- We spend more time with our colleagues than almost anyone else.
- This can lead to "vicinity attraction" where you develop feelings for someone because you're around them all the time.
- But the only way to know if these feelings are real is to meet up outside of work.
- Everyone has fantasies, but that doesn't mean you have to act on them.
We spend a lot of time with our colleagues. In fact, we probably spend more time with the people we work with than almost anyone else. Since you're likely also surrounded by people you have things in common with, it's not all that surprising that people fall in love at work.
Proximity is a funny thing. Research has found it takes around 200 hours for people to become close friends, because the more time you spend with someone, the more chance their positive and attractive qualities shine through. This is fine for people who are single, but if you're in a monogamous relationship and you start having feelings for someone at work, things can get messy.
In some cases, a work spouse relationship is born, where you share the trials and tribulations of the workplace with each other, have lunch together, and emotionally depend on one another. In other cases, the people involved may not have put strong boundaries in place, and they can start to behave inappropriately.
Monogamy is hard, according to Tammy Nelson, a consultant sex therapist for adult infidelity dating site Ashley Madison.
"Even if you're married, you're not dead," she said. "You're going to be attracted to other people."
But it's how you handle this attraction that's important. If you're not careful, the situation can fall into the realm of micro-cheating, which is essentially where you cheat, but only a little bit.
Nelson said this could range from flirting at work, sharing personal details about your life, and texting a lot, to things like sending explicit messages to each other.
"That's really where you cross over into the line of where if your spouse really knew what you were doing, they really wouldn't be happy," she said. "Like, if someone was looking over your shoulder, you'd probably get in trouble. Or you'd feel guilty about what you're doing. That's what I consider on the micro-cheating lines."
According to data from Ashley Madison, 37% of people have someone at work who they want to have an affair with. That doesn't mean they'll do it, but there is the potential for boundaries to be crossed and behaviour to fall into being inappropriate.
"Everyone has fantasies," Nelson said. "That doesn't necessarily mean you have to act on them. It's part of being alive, and reassuring yourself that you are still a sexual person, that you're still interested in having your aliveness mirrored in the world, which I think is a good thing."
But there is such a thing as falling in love. So how do you know if you're simply falling victim to normal close proximity flirting, or if there are real feelings developing?
Vicinity attraction
"I think that's a fascinating question, especially because your life is in somewhat of a fishbowl," Nelson said. "It's not necessarily someone you would choose if they were lined up on a dating app... Part of the difficulty in dating these days is that there are so many choices. When there are so many choices, sometimes you don't pick anyone."
In a work environment, your choices are limited. So you're more likely to find people attractive that you might not look twice at on a dating app. Nelson calls this vicinity attraction. She said you know it's turning into something real if the relationship starts to develop outside of work.
"Everyone has fantasies... That doesn't necessarily mean you have to act on them."
"So how do you discern if you're actually falling in love with that person? I think it goes back to the meeting up out of work," she said. "We didn't used to understand or know what people were like outside of work. It used to be if you go for drinks after work then you got to know their personality."
Now, we can see each other's Instagram posts, Facebook activity, and we can message each other. It can easily muddy the waters of what's really going on. So real life interaction is the only way to clear things up, Nelson said. In other words, if you meet up with someone outside work, and it's awkward, or you end up kissing them and immediately realising it's a mistake, you've got your answer.
"You do that after work thing where you have a few drinks, maybe you make out with a person and you think, oh this is definitely a mistake," she said. "And then you have to deal with the after effects of the fallout of the initial flirtation."
The other option is it does turn into a full-blown affair, and that brings it's own set of problems.
"You can't really judge what the attraction is based on," Nelson said. "But it's already complicated enough."
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