A Question for Any Straight Girls...

[stormtrooper9091]

I think what everyone is trying to say here is flirting/dating in a workplace is a high risk high reward situation. I think it's easier if you look at it that way

 

[DoPo]

I think what everyone is trying to say here is flirting/dating in a workplace is a high risk high reward situation.

Why "high reward"? I don't think anybody actually claimed that. At most, I'd class it as "low to medium" reward. Where/how did you get the idea it was something different?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Jeez, this thread is nearly completely filled with buzzkills.

Totally. Where is the romance in this generation? When you're lying in your deathbed at the age of 104, do you really want to be telling your grandchildren how well-behaved you were in your 20s and always did a professional job and never did anything unexpected, or how you were coy with the new girl at the checkout and got fired for flirting but won yourself a date which led to a memorable relationship (however short-lived).

Seriously. Haven't you all read/seen The Hobbit?

 

[blue heartless]

What is acceptable: Making small talk and possibly asking after work

What is not acceptable: Whipping your dick out and yelling "sucky sucky dicky dicky pls"

Remember not to confuse the two, I've made that mistake before

Instructions unclear; HR meeting Monday morning. (This post made a solemn evening slightly better. Thank you.)

On topic, I'm currently in a relationship with a co-worker. We are in different departments, so there is very little chance that our work will suffer but being part of a small staff does put our relationship under a lot of scrutiny. We started talking regularly a couple of days after our staff Halloween party, and started dating after we mutually confessed our attraction to one another a couple weeks later. My advice is to always find out who the person is before you do anything, lest you (for lack of a stronger phrase) "stick your dick in crazy".

Still go for it though.

Merry Christmas.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I've never really properly grasped this aspect of life and probably never will... that is the whens/hows it's acceptable to approach a girl.

Suffice to say it's always been wickedly disastrous to me, so I've just said the hell with it. If a girl ever likes me she will be the one to let me know and make the first move. Completely avoids the whole "is this inappropriate?" issue all together... although it doesn't help some gals, I had a lady friend just recently tell me "I'm a girl! Men are suppose to make the first move!" which, like what kinda gender-role mind fuck is that?

Fuck that noise. I'm told it makes people feel uncomfortable, well then I certainly am not going to do it.

 

[Bat Vader]

I'm a guy and if a hot woman hit on me at work I know I would hate it and turn her down. I'm there to work, not look for romance, love, etc. Even if she hit on me outside of work I would still turn her down. I've heard horror stories of co-workers that used date and how it made working hell.

 

[Artina89]

I may not be speaking for everybody, but it takes everything I have to drag myself through the day at work, so to add trying to address the affections of someone else at the same time is far too stressful.

So in short, no thank you.

 

[Loonyyy]

Jeez, this thread is nearly completely filled with buzzkills.

Totally. Where is the romance in this generation? When you're lying in your deathbed at the age of 104, do you really want to be telling your grandchildren how well-behaved you were in your 20s and always did a professional job and never did anything unexpected, or how you were coy with the new girl at the checkout and got fired for flirting but won yourself a date which led to a memorable relationship (however short-lived).

Seriously. Haven't you all read/seen The Hobbit?

No, a date's very little. Go on a few, you'll see that it's fairly meaningless. What's far more likely is you lose your job, get rejected, which is far more of a problem, however romantic, and hurt the person you ostensibly like.

There's a reason people tell you not to do it. The Hobbit is about following the call to adventure, not about clumsily flirting in a workplace. If you want to follow the Hobbit, do something better with your life than living out "Peep Show". That's not any sort of adventure.

And being a shitty coworker is nothing to be proud of. Do your job well, be good to the people you work with, and make your life special. If you need to do that where you're working, you're in the wrong line of work, and need to fix your work life balance.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

I think what everyone is trying to say here is flirting/dating in a workplace is a high risk high reward situation.

Why "high reward"? I don't think anybody actually claimed that. At most, I'd class it as "low to medium" reward. Where/how did you get the idea it was something different?

because a coworker is more likely to be the similar kind of person to yourself. It also leans more towards financial stability, mutual motivation and that sort of thing.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I think what everyone is trying to say here is flirting/dating in a workplace is a high risk high reward situation.

Why "high reward"? I don't think anybody actually claimed that. At most, I'd class it as "low to medium" reward. Where/how did you get the idea it was something different?

Have you ever spent a 15 minute break making out in a bathroom stall? Or even shared a look across the room during a boring staff meeting?

I'd classify that as high reward

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

What's wrong with flirting at work? Obviously being a creepy weirdo is a bad thing, but flirting is harmless. Back when I used to work in a cafe it was about a 40/60% boy/girl split, so there was pretty much constant flirting (to be fair though, there was a bunch of super-inappropriate stuff going on as well). Flirting isn't isn't something you do to someone, it's something you do together- especially if you actually know them fairly well.

