I read an article in Time magazine this week about office romances. Although the article’s writer seemed surprised, I wasn’t, to discover that about half of us will date on the job at some point, and 20 percent will get a long-term relationship out of it. If you spend a lot of time on the job, it’s the most natural place to find a person of like-mind and like-interest, it seems to me.
While I met Surfer Guy in the dorm at college, and not at work, I observed plenty of office romances in the days when I toiled at a company desk and not in my own home office. I saw the good: the playboy programmer who after years of wearing blinders, finally noticing the department secretary...and they wound up getting married; the bad: teary snuffles from the cubicle next door when a co-worker was dumped by a guy on the same development team; and the ugly: the married man and the single woman conducting an affair they thought was secret—without realizing our windows overlooked their “hidden” make-out spot. Still, the “good” story is so good that I really take a shine to romances that take place in the office.
My first book, The Wedding Date, started with an office romance gone bad. It opens with the heroine receiving an invitation to the wedding of her co-worker and former fiancé to the boss’s daughter. She needs to soothe her wounded pride by bringing the exact right guy to the wedding! My bestselling book from Silhouette Special Edition is titled In Love With Her Boss, and I have another book coming out from them this spring, that I named Bachelor Boss. But just so the power dynamic isn’t all one-sided, in the book I’m currently writing, the hero works for the heroine! Hah!
So spill…do you have a favorite office romance story or did you ever find romance in the office?
11 comments:
Never seen or been involved in an office romance. Though, I have to say, if I happened to know the when/where married man and single woman were having their fling, I'd be tempted to catch a photo and send it to man's wife annon.
I know I'd appreciate it if somebody did that for me.
I met the DH in college at the Wesley Foundation. I did, however, see my share of office romances when I was still working. Like you I saw the good, the bad and the very ugly (cheating wife's husband threatened to come to the office and shoot her).
I love a book with an office romance. It's just so... well, romantic to think two people can find love among the copy machines. I think my fave office romance of all times is Lois Lane and Clark Kent. They fell in love at the Daily Planet.
Marilyn
Well, I've been married since I was practically a child so I really wasn't on/in the market to become involved with any business associates.
However, I've seen more than a few romances. Especially with people who are workaholics or who identify closely with their career. Those people are their extended family. They don't meet people other places. Their customers, vendors and co-workers are their universe.
My husband's boss married one of his company's employees in England. She moved here and it worked because her area of the corporation doesn't report to that VP.
Marilyn: Lois and Clark! Yes, they're great.
Keri: I remember being quite shocked by the whole married man thing because we were all about the same age and we thought the woman (single part of the couple) was smarter than that. We didn't know what to do! He was also her immediate supervisor which only made it weirder. I think someone tipped off the highers-up because she was moved to a different group.
Deb: According to the article, it often happens that once the people who worked together and had a romance married, that they moved around a bit so as not to be in such direct contact. However, that can work for couples too.
When I write an "office romance" I'm always worried about the harrassment angle of it...have to make sure it doesn't seem ooky.
A most horrid office romance occured, I believe, as a punishment to me. :-)
There was a chick who worked in an office where I once worked, and she was a major butt-kisser. (Heck, I was young, my office mates were all young. You know how office gossip works.) Anyway, we would talk about her a lot behind her back.
One day, I got my brother a job at the office in the mailroom. Just a few weeks later....he started to DATE the butt kisser. Aggh! It was punishment, I tell you, for talking behind someone's back. And get this, she went out with him for over a year, which meant coming to our house for Xmas and other holidays. Can I just say Aggh! again?
And that'll teach me, eh?
I'm so glad I don't work in an office now. It's not a healthy environment, gossip-wise.
Michele: Yikes, that Karma can have a sting. But at least she's not your in-law, right?
I have to get my fill of workplace gossip/romance from Surfer Guy who really isn't that good at relaying info...or probably figuring it out in the first place. Guys don't get nuances, usually.
I don't think I've ever been part of an office romance but I do enjoy reading about them. I think one favorite is Sarah Mayberry's Can't Get Enough, where the office playboy and the buttoned-up Ms. Prim discover they have more in common than they might think.
We did recently attend the wedding of two of my husband's coworkers (they worked in different departments), so finding true love at work does happen!
I love these kind of stories, I think because the reality of office romances are often so tawdry. From my experience, the affairs and break-ups are more often the norm than not.
And I'm sooooo glad you wrote the heroine as the boss, Christie!!
Think of the movies with work set-ups. Like Bridget Jones' Diary. I'm blanking now, but I know there are tons of them.
I just thought of a funny "workplace romance" in a movie. One of my fave films is Love, Actually and there are the two people who meet on the set of a porn movie as stand-ins! And they have the sweetest relationship...
I met my second and third husbands in the office. However, my office was a little different - it was a college campus. My third, and last, husband actually was sent to me because I knew how to evaluate the college credits he'd earned while in the military. I was an academic advisor. He jokes that I was his advisor and I advised him to marry me. LOL It wasn't really like that, though.
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