"I Asked Him Out On LinkedIn": People Are Sharing Their Workplace Romance Secrets, And It's Surprisingly Juicy
They say that dating at work or hooking your partner up with a job at your company is often a bad idea. But that's not always the case. Some couples are actually able to make the whole work-life/love-life balance thing work.
NBC / Via giphy.com
So we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community who work with their S.O.s to share how it works in their relationship. Here's what they had to say:
1."We actually met at a company conference. He was living a state away at the time, supporting a different office, and I was at our headquarters. About six months into our relationship, we decided to see what options we had for him to move up to our headquarters. We went from seeing each other maybe two days out of the week to living AND working together every day.
NBC / Via giphy.com
"I made it clear from the start: While at work, we do not discuss our relationship, and focus on work, and once we get home, we do not discuss work. It worked out really well, to the point where new employees came in and had no idea we were dating.
"Fast forward to the pandemic: We were nonstop around each other, and it forced me to see his work style since I never paid attention before. It caused a lot of arguments, as I would try to provide helpful suggestions when he would complain. And he would sometimes take offense to it as if I was implying he didn’t know how to do his job. We had to sit down and communicate our concerns, and decided to rearrange our work areas for more privacy.
"Now, I work at a different company in order to stay remote, and he’s still at our original company. I’ve noticed how much they require of him now, and it’s started to interfere with our relationship. Although things have been somewhat successful with mixing our relationship with work, I don’t know how much longer I can take the demands my previous company has for him.
"If you are, or may have the opportunity in the future to date someone you work with, set CLEAR boundaries, and understand every person's work style is different. Listen to their concerns, but only offer help if asked. If we hadn’t had set those boundaries from the beginning and communicated our concerns, I don’t think we would have lasted."
—Anonymous
2."My husband and I started a dog training company the same month the pandemic hit. We were not married at the time but had been together for over five years and had been prepping to do this for awhile. It’s been the most wild ride trying to navigate a global pandemic, a new marriage, and a start-up company, but by the skin of our teeth, we’ve done it.
"We have strict 'no work hours' where we avoid the topic at all costs (which is very hard when our company takes clients almost 24/7 and we now have a few employees in the field). We also try our best to communicate what we both need personally and professionally to make both ends of our relationship truly work."
3."It was great! I met my now-husband when I started working as a waitress and he was working in the kitchen. We would talk often during work hours, but we never stopped doing our jobs. Management was very happy with us because we never brought our relationship drama or PDA to work. We were so unproblematic that management would schedule us for the same shifts, and they would let us leave at the same time so we could drive together."
4."My husband and I met at work almost 10 years ago. We worked in an office environment and decided not to tell our colleagues. At first, it made sense not to tell anyone because it was a new thing, and I didn’t want it to be weird if things soon fizzled out. But after months passed, it seemed weird to suddenly drop this bomb on everyone that we’d been secretly dating. So we didn’t tell anyone FOR TWO YEARS!
CBC / Via giphy.com
"It was awful. I felt like a total fraud every time I’d go out with my work friends and they’d inquire about my dating life. I was just too far in at that point and had no choice but keep up the secrecy. Sometimes, we would go to lunch together, but we’d leave separately and choose places pretty far from the office. I even lied about my vacation time saying I was going with 'family,' and we’d both mysteriously be gone the same week.
"Eventually, we moved in together and got a dog. Our office was dog-friendly, but we almost blew our cover when he brought the puppy to work and she somehow escaped and managed to find me at my desk across the building. Of course, I played it off like this happens all the time, dogs just really like me!
"Anyway, he left first, and then I got a new job, too, a few months later. It was such a relief to start fresh and feel like I could finally share pieces of my real life with my new colleagues. We got married five years later, and now we have a kid. Still won’t add any of my old colleagues on social media though."
—Anonymous
5."My husband and I are both employers at our job. Co-employers I guess you can say. We try our best not to talk about work when we get home, but there are often times we need to talk through a situation about an employee and agree on how to handle it. There is no small talk about what our day was like at dinner because we were both there.
"We made a rule early on in our career that we could only talk about work if we ask permission. One of us will say, 'May I talk about work for five minutes?' It helps us control when and how long we talk about work situations outside of the office."
6."I met my now-husband at work. He works in IT, and I’m in HR, so at first, we hid our relationship. But once we moved in together, we were less careful about keeping it a secret. I definitely got some pushback from my boss about dating a coworker, but it wasn’t a no-no in our employee handbook, so there’s nothing they could do about it. We’ve been together for six years now and married for one of those, so I would say things worked out!"
