Sex with the female manager
It’s typically always the guys getting blamed for sexual harassment, but there are instances where it’s the females harassing the guys. The classics always come to mind like Michael Douglas in Disclosure (pictured above) or Steve Carell in The 40-Year Old Virgin (shown below). When faced with such a situation, the options are either A) go with the flow or B) report that person. The problem is that both options rarely have positive results even though the latter is supposed to protect employees.
For this post, let’s assume there’s a mutual attraction and you proceed with option ‘A’ where you entertain the encounter. Here are 5 steps to a fun office romance:
1) MOST IMPORTANTLY, is this person a key decision maker? Does she have more to lose than you? If yes, continue through steps 2-5. If not, then I suggest you ignore the rest of this post.
2) Do you and she work on the same projects? If so, take an improv acting class because the others on your team will pickup on your euphoria like dogs on an alley cat.
3) When seducing during the day, go with SMS, NOT email. If things ever turn, email has your name on it…SMS will just show numbers on the bill…short of a federal intervention, it would be hard to trace you.
4) Tease, don’t TOUCH!…during the day, flirt in anyway possible without physical contact…it’ll make after work that much hotter, and it won’t be blatantly obvious to your co-workers.
5) Don’t be greedy! Make sure your office romance is monogamous. Don’t make her suspecting of you and another female at the office. If you are doing this, then please watch Fatal Attraction to see what is possible.
I would advise that you always proceed with caution; however, I’ve been there before and if you must then you must. In my next post, I will cover option B.
(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
#5 is particularly important, “a woman scorned” and all that business. We women can get pretty vindictive, I’ll admit, and you wouldn’t want us to make your career life hell if we think you’re sharing the love with more than just us!
While I recognize that you can’t control where you meet someone of interest, I’m not sure I’d recommend getting caught up in an office romance. If you do find yourself in this situation I’d at least want to make sure the person worked in a different department so that if things went south you wouldn’t have to see the other person every day, and hopefully you wouldn’t work with the same people. Another thing to keep in mind is that gossip gets around, no matter how sly you think you’re being, someone is bound to find out.
@Cyara, I’m always a fan of a woman who can admit that. I didn’t date for like 3 months after seeing Fatal Attraction.
@Jane, I think it’s a terrible idea, but it happens. The gossip is always fun b/c you can create fun alternatives…Ha!
“both options rarely have positive results”
I’m glad you mentioned this. From my perspective, you should ALWAYS avoid office flings and in particular if you’re not peers. I’ve made the mistake once and I’ll likely blog about that story since I can laugh about it now!!
You might also be interested in this study that came out about a week ago: Office Culture, Not Corporate Policy, Deters Most Workers From Dating a Colleague, a Steelcase Study Finds
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