move on.
My 2 cents, and I think you’ve already addressed this in your OP, is that asking to go out for coffee is not only a trip to friendville (in part for the reason you suggest here), but also a trip to wienerville. Who “grabs coffee,” anyway? You had it right in the OP, go for an adult beverage.
ETA, ask in person. Or e-mail. Doesn’t seem like it matters too much either way, to me.
FWIW I grabbed some extra cash at the Census last year and asked out my supervisor in a similar way. She didn’t go for the dangling worm, though.
I think it’s a terrible idea. Two of my interns started dating at my previous job. Next thing you know, they started getting really serious when they came back the following year as full time analysts. Now they are all married and living up in Connecticut someplace with a kid.
That’s no fun. What’s the problem, getting attacked in the penis by a three-hole punch, in an office setting?
I scored a little temporary job, also for some extra cash, over the Christmas period last year and asked out every attractive woman who worked there. Saw a few socially, but nothing too tempting for me. What’s the problem? Getting attacked with a weedwhacker? (The job was at Home Depot)
In my company, there’s a policy against dating up the chain of command. It’s definitely unethical, and in many places a fire-able offense (maybe not in retail, but in any white collar job I’ve worked it qualifies as an outright policy violation, and is at least frowned upon anywhere else). Not that that applies to the OP, but it’s good general advice.
Go for it, OP. I don’t like a cold request as much, though… is there no way to isolate her at work doing something other than work activities? You don’t have a company lunchroom or water cooler?
No, not really (I mean, we do, but different floors rules out the water cooler and I think most people go out for lunch.) So not without a combination of contriving a scenario and/or stalking.
I’m trying to limit the ‘coldness’ of the response by making it in response to a pre-existing email conversation (a “oh, yeah, good job with that. Also, how about a drink?” kind of thing versus a “Hey, you may not remember me, but let’s go out” kind of thing), but mostly I don’t see another way without crossing the creepy line.
Agree with the dim view towards using the company computer for the e-mail. Maybe you’d get away with it… but the whole thing is, you don’t know enough about her yet to know how she reacts to various things. In a moment of stress, will she run off and leave your note on the screen? Do you know anything about which of her coworkers is the real office snoop? Maybe you’d get away with it… what do you want to bet? Seriously?
I’m honestly not sure I get this concern. What’s the worst case here? AFAIK, there’s no company policy in place here, and I don’t think I’m supposed to be ashamed of my interest. I suspect one of two things will happen: she’ll say, “Sure,” and we’ll go out, or she’ll say “No, I have a boyfriend/am gay/am not comfortable dating a coworker/have no interest in you,” and then I’ll have immediate closure and move on to my next target.
Maybe I’ve been to too many sexual harrasment / workplace harrasment prevention training sessions, but I’d still like to keep my sense of proportion about this. Just sayin’ though, that as unlikely that anything would go wrong, there’s a lot to lose if anything did. And since you don’t know her or her environment, you don’t know what could go wrong. Heck, just ask your boss first if its okay to use the company computer for the ocassional private message.
Call her. This will sound a little creepy/stalkerish (perhaps because it is) - but it’s probably a bit harder for her to say “no” on the phone, as opposed to an email. You can even use the same script, and the call personalizes you to her.
So the call gets your foot in the door a bit, the personal touch should help in a yes. Then if the drinks don’t work out, you can decide if you want to really stalk her or not.