—Anonymous
7."I worked with my boyfriend-to-fiancé at his family business for two years before we made the decision for me to quit. Working with his parents was the worst thing ever, and it was hard to separate work-life from home-life.
HBO / Via giphy.com
"We would see his parents 40 hours a week, then still be expected to do other family things on the weekends. BIG NOPE. Plus, it had other issues like putting all our eggs into one basket financially. It was 100 times better after I got a new job."
—Anonymous
8."My husband and I met at work over 20 years ago. We have complementary jobs in tech and a ton of respect for each others' skill sets, and we've worked together at four different companies. Most of the time, it's great! We know we can rely on each other, we always understand what the other person is dealing with at work, and we build each other up. The only time things got sticky was when I was his boss for a couple of years.
"He should never have reported to me, but after multiple rounds of layoffs, he was shuffled onto my team. We still worked together really well, but I struggled with giving him the raises and bonuses he deserved when I knew there were other people on the team who were doing almost as good of a job as he was, and who needed the money more. That wasn't fair to anyone. I don't want to be in that position again, but I would work together with my best friend every day if I could."
—Anonymous
9."I met my current husband at work over 13 years ago when I was getting engaged to someone else. Through my first marriage, we were the best of work friends. Our friendship was no pressure since I was married. It was good in a difficult workplace to have a reliable confidant. After I left my husband, we decided to date and moved in together in less than a year.
"We kept it secret, and then COVID hit, making it easier to be discreet until I got pregnant. Once we took our parental leave, folks figured it out. I am leaving our job literally tomorrow to start a virtual job to be closer to our son. The number one thing I will miss at work is him. Living and working together worked for us, but I know it isn’t for everyone. I will still see him at home, LOL."
—Anonymous
10."My partner and I met at work back in 2014. Our company had a weekly happy hour that I frequented. He didn't, but by chance came one night with some other members of his team, and that's how we were introduced. Eventually, I asked him out to dinner on LinkedIn, since I didn't have his number at the time or any other contact info.
NBC / Via giphy.com
"It's really common that coworkers date at our company. We're not in the US, so I don't think it's such a taboo here, and there have always been couples getting together or getting married — and even some kids born out of that! There's been shockingly very little workplace drama from breakups (or at least breakup drama mostly stays out of the workplace). We didn't have to report to HR or anything.
"At the same time, we weren't, like, doing PDA everywhere. I don't even think we ever hugged, kissed, or held hands at the office, even though everyone knows we're together and even after we got married in 2018.
"When our company went remote in 2020, it was the first time that we got to 'see' each other at work. He could listen in to all my project management meetings, and I learned that he talks to himself — or maybe the code? — (a lot) while programming, and it's truly adorable. I left the company at the end of 2020, to switch to a permanent remote job. And he started a job at a different company this year, but they are currently still remote. So we're still working together in that sense.
"At home, we're definitely more physically affectionate than back in the office. I think the real challenge is what will happen when his company starts going hybrid and he'll work from the office a few days per week. We've been together nearly eight years now, and we've clocked in a lot of time together. I'm sure it's going to feel very strange working here by myself on those days."
—Anonymous
11."I met my now-fiancé at work in a restaurant where he is a supervisor and I'm a server. It's great — we can help each other and bounce off of each other when it's busy and also help the other when we're stressed or annoyed about something. I wouldn't change anything about it, and I can't imagine working at another job without him."
12."My now husband and I worked together twice, once in a pub and once in an office role. We would sneak off to have quickies on our lunch breaks. The anticipation was so hot and the afternoon was just...."
—Anonymous
13."My fiancé and I both work from home but for different companies. Instead of the usual coffee breaks we would take in an office, we have short cuddle breaks. We eat lunch together most days, and on the days when either of us needs to go into the office, we find it really hard as we miss each other."
Netflix / Via giphy.com
14."My husband and I are both epidemiologists. We work for two different programs in the same health department. It’s not hard to take a step back and be professional at work, then revert back to being goofy spouses when we are home. When the pandemic began, we were working together on the response team for very long days, and we were under a lot of stress (as was everyone else in the world).
"It felt like any mistake we might make could cost countless numbers of lives. We definitely had moments where we snapped at each other out of frustration, but we knew it was because of the situation we were in and not out of true anger with each other. At the end of the day, all we wanted to do was take a walk with each other and vent about work. We each understood EXACTLY what the other was going through, and I really think it helped us maintain our mental health during the response.
