131: Dating a Colleague: Smart Move or Office Drama?

Roula (00:00)
All right, here we go, sip of water.

Rosie (00:03)
Okay, okay.

Here we go.

Roula (00:19)
and rossi.

Rosie (00:20)
Yeah.

Roula (00:22)
question that is a taboo not only a taboo sometimes it's even in in a work contract that you have to sign that you will not have a romantic relationship with a colleague

Rosie (00:41)
Mmm.

Roula (00:43)
So what do you think about work romance? Is it a yes or a no and everything that's around it?

Rosie (00:51)
wish I could give a yes or no answer because I can see both sides of the argument. think we'll start with the for argument and then I want to move on from that. There's the risk of having a power imbalance. If for example, there is someone in a lower role and they are in a relationship with their manager, there's a power imbalance there. There could be favoritism. What if the relationship ends? What's going to happen?

It's all what if, what if, what if.

think about it, if you're working full-time that's probably where you spend most of your time. You are with these people day in and day out. You probably know some of them quite well. I think it would be quite natural to catch feelings.

Would it not?

Roula (01:45)
For sure. Well, my husband is a work romance.

Rosie (01:49)
No, I didn't know that! Tell me, tell me, tell me!

Roula (01:52)
Yeah.

Okay, before I tell you the story, you are right. The power imbalance is true, is real, is important. ⁓ But most of the time it's the mutual colleague that we like or that we, you know, I was saying this to my daughter because her circle of friends is changing.

Rosie (01:58)
Ha ha!

Mm.

Yeah.

Roula (02:24)
She has now more friends at work. works at a school with difficult children. I really support her. ⁓

Rosie (02:33)
Take your hat off, yeah? Is that what you meant? Yeah.

Roula (02:35)
Yeah, I a chapeau.

I took my hat off. ⁓ So I was telling her that when you start working full time, these become also your friends because you go for lunch together. After work, you go for dinner. You go for a drink. Even on the weekend, you meet the work people become our circle of friends.

Rosie (02:47)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Roula (02:59)
And we spend most of the time with them, which means the opportunity to meet someone outside work is much less. Because, yeah, we are interacting with our colleagues all the time. And this is, this is, of course, if people have families, et cetera, there's different dynamic, but I'm talking about single people. That's what we're talking about. And the people at work, what I love about that is that

Rosie (03:05)
Yeah.

Roula (03:28)
Colleagues mostly, we have the same level of thinking, we're doing the same thing, we have the same interest. And the most beautiful thing is the discoveries we make about these people outside work.

Rosie (03:41)
Yeah.

Roula (03:42)
The most fun time I had with drinking, dancing, having dinner, interacting is with my colleagues, my former colleagues. Because it's a novelty, it's new, these people are new, different backgrounds, different cultures, they're all so exciting to get to know them. And as in the book of Mel Robbins, the Let Them Theory, she mentions that if

Rosie (03:50)
Mmm.

Roula (04:10)
And this is actually a very old proverb, Lebanese Arabic proverb. If they're not close to the eye, they're not close to the heart. So the more you see people close to you, the more you start liking them.

Rosie (04:14)
Okay.

True.

Roula (04:28)
or the more you feel they mean something to you because they're in your circle you see every day. And this is why it's so hard to tell people at work, don't start with a work romance. It's so human, how can we tell people no?

Rosie (04:45)
You can't control that because you know what?

People break the rule anyway. They're to go in a relationship anyway. And now you're forcing them to do it in secret because it's not allowed for some reason. Being control freaks. ⁓ HR, human resources are being control freaks because they're trying to mitigate risk. But in a way they're creating risk.

Roula (04:50)
Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, and it's not in the favor of the employee, it's in the favor of the company.

There are a lot of, I think I don't have ⁓ real study or real facts, et cetera. In my logic, I would think it's 50-50, 50 % chance it will work, 50 % chance it won't work, but it's the same everywhere. But at the end of the day, we're all grownups and we have to take responsibility for whatever, either leave the job or move to a different department or suck it up.

Rosie (05:26)
Right. Hmm.

Yeah, there's a risk whether it's

in the workplace or not when a relationship ends. There's consequences to deal with regardless. It just looks different.

Roula (05:45)
Yes,

absolutely. And to come back to to my relationship, it was the most exciting time of my life. The secret relationship to be to have this work romance with someone and no one knows and you do everything possibly you can so that no one would know because

Rosie (05:50)
Yes, tell me the love story.

Yeah.

T.

Mm.

Roula (06:12)
We were just having a fling. were just having fun. There was absolutely nothing serious in our hookup. ⁓ And we didn't want work to be part of it. We even sat at the same desk with our boss. We worked on the same project. So he's a project manager and I was a managing department and all our projects working together and our boss sitting next to us. And I remember on the day we told our boss that we're in a relationship.

Rosie (06:23)
Mmm.

Roula (06:42)
We're serious now. We want to move in together. Our boss felt like a total foolish because he did not notice anything ever. But do you know what was happening behind the scenes? We were arguing. There was so much happening. We were getting to know each other. We had like sleepless nights from sex, but you also had sleepless nights from stress and and you know, whatever happened in a relationship. And we show up at work like

Rosie (06:51)
Wow, you filled him.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Roula (07:11)
Nothing. We have totally different lives. Yes. But you know, this excitement of not letting anyone know this add something beautiful to it. ⁓ And you see so. No, no, no, no, he was he was so happy for us, incredibly happy. And I do understand there are ⁓ colleagues who had a fling, who had the relationship.

Rosie (07:12)
You're adults, you get on with it. Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. So did you get in trouble from your boss? Okay.

