FWIW this is still a bad idea for most career oriented people. Obviously if it's some temporary or transient sort of job, YMMV; so some teens working in food service or whatever is a different case than what I'm about to say. I get why non-career oriented jobs that people largely don't give a **** about their job and could live without it, or who don't plan to be there long term -- fine, go ahead and try to use your work network for dating I guess.

But if you plan on staying at this company for a while, trying to date people at work seems like a mistake almost every time. One of the BEST case scenarios is what, you fall head over heels and get married? Then you work with your spouse. That's not ideal for a lot of people (again circumstances vary but that is usually a bit of a relationship strain). Most outcomes are someone getting spurned/rejected; for someone without a lot of confidence to have to ruminate on that daily with your coworker, eventually hear about their other partners, whatever -- that's usually a bad experience. Other outcomes are having it start out well then the relationship ends and someone is even more burned, and you have to see them everyday.

We shouldn't forget the harassment angle but forgetting it for the moment, it's a bad idea.

IMO wanting to date a co-worker is usually symptomatic of people with social anxieties or whatever since they can't handle or have no other viable social networks to date in. It's why I suspect there's a huge overlap between low-self awareness/bad social skills/wanting to date a coworker/creepy & harassing behavior. They're all symptomatic and clustered around the same underlying conditions.

People with minimum amounts of self-control who care at all about their careers should have no real problem not trying to **** their coworkers and then none of line-drawing aspects should even be relevant. No one is entitled to flirting, or trying to land dates even if it doesn't veer into harassment.

Go to work to make money and be productive and accomplish stuff, find people to fornicate with somewhere else, it's not hard.

whoa there. I'm not asking for myself. I'm posing the question as a way of moving toward agreeing on guidelines.

The guideline is: if she's sending signals strong enough to risk your job if you misinterpreted and you don't care about DVaut's long term consequences, yes. Otherwise, no.

I agree with all of this, yet you often hear about healthy, well-adjusted couples who met at work. And surely not-so-well-adjusted people will hear about this as well and want that result.

So the message you send about workplace dating could describe how these couples proceeded toward marriage. I suspect it has a lot to do with a very slow progression and building up a lot of respect and friendship before thinking about dating.

I feel like so much of this conversation boils down to "Hey Guys, Treat women like people".

There are definitely social interactions where one gender hits on the other one relentlessly, with the other party showing no interest. When this happens with a woman doing it to a man, it's annoying, it's a nuisance, but due to the size/strength difference between basically all men/women, it's not threatening to the man. When a man does it to a woman, it absolutely comes off as threatening. That's just the reality of the situation.

Like, I guarantee that every guy out there who "struggles with talking to or picking up women", if they just started treating women as people and got to know them and maybe start to pick up cues if they're interested in something more, they'd do a hell of a lot better and be a lot happier than focusing on their pick up game or whatever other bull**** is out there.

A cursory google search would seem to suggest that the most common place a couple met (spousal) was on the job. But AFAIK it's still 20% or so of couples. I met my wife of 32 years at work (but I knew I was quitting in a couple of months to go to med school, so I didn't really care if the job blew up)

Docs used to marry nurses. Not so much any more - now docs marry docs. For a bunch of reasons, but I think the lower likelihood of getting skinned in a separation has something to do with it.

MM MD

Or more likely, it's due to there being a lot more female physicians than there were 40 years ago.

Good point, although my specialty has been female heavy for at least 15 years or so.. We never had a married couple of docs in our group until 5 years ago, and now we have 3 pairs. Makes sense, too - they can work about 1.5 FTE's and have a really nice life outside of work.

MM MD

Lol give me a break. People get to know people they work with. Some of these relationships become mutual attraction which become romantic relationships. There is zero wrong with it, in spite of your armchair psychological analysis.

You're garbage?

Have MRAs dropped in or trolls pretending to be MRAs?

If you don't have a PE license in the industry you work, you aren't an engineer.

Gonna be awkward if you ever open jobs listings in Silicon Valley.