"Now things are becoming a little more normal at work again. We still talk about our jobs and projects, and our goals for our programs and our careers. I’m not an incredibly social person, but I never get tired of talking to that guy. I don’t think I could have made it through the past two years without him."
—Anonymous
15."We both work for the same company (he is in manufacturing; I am in sales), so we get to ride in to drop our son off at school together, arrive at work together, and leave together, but everything in between, we rarely see or bug each other unless it's work related. And my area (rental sales) is totally separate from manufacturing (purchase sales and repair), so we don't really need to work with each other on much.
"We do have lunches together when we aren't too busy, so it all works out pretty well! If you are considering working with your spouse/significant other, think about how much time you would have together and apart, and if you can handle that."
16."We were a couple before we were working together, but I was at the company first. I thought it would be amazing to be able to work with them, but I realized how wrong I was after about a month. We have different work ethics. I pride myself on mine, but it was obvious they didn’t care as much — which only made the job harder.
NBC / Via giphy.com
"We got into arguments pretty frequently at home because of it. With that being said, it wasn’t all bad; there were plenty of good days. But those days were hard in their own way because we couldn’t even do a quick hug and couldn’t say 'I love you' before leaving if someone was working later than the other.
"I can also count on two hands the amount of times I’ve called my S.O. by their actual name (we’ve been together for years), and the majority of those instances started when we were working together. Not calling them 'babe' or 'honey' was a struggle. We are still together and don’t work together anymore, thankfully. If we still worked together, I don’t think we would be in a relationship."
—Anonymous
17."We get ready together, commute together, and go home together. We don’t see each other around the office much because we’ve made a deliberate effort to be professional at work. We don’t sit next to each other in meetings or go to lunch, but everyone knows we are dating. My favorite thing is he will give me a wink or blow me a kiss every once in awhile when he walks by my cubicle. I wouldn’t change it for the world."
—Anonymous
18."My husband and I work for different divisions of the same company. We had never even worked in the same building until the pandemic. We were all sent home in the summer of 2020, and we've been working three feet apart ever since. It is actually terrific!
"We laugh, we bounce ideas off one another, we give feedback to each other — it has made us both better at our jobs. If he's having a hard day, I can see it and pivot to help, plus I understand his resulting moods. Sure, sometimes we fight over the temperature, but on the whole, it has done so much for our relationship."
19."In 2014, I met a guy working at a large chain bookstore. We clicked immediately and started dating. He was up for a promotion to management at that time, and one day, our general manager pulled him into the office and basically told him that he had to choose me or the promotion since management couldn’t have relationships with floor workers. He said it was an easy choice and turned down the promotion.
Paramount Pictures / Via giphy.com
"After that point, things were awkward because the GM was clearly holding a grudge against us, and we both ended up quitting after a few months. We worked together at our next job after that, too, and it was a much better experience since management wasn’t as strict on dating rules. We have now been married seven years, have two beautiful kids, and we’re working jobs with much better salaries!"
—Anonymous
20."It’s honestly the best. I met my husband at work. We started dating and got married all while being coworkers. Soon we’re moving on to find different jobs, but there’s nothing that I regret about it. Knowing that I have my best friend and my support there when I need him, and when we’re frustrated, we can look at each other from across the room and help each other, especially working in a hospital during Covid, has just been a blessing. I’ll really miss it."
21."The first time we dated 10 years ago was rough. We were young, in the same department (like our desks were across and facing each other), and in completely different head spaces. The breakup left a ton of tension on the team, and I had a hard time emotionally as I was more invested than him. Skip ahead four years, and I was at a different company when we reconnected.
"He referred me back to the company we met at, and we were in completely different departments. We had grown a lot in the intervening years, and are still together today. While our roles have changed over the last six years, we live together, survived quarantine without too much trauma, and now have roles that interact more. There are some days when it's hard, but overall, we appreciate that we can commiserate when things get rough or celebrate the wins."
—Anonymous
22.And finally, "My significant other and I knew each other for a long time before we started working together. Being coworkers actually helped launch our relationship. We travel for work, and after several months of long drives and traveling the country together, we realized how much we care about each other outside of work. We work incredibly well together as a team. We really build each other up and play into our strengths while understanding our weaknesses."
NBC / Via giphy.com
—Anonymous