 

[renegade7]

If someone persistently hits on you in a bar and won't take the hint, you can leave. If someone does that at work, you can't just leave, and trying to go to your boss or some other authority might just make things more uncomfortable.

quote="Blood Brain Barrier" post="18.931791.23446710"]

Totally. Where is the romance in this generation? When you're lying in your deathbed at the age of 104, do you really want to be telling your grandchildren how well-behaved you were in your 20s and always did a professional job and never did anything unexpected, or how you were coy with the new girl at the checkout and got fired for flirting but won yourself a date which led to a memorable relationship (however short-lived).

Seriously. Haven't you all read/seen The Hobbit?[/quote]

If that's your game, then for every story about how you won a date and a memorable relationship by playing coy with your coworkers, you will also have a dozen stories about being reprimanded for making your female coworkers uncomfortable when they're trying to work.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Jeez, this thread is nearly completely filled with buzzkills.

Totally. Where is the romance in this generation? When you're lying in your deathbed at the age of 104, do you really want to be telling your grandchildren how well-behaved you were in your 20s and always did a professional job and never did anything unexpected, or how you were coy with the new girl at the checkout and got fired for flirting but won yourself a date which led to a memorable relationship (however short-lived).

Seriously. Haven't you all read/seen The Hobbit?

No, a date's very little. Go on a few, you'll see that it's fairly meaningless. What's far more likely is you lose your job, get rejected, which is far more of a problem, however romantic, and hurt the person you ostensibly like.

There's a reason people tell you not to do it. The Hobbit is about following the call to adventure, not about clumsily flirting in a workplace. If you want to follow the Hobbit, do something better with your life than living out "Peep Show". That's not any sort of adventure.

And being a shitty coworker is nothing to be proud of. Do your job well, be good to the people you work with, and make your life special. If you need to do that where you're working, you're in the wrong line of work, and need to fix your work life balance.

Where on earth do you live that you get fired for flirting? I think some of us are misunderstanding what flirting is. Like someone above said - it's something that's done together. It's not harassment, annoying someone, or making lewd comments or pinching someone's ass.

My advice is to observe who you're working with, read the cues. You can definitely tell if someone's into you or if they're not. Put your toes in the water, maybe make eye contact or a harmless compliment and if he/she doesn't respond then drop it. You won't get fired unless you live in Orwell's 1984 or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

well it's a thin line between flirting and harassment. Meaningless flirting is in my opinion not the point of this thread, and I have no strong opinion on it, because it's entirely an individual thing, some people like the attention, others feel threatened. In my experiences, you will have much friendlier feedback if both of yous are in stable relationships since there's no reason for either of you to have second thoughts.

If however things hint towards being serious, then the previous applies

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Jeez, this thread is nearly completely filled with buzzkills.

Totally. Where is the romance in this generation? When you're lying in your deathbed at the age of 104, do you really want to be telling your grandchildren how well-behaved you were in your 20s and always did a professional job and never did anything unexpected, or how you were coy with the new girl at the checkout and got fired for flirting but won yourself a date which led to a memorable relationship (however short-lived).

Seriously. Haven't you all read/seen The Hobbit?

No, a date's very little. Go on a few, you'll see that it's fairly meaningless. What's far more likely is you lose your job, get rejected, which is far more of a problem, however romantic, and hurt the person you ostensibly like.

There's a reason people tell you not to do it. The Hobbit is about following the call to adventure, not about clumsily flirting in a workplace. If you want to follow the Hobbit, do something better with your life than living out "Peep Show". That's not any sort of adventure.

And being a shitty coworker is nothing to be proud of. Do your job well, be good to the people you work with, and make your life special. If you need to do that where you're working, you're in the wrong line of work, and need to fix your work life balance.

Where on earth do you live that you get fired for flirting? I think some of us are misunderstanding what flirting is. Like someone above said - it's something that's done together. It's not harassment, annoying someone, or making lewd comments or pinching someone's ass.

My advice is to observe who you're working with, read the cues. You can definitely tell if someone's into you or if they're not. Put your toes in the water, maybe make eye contact or a harmless compliment and if he/she doesn't respond then drop it. You won't get fired unless you live in Orwell's 1984 or Pol Pot's Cambodia.

Depending on your field, it can be considered an ethics violation. In a medical setting, for example, being attracted to someone is irrelevant and you are to ignore or deflect advances regardless of whether or not you may have reciprocated the advances in a casual setting. Basically by hitting on your attending Physician, you are pretty much condemning any chances of an actual ethical relationship with that person due to the shortsighted thoughtless way you approached it. If you had instead, waited until a more appropriate time to flirt, it would not be considered unethical as long as you cease to be their patient. This applies to many fields, not just in medicine.