Roula (07:40)
and they broke up and it wasn't happy. It was ugly for them at work. But all these are forgotten. Who cares? Even if I'm your colleague and I know what's going on in your life and at work, one day I will not be working there anymore and I will forget everything about you. So why the fuck do we care? That's the thing. Work colleagues are temporary. We don't spend 20 years anymore at the same job like we used to.

Rosie (07:59)
Mm.

Yeah.

Roula (08:12)
And when we leave our job, I think few people stay in contact with the former colleagues because then we're on to a new journey to meet new people, to have new relationships, whatever. So at the end of the day, work is just work. And it's forgotten.

Rosie (08:20)
True, yeah.

Stop making a big deal out of it.

Yeah. Did you feel like you had to tell your boss?

Roula (08:39)
When it became serious, yes, because we wanted the whole world to know.

Rosie (08:43)
Okay. But it wasn't out of obligation. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Cause I'm Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So secret.

Roula (08:45)
And we started with our bus. No, no. And it was like a year after. It wasn't a few months. It was like a whole year.

I remember

we used to be together in his house and then in the morning we cycled to a certain point. We were going on bike to work. It was like 20, 20 minutes cycling, 25 minutes. And at certain place we just separate so that each one of us will take a different road. Cause we really, we were so serious that we don't want anyone to know.

Rosie (09:13)
my god.

Was that because you were scared of the consequences or just it's nobody's business because early days?

Roula (09:26)
It's nobody's business. really

don't want because at the end also, yeah, we could be the talk of the departments. People get serious, curious, and they just can't accept. why would you care? You know, ⁓ knowing me, would say, but Trilla, I wouldn't think you care about that. Yes, when it was my salary paying my bills and I'm depending on it at that time, it's important. My priority was

Rosie (09:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, get over it.

important yeah hmm so

maybe there was a little bit of fear then yeah hmm because I hear stories I don't know if it's true but if you in some workplaces you have to sign ⁓ a form if you're in a relationship with somebody you have to declare it and sign some sort of waiver

Roula (09:54)
to keep my work balance. Yeah, yeah.

True.

And it's a hard thing to commit to not to have a relationship with someone from work. So to sign on such a paper, it's a hard commitment.

Rosie (10:22)
Yeah, like, what, who, I don't know how I feel about it because it's really formalizing it, but then what happens if the relationship ends? It's so entrenched in work because you've signed this form that all of a sudden everybody's involved.

Roula (10:37)
Yeah, it becomes like a soap opera.

Rosie (10:38)
because you'd have to say, we're not together anymore.

Yeah, yeah.

Roula (10:43)
Yeah. And there's nothing wrong about having a work romance and keeping it secret. It's good to have your own secrets. Come on. Not everything needs to be. Look who's talking. We on the podcast talking about everything. And now I'm saying keep a secret. It's OK to keep a secret.

Rosie (10:49)
I Your choice.

Hmm, secret. Yeah.

If you want a relationship at work, go for it. It's just like any other relationship.

Same rules apply.

Roula (11:13)
What,

true, and what if this one person you're avoiding because you're working together will give you the best laugh, the best time, will give you the most loving memories and present? Can you imagine how we miss out on these opportunities because the expectations of others?

Rosie (11:23)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I think there's more judgment. Yeah, I think there's definitely more judgment in workplace relationships when it's someone higher up in management that's with someone lower down because people are then, ⁓ you know, she's just sleeping with them or they're sleeping together so this one can climb the ladder and favoritism, they always get the opportunities, meh, meh, meh. People just assume the worst.

Roula (11:36)
of work in this situation.

and avoid drama.

Yes.

Yeah. Yes.

Rosie (12:05)
I don't like that.

Valid concern, but come on.

Roula (12:11)
It's a valid concern and...

Each one really have to bear the consequences of their actions. So let's say I, my boss knew about our relationship before we told him and he was not happy about it. It's on me to take a decision. What am I going to do? I'm not going to look for another job. Am I going to break it up? Am I going to tell them, go fuck yourself. I'm free to do whatever I want outside work hours. Probably I would do that. Probably I would do that.

Rosie (12:24)
Yeah. ⁓

Right.

Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Roula (12:45)
but yes, we spend most of the time at work with our colleagues and we're still alone and single and because we don't want to get into work relationship. We go on the dating apps, people treat us like shit and we treat people also like shit on dating apps. And then the next person to make us happy, happy is on the same floor at work. That's so sad. Like two colleagues, imagine this two colleagues having lunch.

Rosie (13:01)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That is sad.

Roula (13:13)
Each one of them are telling each other how much they're suffering from the dating situation they're in. And they're both looking for love. But because they work together, they will not date each other. That's so sad!

Rosie (13:28)
yeah, yeah, I agree. I don't know what to say. I do agree. Like I get, I kind of get the basis of where this rule you can't take a day at work comes from, but it's so overbearing. Bugger off. People, if people are doing their jobs.

it's not affecting work, who's, it's not anybody's business. If someone stops performing at work, then yeah, you have a conversation with them. It doesn't mean if they're in a relationship with someone at work that that's automatically gonna make things bad at work.

Roula (14:07)
On this note, Rosie, I love everything you said at the end. Thank you so much. It's so valuable. No, no, no, no. I really like what you said because, you know, I put all the romance in it and you're putting the serious side to it and it's good balance. All right. Thank you so much for listening. You did it. Oh, yeah. Hmm. It was at a work party even.

Rosie (14:11)
She's saying shut up now, goodbye.

That's true, yeah. I can't believe I didn't know you met your husband at work. I love that. You've never told me that. Yes, I like that. It's cute. Alright.

Roula (14:34)
I didn't meet him at the work

party, but this is where the spark started.

Rosie (14:37)
⁓ hee hee.

Roula (14:39)
He's a good

dancer. What can I say? All right, let's hang up now. It's not about me. Ciao!

Rosie (14:47)
Let's stop, yeah. Bye!