Have you ever wondered why falling for someone or asking someone out at work is usually considered very different from having feelings for someone in college or high school? Isn’t it the same thing? You both go to the same place every day, meet each other, have a good time, and become friends and in the process, you gradually develop feelings for them. While that is true, there is one very important piece of information that is missed out here. People are required to be nice to each other at work. If someone is being friendly with you or showing interest in what you say, that does not necessarily mean that they find you interesting. They might just be being polite.

In college, you don’t need to be friends with everyone but that is different in the workplace. Everyone needs to maintain a friendly relationship with each other because there is a good chance that you might be put into teams together at some point during your career. Developing feelings for someone is like being too naïve to understand that behavior as simple workplace politeness. As our favorite friend, Chandler Bing had suggested, “everyone needs to have a work laugh”, so it would definitely be wrong to mistake workplace politeness as a romantic interest.

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Another reason why people frown upon workplace romances is the nature of the corporate world. You see, if you do end up dating someone from your workplace and things do not work out then you might have a hard time working together and one of you might end up leaving their job. The same goes for when a senior employee develops unreciprocated feelings for a junior employee. There is a good chance the junior employee no longer feels comfortable interacting with the senior which makes the workings of the office much more complicated. In a short romance in the workplace can closely border workplace harassment which is why it is frowned upon.