Is Tinder dating too adventurous for you? Or do you regret the hectic professional life that gives you no scope for mingling with prospective dates? Or wish to know a girl before beginning to date? If you belong to the above tribe, then dating a girl at work might be the thing for you.
No, dating a girl from work doesn’t mean you’ll constantly be getting emails from HR about your low output. If you know how to navigate the waters, your life partners at work might just turn out to be lucky for you.
So, if something like “I like a girl at work” has been on your mind ever since she joined your team, there shouldn’t be anything stopping you from trying to woo her. Before you do, however, make sure you follow the essentials we list out for you today. There’s always a chance a failed approach might blow up in your face.
Basic Rules Of Dating A Girl At Work
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According to an online survey, 66% of professionals have agreed on the possibility of having an office romance with their colleagues. There really isn’t any harm in it, and various corporates and IT companies have no problem with cubicle crushes. Who wouldn’t want their Jim and Pam dynamic from The Office to come true?
With that being said, there are still a few archaic workplaces that discourage you from ever asking a female colleague for a date. Before you begin dating a girl at work, understand the ecosystem, that is, the office which could be the flourishing ground for your relationship.
Here, you meet the girl every day, participate in projects as a team and spend a major portion of your time together. So before you think about dating her, keep it clear that personal development should not affect your professional life.
At work, you are just colleagues. So, when you begin exploring the opposite sex, make sure you set some boundaries for yourself. Whatever friendship or fondness you feel for your coworker, it is a different tangent that should be explored outside the office premises.
Once you have got clarity on the potential complexities that come with office dating, you can try your hand at it safely. If you’re certain you like a girl at work and would like to try your hand at wooing her, we’re here to tell you exactly what you need to do.
Related Reading: The 9 Do’s And Don’ts Of Dating A Co-Worker
How To Approach An Attractive Girl At Work?
Romantic relationships in the workplace are common. You might fall head-over-heels in love with your work colleague. But how do you let her know that you are interested in a serious relationship and not a hookup with a coworker? Plus, what do you do if your initial advances are not met with the same energy as you’d hoped?
It could end up being the most wonderful romantic experience of your life or land you in a heap of trouble if you don’t play your cards right. Here are some tips that could come in handy to approach an attractive colleague and get her attention:
1. Be subtle
If you like a girl at work, approaching her can make or break the prospects of dating. Our experts suggest you should be subtle while throwing out hints of your fondness. Professional atmospheres like workplaces can catch the eyes of your colleagues and add fuel to the fire for office gossip. As a result, the outcome of your office romance might not be great.
Approaching her within the limits not only keeps the office decorum undisturbed but also adds to her impression of you. Simple gestures like smiling at her while crossing each other in the corridor could be the first point of contact. If she smiles back, then this signals her receptiveness toward you. In a way, you’d be telling her you like her without saying anything.
2. Say it with your body language
Hitting on a girl at work right off the bat may not be such a good idea. Try to ease into flirting by displaying positive body language signs yourself. If you send off the wrong message with a few confrontational poses, you might end up inadvertently giving her the wrong vibe.
Try not to be over-friendly out of the blue, and definitely don’t be physical unless you want to be reported. The body language mistakes at work can be a deal-breaker, make sure you seem as inviting as possible.
3. While you’re at it, watch out for her body language
How she conducts herself around you plays a crucial role if you’re trying to figure out whether the girl is interested in you or not. If you want to date a girl at work and you’re looking for a positive sign, the way she looks at you while talking to you will tell you all you need to know. It can reveal whether or not she is interested in you and help you decide if at all you should pursue her.
When she giggles at a joke you crack, she is just bringing her fun-loving energy to work. And if she is making eye contact while giggling, congratulations! This is definitely a go-ahead sign of her interest in you.
If she is standing with folded arms in a one-on-one conversation with you, this signals a shutdown and you should immediately withdraw the idea of dating her. You might find her snobbish, but these red-alert signals are her way to communicate her non-interest in you.
4. Talk to her at events
If you want to date a girl at work, then the best place to start a casual conversation with her is at an office event or a conference where people will be around and you will be comfortable. You need to know about her a bit before you even consider flirting with her.
Maybe she is committed to someone or she is focused on her professional life and isn’t looking to date. Men must take these cues very seriously and drop the idea of dating the girl if she is unavailable or uninterested.