The primary difference between a casual setting and a work setting, is the person is obligated to be there rather than choosing to be there for recreational purposes. In a recreational setting, they can respond on their own accord without thought to how it affects their career, business relationships, and professional standing. They are nice to you and talking to you because that is their job to do so, vs they do not " have" to be nice to you outside of work if they choose not to. Flirting with someone at work means you have so little respect for them as to not allow them the opportunity to respond on their own accord, but instead are forced to respond in a manner representative of their position or as a representative of their business. When you are at work, you represent the business, you are not just representing yourself. Approaching someone at work, you are not approaching " them" as an individual, you are approaching their business they represent instead. In the best interests of your business, you keep personal and business relationships separate as to not have a conflict of interests.

Waiting for an appropriate time to flirt shows you respect that person enough that you would not put them on the spot like that in the first place, and that you understand that they would not be able to give you a genuine response when they are a representative of a business at the time and not just " an individual". For example, If you do not want the response to come from " the Doctor" then you approach " the Woman" not " the Doctor", and while the woman is at work.. she is just "the Doctor", not just " the woman". You catch "the Woman" while she is not working if you want to know how she really feels.

If you want to date the person, not their job title, you approach them when they are not at work. Work= Representative of that business. Not at work= just the person.

And No, this is not just 1984.. this is the reality of the difference between work and pleasure. It is terribly rude to expect someone to give you a genuine response when they are at work, they are forced to talk to you due to that being part of their job as a representative of their business. If you had any respect for them at all, you would wait until they are not forced to talk to you to find out if you may get a response. That way it is not putting them in the position to have it reflect poorly on their business if they do not wish to speak with you. Having the upper hand on someone like that when you approach them is a really scuzzy thing to do.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

When you are at work, you represent the business, you are not just representing yourself. Approaching someone at work, you are not approaching " them" as an individual, you are approaching their business they represent instead. In the best interests of your business, you keep personal and business relationships separate as to not have a conflict of interests.

Does this include preventing pheromones from exiting your body?

We are not machines. When we are attracted to someone we can't flick a switch and enter "business mode". You see it in the eyes, smell it, hear it in the voice and the way you communicate. We are biological beings, and biology is not unconditionally subject to the will.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

When you are at work, you represent the business, you are not just representing yourself. Approaching someone at work, you are not approaching " them" as an individual, you are approaching their business they represent instead. In the best interests of your business, you keep personal and business relationships separate as to not have a conflict of interests.

Does this include preventing pheromones from exiting your body?

We are not machines. When we are attracted to someone we can't flick a switch and enter "business mode". You see it in the eyes, smell it, hear it in the voice and the way you communicate. We are biological beings, and biology is not unconditionally subject to the will.

Flicking the switch to business mode is exactly what it takes to do many jobs as part of the requirement. If you are not capable of doing so, you are not fit to be a Physician, a pilot, a police officer, a nurse, a soldier, or a great many fields. We as human beings are very well capable of overcoming our biological urges to get what needs to be done actually done. Otherwise.. "Oh yea that guy is cute, why don't I just leave this guy on the operating table to bleed to death while I go give him my number... " Luckily, most people DO control their urges so we do not find it acceptable for adults to be sleeping with 15 year olds. People are expected to overcome their biological urges, otherwise you are considered not only incompetent, but possibly a danger to society. We are not dogs that need to go around humping everyone's leg and pissing on hydrants.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

When you are at work, you represent the business, you are not just representing yourself. Approaching someone at work, you are not approaching " them" as an individual, you are approaching their business they represent instead. In the best interests of your business, you keep personal and business relationships separate as to not have a conflict of interests.

Does this include preventing pheromones from exiting your body?

We are not machines. When we are attracted to someone we can't flick a switch and enter "business mode". You see it in the eyes, smell it, hear it in the voice and the way you communicate. We are biological beings, and biology is not unconditionally subject to the will.

Flicking the switch to business mode is exactly what it takes to do many jobs as part of the requirement. If you are not capable of doing so, you are not fit to be a Physician, a pilot, a police officer, a nurse, a soldier, or a great many fields. We as human beings are very well capable of overcoming our biological urges to get what needs to be done actually done. Otherwise.. "Oh yea that guy is cute, why don't I just leave this guy on the operating table to bleed to death while I go give him my number... " Luckily, most people DO control their urges so we do not find it acceptable for adults to be sleeping with 15 year olds. People are expected to overcome their biological urges, otherwise you are considered not only incompetent, but possible a danger to society. We are not dogs that need to go around humping everyone's leg and pissing on hydrants.