I meant rara's industry in particular. I know there are tons of fields where people call themselves engineers without holding any sort of license. His isn't one of them. In the world of construction, the job titles 'engineer' and 'architect' are legally defined and can't be used by people who don't have the proper credentials.

there are tons of ppl working as mechanical, electrical, civil, etc engineers who havent passed the pe exam. in the scope of this conversation, I think those ppl and even ppl who simply have engr degrees should be included. to act like engineers are some "rare breed" with social interaction problems to the point where they are incapable of even remembering the names of others is absurd. almost everyone that I worked with at the 3 different eng or tech jobs that Ive worked has been a normal person. a few weirdos here and there just like I would imagine every other industry.

rara has also made claims that its normal for engineers to have poor writing and grammar skills which is also terrible as communicating complex ideas, designs, and subjects is a very important part of the job.

Does rara have a professional engineering degree from an accredited university?

Man oh man, if there was ever a circumstance that was rife for rampant sexual harassment, it's 1980s hospitals between docs and nurses where MDs have inflated egos and relative immunity.

As a side note, I'm not buying the "Don't date at work" heuristic. We spend 60+ hours per week with our colleagues, it's only natural that you'd find yourself getting to know and having romantic interests in a select few. Follow the heuristic if you're socially inept, but otherwise proceeding slowly and with caution is GTO.

Yes.

You need to accept we are untouchable in our sexuality.

Just a coincidence I happen to be a hetero male.

The Trump "grab by the pussy" is totally unacceptable.

lol I have no idea. I dont see any reason not to take him at his word. nor should it really matter in the context of this discussion.

Surprised people don't buy the old adage "Don't fish off the company pier."

You're putting too much at risk if something goes wrong, that's why the adage exists.

I agree that in general that you shouldn't pursue anyone from work. Although you can make an exception if she includes one of those smiley-face emojis in an email to you. That's pretty much an iron-clad sign of interest. I mean, everyone knows her boyfriend is a douche-bag. She has to want to get out of that situation. Honestly, it would be mean not to make a move imo.

ya and esp if hes NOT richer than you

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...&postcount=294

Still think it's a bad idea. All of these opinions sound shortsighted, like how to avoid harassment. Sure, yeah, proceed slowly and cautiously is a good way not to creep people out.

Again, though: presume I am talking about a normal career-track job for adults, not a job you don't give a **** about. If it's a job you don't care about, this might not apply.

But assume you want to work in your job, advance in your company, have a solid work network, build relationships with clients, whatever.

Then aren't there only three eventual outcomes here? The end game is either:

1. you marry the person, so you go from seeing them 40-60 hours a week at work to all the time. This may work for some people but I'm confident this is not a good life choice for everyone -- even socially well adjusted people
2. you are (eventually) working with an ex, which has the potential for all sorts of awkward and uncomfortable situations -- even socially well adjusted people
3. one of you leaves the company

I don't see it as a good idea. I've been married for a long time now so I'm not a young horny dude desperate to get laid so it's easy to be a little more cold, a little more rational about this. I think the biggest risk is #2 and has the chance to derail a career; it's the kind of thing that would make someone leave a job sort of unwittingly just to get away from the person. You have to trust that the person isn't going to gossip about you when you're gone or you might become subject of office gossip. Again, some people might not care, but for some people that can have an impact on their career or at least be embarrassing.

It seems like almost all outcomes that arise from "dating at work" are bad or suboptimal aside from people who either thrive working with their spouse or can break up with someone without too much emotional baggage.

I can anticipate we'll eventually get to the whole "well I'm a free spirit, I'll just find a new job" objections which, OK, whatever, can't argue with that. Or perhaps a "I just **** em and leave em high and dry, no skin off my back." Basically I can't object to "I don't really give a **** bout nothing but getting my dick wet" and its variants. But if you care about your career and you don't want your job muddied with a bunch of personal concerns, I'm pretty confident it's a bad idea to date at work except in the "we fell head over heels and I love spending all my professional and free time around one person" type people.

there are other outcomes than those 3 though. they relate to how other people at the job interact with you and your wife. will you be in positions where you could be accused of favoritism? either with regards to promotions or just ideas. are you on a team where you always side with your wife/gf/partner pertaining to the direction the team or project is taking?