The more you know about her, the better you’ll be able to judge how you can get closer to her. No, this doesn’t mean you should now start watching all 18 seasons of Grey’s Anatomy just because she mentioned it in passing. “I like a girl at work” isn’t reason enough to completely change your personality.
Related Reading: Here’s how to deal with office romance
5 Tips To Start A Conversation With A Girl At Work
The ability to start a conversation can be the breakthrough step you are looking out for while trying to date a girl at work. But according to a survey, 40% of men are scared when first interacting with a potential mate. For good reason too, we’d argue. Approaching a girl is hard enough, trying to get a date with a female colleague seems like a very daunting task.
Who’d want to mess it up? Imagine going up to that cute girl in accounting only to awkwardly blurt out “So..how was your weekend?” on a Thursday, before you get an awkward response. Needless to say, you wouldn’t need to try and figure out how to date a girl you work with anymore, that ship has already sailed.
If you’ve been thinking something like “I like a girl at work, but I just don’t know how to talk to her,” then you should also know girls love lively conversations. All you need to do is be yourself and be confident, and talk about things that she’ll have something to say about. Yes, this means you can’t go up to her and say “So, did you watch the match last night?”
But while doing so, keep office decorum in mind before you try pushing exchanges with your female colleague beyond work. If all this talk has got you confused, let’s go into a bit more detail about it so you don’t come out of this article with no idea what to say to her.
1. Talk only when you are not busy
Make sure you talk in your free time and don’t let the conversations affect your productivity. Lunchtime or coffee breaks are an ideal time to interact better. Remember, there is a thin line between great interactions and conversations becoming intrusive or annoying for girls. Understanding how to keep a conversation going with a girl is vital.
Their intuitive gut feeling alerts them when you show a little too much interest in them. So, analyze her reactions while talking to her. Make sure she’s as into the conversation as you are. Identifying that interest can seem hard on paper, but the difference between a genuine and a fake conversation is easily spottable by an unbiased opinion. Perhaps a friend will be better able to tell you how she responds to you.
2. Identify common areas of interest
If she has recently joined your workplace, you can connect with her over common topics of interest. If you are both working in the same team or share the same professional interests, then you can bond over your field of study. Granted, it might not result in the most exciting conversation ever, but at least it’ll help you start things off.
Getting to know that girl from work is absolutely vital if you hope to have any sort of relationship with her. We usually get attracted to someone who is socially similar to us. So, you can use this human psychology premise to identify things in common like:
- Which part of the country does she belong to?
- Where did she do her schooling and where did she grow up?
- What are her interests and hobbies?
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Related Reading: 12 Ways Office Affairs Can Spell Trouble For You
3. Use work as an ice-breaker
When you are dating a girl from the office, you can use work as a way to break the ice with the girl of your interest. Talk about that big meeting that’s coming up or the promotion that’s up for grabs. Be careful, though. Don’t end up making an enemy out of her if you’re both aiming for the promotion.
If she is responding in a nice and interactive way, this signals her interest in you as a person. If her replies are about as animated as a potato, read between the lines and move on. There’s no point in trying to figure out how to date a girl you work with if she doesn’t care much for what you say. This might mean she is committed to someone or doesn’t have any interest in you.
4. Make the first move
If she is working on a difficult project with hard-set deadlines, offer to help her. Maybe you can discuss the theme with her and give her a new perspective on the project. Or you can review her work before submission and initiate the necessary edits.
This step is in tune with the principle of reciprocity at work that helps to build rewarding workplace relationships and can foster your friendship with her. While you may be pondering over “how to let a girl at work know I like her,” perhaps the best course of action is to focus on establishing a friendship with her first.
A romantic relationship in the workplace can start from a friendship. It’s impossible to go up to her, tell her you have a crush on her and expect her to fall into your arms, claiming this is all she’d been waiting for. Make the first move, break the ice, be helpful and show her why you’re worth her time. There’s no better way of winning over that girl from work.
5. Charm her with your wit and knowledge
Girls like happy-go-lucky guys with a great sense of humor. To woo her with your charisma, you need to share your thoughts, besides listening to her. Use light-hearted anecdotes or funny stories to engage and impress her with your wit and intelligence.
We all have an opinion about the world around us. Talking about this could be the next step. Move your conversations from the professional to the personal level. Talk about a recent Web series that has become the fad of the nation, the latest trending topics on Twitter, an upcoming movie, goals, and ambitions, etc. to keep her engaged in interesting communication.
