Workplace Romance

A work spouse is a co-worker (usually of the opposite sex) with whom one shares a special relationship, having bonds similar to those of a marriage; such as, confidences, loyalties, shared experiences, and a degree of honesty or openness. The work spouse is a potentially key relationship when one's actual spouse or boy/girlfriend is not able to be there. As people work more and more and spend less and less time at home, these hybrid relationships have begun to spawn more and more. This relationship can be threatened rather than enhanced if it ever becomes sexual.

(From Wikipedia)

I alluded to this a few days ago, but now I'm going to actually discuss it.

Workplace relationships are hardly news to anyone. In the past I've always had a very strict no workplace romance policy that has been very easy to follow. Largely because I work in a predominately female environment in the summer at various camps. Also because in the past any guy I would have found myself attracted to was already spoken for. Solves that problem quite nicely.

However...this year I'm close to breaking my self imposed rule. Why? Well within the first week or senior staff prepping for the summer I found myself a work husband.

It started innocently enough and it's nothing new to me to tend to hang out with the guys. When we take our lunch break we usually go outside and play games/sports because we're all just overgrown kids who keep coming back to camp even though we're older now. The first day this year when we came in to work I ended up sitting next to a guy I've known for a few years now. He was promoted to supervisor the year after me so we're on the same level, but he's two years younger. We've always got on well and by the end of week one I realized he was going to be my work husband for the summer. I thought it was kind of funny how the two of us were such a pair of shit-disturbers together during meetings because we are both terribly sarcastic and apparently have to say whatever pops into our heads immediately when it pops into our heads.

Anyways, somewhere around the end of week 2/beginning of week 3 something shifted. Literally in some cases. Suddenly our chairs were closer together. We'd sit there heads inclined towards each other mulling over paperwork and soliciting the other's opinion at random on ideas for our respective camps. We reached a point where physical contact was ok at times - first high fives, then poking each other in a distinctly more flirtatious way. Additionally whenever we started to sense it was getting a bit much - usually when there would suddenly be more people in the room, we'd knock it off. We started doing the air five like Jim and Pam on The Office if we were talking across a room or calling down a hallway.

Then it got amped up again. When I commented that I needed binder dividers, but couldn't find any in the office supply closet, he went on a mission later (without telling me) and found me a whole stack. When I returned to my seat at the table a bit later, he was out doing something else but there they were. When I walked past him photocopying a few minutes later and started to ask he practically burst out with "I found you dividers - they're on you stuff!"

Other little things here and there as well - like making sure to compliment me after we played something at lunch. Asking how my soccer game had gone the night before. Remembering any little detail of my life I may have mentioned.

We're quite the pair. When all the counsellors (our staff) started training, he and I would sit in the back together during sessions harassing each other. At one point we were blatantly flirting in front of some of our staff. As in our staff knew something was up and started looking at each other funny.

So...the question is what will I do about the situation? Do I really want to cross that line and shit where I eat? Do I want to deal with work potentially becoming awkward if I've misread the situation? Even if I have read it correctly - do I want to risk it considering we do run into each other fairly often since we work in the same part of town.

Or does that even matter since our job has a seasonal expiration date and right now I don't think I'm coming back next year?

Today was the first day our programs ran. He called me this morning to ask me if any of my camps were swimming at the pool beside his camp this week because they're closed now one day to fix something. He didn't need to call me - the pool would have called me like they'd called him.

And we also just talked online via Facebook chat when I got home from my game about how our first day went.

So thoughts from the general public? Workplace relationships - yay or nay? I've always been in the nay category myself because of my fear of appearing unprofessional, but maybe that was always because I hadn't met the right guy yet.