This continues for a few weeks until one of you—probably you because you’re the one writing to the 4-Way about taking this to the next level—will want more and the other won’t.
Your after work get-togethers will get less frequent, your IMs will all but disappear, and he’ll start to avoid you at work and outside of work. You’ll get hurt, he’ll date others; you’ll hear about it at work and will be trapped in a cubicle of hell.
Work will become a place you no longer want to go, and your performance at work—and perhaps even your career—will suffer. You’ll end up without a job and a man and you’ll have wasted a lot of energy and time. Does that sound worth it?
So RIP, IMs. Get your work done, log off, and go meet someone outside of your workplace ASAP, or you’ll be SOL.
The gay man’s perspective: Darren Maddox
I think you hit the nail on the head, EM—you don’t even need our opinion on this one. As you said, you spend the majority of your waking hours at work right now so it only makes sense that you’d meet someone there with whom you have something in common. Chance are, you have more conversation there than you do anywhere else in your life and you’re surrounded by people that share the same interests. In your friends’ defense, an office romance is taboo if it doesn’t work out and if one of you has to leave to avoid an awkward situation. But hell, what if it does work out? Start a company together and stop working for The Man! Come on, you know you’ve thought about it already.
As I see it, you have a few options:
Plan A) Find out where he goes after work to play and figure out a situation where you can show up and not be perceived as a stalker. (Note: avoid the trench coat and dark glasses with floppy hat look.) You can always play it off as “Oh, I forgot you were going to be here, too” and see what he’s like outside of the office.
