I’m going to try to lay this out in a direct, but non-accusatory way. This is primarily targeted at men at work, but also applies to non-men as well to a lesser extent. This is not saying that anyone being horny at work is a creep or molester, but that on-balance, the net effect of being horny at work is negative, particularly for people who are not protected by the power structure. This note was inspired by two things which crossed my social feed. One was a stupid article in the NY Times coming out of the world economic forum in which rich powerful men complained that they no longer felt ‘safe’ mentoring or doing one on one work with women since the #MeToo movement. I won’t link it because I don’t want to give them hate clicks. The second was a comment in a separate thread by a woman who said she’d done ten job interviews and got zero job offers but three requests for dates. This was in the context of the video game industry. The video game industry is particularly bad because it’s very intensely male dominated, so everyone who is a decision maker is a man more or less.
Here’s the thing: the world of work is hierarchical and contains complex power structures. Layering dating and sexuality into those power structures creates imbalance. Consciously or unconsciously, this is the dynamic that horny people at work are using to their advantage. At work, you are known and potentially you have respect and status. I’ve been at my job for almost five years, people know who I am, mostly like me (I think) and I get a certain amount of respect. I’m not a random person and I’m not at the bottom of the hierarchy. It is understandable then that I might want to use this position to create openings for romance. It is less uncomfortable than hitting on someone at a bar, or on a dating app, where I have zero status and am a complete unknown. However, this is exactly the problem. By using that privileged position, you are willingly or unwillingly exerting power over other people in your work environment. You are forcing them to say yes or no on an uneven playing field.
My advice is instead, focus your romantic energies on places where you do not have a structural status advantage. Your friends circle, online dating, or basically anywhere where you are not entangled in an overt and important power hierarchy. This is a more honest way to date as well, you know that anyone who is expressing interest in you is doing it on an even playing field. It also avoids a lot of messiness if there is a breakup or some other bad situation, it doesn’t splash over all areas of your life like it will if you are at work. It also protects the less powerful people in your work place not only from being put in an uncomfortable position with you, but also with other people, potentially who are less kind and ethical than you are. If you are being horny at work (or sweetly having a loving and wholesome relationship with a coworker, as you no doubt see it) then you are normalizing this behavior in the workplace and making it OK for other people to attempt to pursue the same. This creates an uncomfortable and potentially unsafe work environment for your less powerful (and usually non-male) colleagues. Do us all a favor and go get on Tinder or something. There are plenty of lovely people outside your workplace to meet and it’s not a bad thing if you have to do a little extra work to impress and win them over because you are starting from a more equal playing field.
PS: I know some very nice people who have office romances who might read this (Hi!) and I mean this with all due love and respect, but yes, I’m talking to you too 🙂
