That WASN’T me!
I believe I asked first. You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
Well, here’s one way to look at it: It’s not like you missed your chance and will never see the guy again and not know if you’d hit it off. He’s going to be around. All the time. So you’ll have a better opportunity to know if you’re compatible in general than you would on dates. And as things go on if you both like each other you’ll know and do something about it. There’s no need to complicate it at this point.
I refered to a general opinion that seems to occur around here. You refered to a specific post.
You leave that guy’s facial hair alone! It hasn’t done anything to you.
(Exception granted if and only if you eventually find out it’s scratchy and he refuses to condition it)
–Z, rocks the beard, patiently waiting for it to come back in style.
I guess I’m going to have to go to the other thread when I’m done with this, and I hope it comes across in the spirit it is intended, but I kind of doubt it. I really do not mean to sound like a bitch when I say this, but I think it’s practical, and practicality coming out of me usually does sound bitchy, so I’m taking my chances.
I was all ready to hope you were going to realize that companies aren’t loyal, so who cares about a dating policy? I wanted you to see that co-worker’s possible offense at the two of you pairing off (provided it was all very normal and on the up and up) doesn’t make any difference, because co-workers aren’t friends or people you really care about, so throw that out the window. I was all set to tell you that this cat might be the big one, so go for it, and if it doesn’t work out, let the one thing you two do well is be adult and move on without work getting all weird.
I take it back. You need to get some thicker skin or you WILL be the one for whom an office romance goes wrong. You appear to be incapable of letting things that don’t matter roll off you. You’re right, sexism is wrong, and you shouldn’t have to put up with it…but if you see sexism in something so innocuous, not only do you need to do a perception check, but you may want to do what you threatened and leave here. Who cares about boobs? If you didn’t get so bent out of shape at a perceived slight, nobody would have remembered a thing in a little while. If you’re not careful, you will get the buckeye treatment.
Fight the right battles, and you will win the war.
I do not intend offense. I just don’t know how else to contribute.
Ahem, wrong thread. Off to the pit.
I dunno. I’d be very wary of just throwing myself at the guy, or pursuing him terribly aggressively. But that’s probably a good idea whether you were working together or not.
Yeah, it could really suck if you went out, it didn’t work out, and then you were uncomfortable having to work together afterwards. But that is only one of the countless ways things could work out. By no means inevitable, or even the most likely. Hell, if you are both sane, more likely is that you try it, it does’t work out, and then you continue to work together either as friends or at least as respectful colleagues. And IF things worked out, then you could always decide what you wanted to do about your jobs as you took things further.
But I’d say one of the more likely outcomes is that if you DIDN’T even make any effort to see what might happen, you’d regret it over and over again for some time to come. It is pretty pitiful that at 48 I still occasionally wonder what might have happened if I asked so-and-so out in college or even HIGH SCHOOL! How pathetic is that? Seems to bubble up far more frequently than the many occasions on which I took a stab and things didn’t work out.
Believe me, a decade and more down the line you are more likely to regret things you DIDN’T try (within reason) than the other way around. Take it slow - but definitely take it.
Seconded.
He left Derry. He might hate it there, and never want to go back, and where would you be then, hmmm?
All I can suggest is, if it ever happens that you drive him home late at night, DON’T ask to use his bathroom! 
I know companies which won’t hire or keep people who are related (to the degree of uncle-nephew or closer, and if two previously-unrelated people marry or become in-laws, one must leave), I know about schools having this notion that it’s not proper for teachers to date students, I know it’s not good form to smooch over the photocopier or in general during work hours…
But no, as far as I can remember, I’ve never worked in a place with a dating policy. See if yours has any and if there isn’t, make your own: “it’s allowed to date coworkers, so long as you two don’t make the office look like a Hallmark’s on February 13th”