Okay, so far in this thread we've had someone saying there's a "thin line" between flirting and harrassment and now you comparing flirting to sleeping with 15 year olds.

What's going on here? Is it all those dumb tv shows like Sex in the City giving everyone the impression that you have to be a total uncaring ass to be slightly friendlier than usual to a person so as to indicate you might possibly like them? Also I don't think you should be using surgeons behavior as something to be aspired to, since they have one of the highest rates of bullying, harassment especially against women.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

When you are at work, you represent the business, you are not just representing yourself. Approaching someone at work, you are not approaching " them" as an individual, you are approaching their business they represent instead. In the best interests of your business, you keep personal and business relationships separate as to not have a conflict of interests.

Does this include preventing pheromones from exiting your body?

We are not machines. When we are attracted to someone we can't flick a switch and enter "business mode". You see it in the eyes, smell it, hear it in the voice and the way you communicate. We are biological beings, and biology is not unconditionally subject to the will.

Flicking the switch to business mode is exactly what it takes to do many jobs as part of the requirement. If you are not capable of doing so, you are not fit to be a Physician, a pilot, a police officer, a nurse, a soldier, or a great many fields. We as human beings are very well capable of overcoming our biological urges to get what needs to be done actually done. Otherwise.. "Oh yea that guy is cute, why don't I just leave this guy on the operating table to bleed to death while I go give him my number... " Luckily, most people DO control their urges so we do not find it acceptable for adults to be sleeping with 15 year olds. People are expected to overcome their biological urges, otherwise you are considered not only incompetent, but possible a danger to society. We are not dogs that need to go around humping everyone's leg and pissing on hydrants.

Okay, so far in this thread we've had someone saying there's a "thin line" between flirting and harrassment and now you comparing flirting to sleeping with 15 year olds.

What's going on here? Is it all those dumb tv shows like Sex in the City giving everyone the impression that you have to be a total uncaring ass to be slightly friendlier than usual to a person so as to indicate you might possibly like them? Also I don't think you should be using surgeons behavior as something to be aspired to, since they have one of the highest rates of bullying, harassment especially against women.

Context. You stated that our biological urges are not subject to will. I disagree, that is the very foundation for society itself to exist. You control flirting just like you control masturbation, it is no different as far as I am concerned really, it is only a construct of society that they are viewed more extreme. Flirting is just minor foreplay, part of the mating rituals, and mating rituals are not what people working are paid to do unless you are employed in the sex or escort industry.

Whether or not I like someone is irrelevant at work, however at the same time, in a recreational environment, they would know if I liked them as soon as we make eye contact. There is a time and place for everything. Work is for work, flirting is for when you want to fuck someone. Yes, people often want to fuck someone while they are at work, but that is why we have this thing called " self control" and hold our urges until a more appropriate time and place, Advancement of female surgeons is not what is being discussed here, as women can be just as much bullies as any man if they so choose to be.It is just a matter of what is and what is not socially acceptable as to what people are allowed to get away with. It would not only not be appropriate for a surgeon, a pilot or many other fields to stop what they are doing to address their sexual desires, it would also make them incompetent.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Okay, so far in this thread we've had someone saying there's a "thin line" between flirting and harrassment and now you comparing flirting to sleeping with 15 year olds.

What's going on here? Is it all those dumb tv shows like Sex in the City giving everyone the impression that you have to be a total uncaring ass to be slightly friendlier than usual to a person so as to indicate you might possibly like them? Also I don't think you should be using surgeons behavior as something to be aspired to, since they have one of the highest rates of bullying, harassment especially against women.

Context. You stated that our biological urges are not subject to will.

No, I said not entirely. How are you able to prevent pheromones from escaping your body and reaching a potential mate? You didn't answer that. How are you able to control heart-rate and sweating, blushing? They are all identifiers of attraction and controlled by the autonomic nervous system. It is correct to say they are not wholly subject to the will.

Whether or not I like someone is irrelevant at work, however at the same time, in a recreational environment, they would know if I liked them as soon as we make eye contact. There is a time and place for everything. Work is for work, flirting is for when you want to fuck someone. Yes, people often want to fuck someone while they are at work, but that is why we have this thing called " self control" and hold our urges until a more appropriate time and place, Advancement of female surgeons is not what is being discussed here, as women can be just as much bullies as any man if they so choose to be.It is just a matter of what is and what is not socially acceptable as to what people are allowed to get away with. It would not only not be appropriate for a surgeon, a pilot or many other fields to stop what they are doing to address their sexual desires, it would also make them incompetent.

And again the problem is, biology doesn't recognise 'work environment' when it comes to our impulses. It is totally indifferent to the circumstances of attraction.