If she is a book nerd, talk about the books she loves and why. If she is a music buff, then get her talking about the genre of music she likes. This will give you another reason to connect and bond over.
5 Things To Remember When Dating A Colleague
Dating a girl you work with has proven to be rewarding for many men. Spending considerable time together introduces you to the real side of your date’s personality that you couldn’t witness in other cases. How she manages office challenges and showcases her efficiency also enhances her desirability.
You will be colleagues plus friends before being a potential ‘date.’ So, it is safe to say that workplace dating can surely lead to successful romances. Here, we are not just referring to the hyped Bollywood/Hollywood couples who found their love while working. We have witnessed the transition of many workplace romance stories into happy marriages in real life as well.
But the journey has not been easy for them. Before beginning dating your colleague, tread the road with caution, as it might lead to unwanted complications as well. The dream romance affair might go awry if certain basics are not followed. It might lead to tarnished professional reputation, and even cost you your job. To prevent such nasty outcomes, here are 5 important things to take care of when dating a colleague.
Related Reading: 5 Tips to talk to an attractive girl
1. Don’t date a junior girl
Dating a junior girl comes with a slew of complications and risks. The girl could be amateur and not ready to take this relationship seriously. Or if the relationship is short-lived, there are greater chances of you being slapped with charges of sexual harassment.
When you are in a position of power, the dynamics between you two cannot be that of equal partners. When you have an influence on this person’s livelihood to some extent, trying to establish a comfortable friendship with them is not going to happen anytime soon. When was the last time you were truly friends with your boss?
Plus, this person might feel obligated to spend time with you. When a person feels they don’t have enough free will to reject your advances, things can go very wrong, very soon. If you’re in a position of power and considering hitting on a girl at work, do yourself a favor and don’t do it. If you think you are both serious about each other, then do consider leaving your job before you initiate a steady relationship.
2. Don’t use the workplace for extended quality time
No doubt workplace romances give a great opportunity to spend time together but remember you are supposed to work here. So ideally, you can keep your at-work relationship as professional as possible. Try to avoid one-on-one interaction at work and ensure your personal equation doesn’t affect your office decorum.
If you are dating a girl at work, you can spend quality time on weekend dates together, like other couples, and have fun. Try to avoid raking in that overtime money when you’re both actually chilling in the break room the entire time.
3. Keep it on the down-low unless you see a future
You should be dating a coworker secretly. Don’t talk about the relationship with another colleague; it might complicate the situation for both of you. Decide mutually to keep it secret if you want to prevent grapevine gossip and safeguard your relationship at a nascent stage.
The slew of complications that come attached to a workplace romance will not be easy to navigate. Once you are sure of each other and see a future together, you can disclose the news to your boss and office staff.
4. Keep personal quarrels away from work
Dating a girl from work can bring about its own set of challenges. Imagine if you both fought the previous night, came to work without settling it, and saw that your personal issues were affecting your professional relationship too. Like any other, workplace romances also go through a lot of ups and downs.
Your colleagues are not interested in your love life there and they just want their work to be done smoothly. So, understand the seriousness of your job and keep love quarrels away from the work front when you are dating a girl at work.
5. Go slow
Fast relationships at work fizzle out fast. There are times when your colleagues act differently than they do in their personal lives. So, before you graduate from casual dating to a committed relationship, be confident in your colleague as someone you’d want to spend your life with. You could be dating a coworker in a different department, but you still have to go slow.
We hope that after going through this article, you will be able to approach the girl at work in a clear and confident way. If you are still hesitating to make your first move, you can contact our Bonobology experts with your dating issues, and they will be happy to help you.
FAQs
It is okay to date someone from work provided you keep the relationship discreet and do not let your romance affect your professional life.
Start with smiling at her and then find out from her body language if she is into you too. Be confident but subtle when you woo a girl at work.
It is the most normal thing to date a coworker and many people end up having a life together after meeting at work. So there is nothing weird about a romantic relationship with a coworker.
Office romance is a bad idea because some workplaces have rules against romantic relationships. This could affect your career. You become the topic of gossip at work and if you break up you will have the tough job of getting over someone you see every day.
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I think it can be a great idea to make you interested in your work!! 😉 Well! Believe me if you are interested do not make the matters complicated just ask her out but do not act desperate too
Do you think it’s a good idea to date someone from work? When it comes to an end, which it will sometime, then it’ll be so weird and may spoil professional dynamic and focus?