The Office Romance

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This relationship can be entirely platonic, emotionally intimate, affectionate, and is just like a real marriage without the sex, kids, and mortgage.

At Active, I have had the privilege of watching romances bloom between colleagues. In fact, I often joke that we have had more workplace marriages at Active.com than found at eHarmony.com. (The original founder of match.com started his online matchmaking service because he couldn’t get a date.)  

Scott Curry was one of the founders of a company we acquired; he was a genius and a critical ingredient to the early success of Active, and began to date a sales manager. They soon became viewed as one, not just to each other but to the entire office. It was as if their identities had merged. When others asked about either one of them, it was always, “Have you seen Scott and Kathy?”

Large firms have organization charts and this too often shapes the social hierarchy of a company, and that can unfortunately impact the romantic possibilities within the workplace. In romance, you at least hope that you can operate on an equal basis. But at work, someone is almost always above or below the other person and this can add layers of complexity that a relationship simply does not need. Plus, it can create resentment among the office ranks if say, the $200,000 salaried senior executive is taking long, leisurely lunches with the $40,000 HR assistant.