Help! I'm in Love with a Coworker! [Part 2, NSFW]
Help! I'm in Love with a Coworker! [Part 2, NSFW]
Lessons on self-control from the Odyssey – an ancient tale about outsmarting the temptations that are too strong to resist
Homer’s Odyssey tells the story of the Greek hero Odysseus1. After fighting in the Trojan War for ten years, Odysseus spent ten more eventful years traveling home to his waiting wife.
In one famous section of the Odyssey, Odysseus sailed by the island of the Sirens. The Sirens’ song was irresistible to sailors; they’d steer their ships into the sharp rocks surrounding the island like insects lured to their doom by the glow of a bug zapper. To avoid this fate, Odysseus ordered his crew to tie him to the ship’s mast, thus preventing him from jumping overboard to chase the Siren song. He also ordered his crew to plug their ears with beeswax.
If you want to resist the Siren song of an office romance and return home to your partner, you can follow Odysseus’ example. You can deploy preventative measures (shoving wax into your ears) and corrective measures (asking someone tie you to the mast).
Remaining Out of Earshot of the Siren Song (Preventative Measures 1)
When it comes to staying out of the Career Swamp and the Straits of Conflicting Interest, an ounce of prevention is worth a metric crapton of cure. Refraining from falling in love with a colleague (proactive) is much easier than falling out of love (reactive). Let’s start with the most important question: In your life voyage, do you need to sail close to the island of the Sirens?
Think of the last person you fell in love with. Recall what your life looked like before you met that person. Isn’t it strange to think that the two of you co-existed for decades on this planet, living parallel lives until the fateful day your paths finally intersected?
Now shift from the retrospective into the prospective. At this very moment, somewhere out in the world, there could be someone who will take your breath away when you meet them. You are living in parallel with this potential love interest right now. Your paths could cross three hours from now, or in three decades.
Notice how you can think of your past love interest with a mixture of emotions, but you can only think of your future love interest in hypothetical and abstract terms. You have a rough idea of what Prince Charming would be like, but he isn’t a real person; he’s a 2-D caricature of an ideal man. “Ms. Right-for-me” isn’t a woman at all; she’s a checklist with boobies. You can conceptualize a perfect human, but you can’t fall in love with them. Your passions will remain dormant until the fateful day you finally meet your love interest.
In other words, you won’t sail within earshot of the Siren song until you actually meet your future love interest. If you arrange your life to avoid meeting someone who can steal your heart, an office romance will never happen! To loiter in the oblivious state of “pre-love” for as long as possible:
Minimize chance encounters that could trigger love at first sight.
Avoid conditions that would allow a smoldering, slow-burning interest to ignite into a firestorm of passion.
Don’t network mindlessly; do the bare minimum needed to reach your goals. Refrain from using meet-and-greet mixers as a form of corporate speed-dating.
Replace funny business with fun busy-ness. For me, writing Adventures in Leadership Land keeps my posterior parked in the pallid glow of a computer monitor, and away from potential love interests. If you’re allergic to solitary hobbies, pursue social hobbies in the company of people you are sexually oriented against.
Unfortunately, it’s bad career advice to say “avoid anyone who might tickle your fancy.” As I wrote earlier in How to Accidentally Fall in Love with a Coworker, effective leadership necessarily entails close relationships, which increases the risk of falling in love with a coworker. The only guaranteed way to avoid a workplace romance is to become an unemployed hermit living in a monastery that’s hidden in the corner of an abandoned space station that’s in geostationary orbit over a desert island. That’s also guaranteed to make you a terribad leader.
Staying out of earshot of the Siren song is about avoiding unnecessary connections with coworkers. For the necessary connections, you’ll have to plug your ears with wax.
Plug Your Ears With Wax (Preventative Measures 2)
In the Odyssey, Odysseus ordered his crew to plug their ears before they were within earshot of the Siren song. You should do the same; set boundaries on acceptable behavior right now, when you still have all your wits about you. Assume that once you meet your future love interest and you hear the Siren song, your sanity will slip away.
Here are some preventative measures that I use to keep myself from falling in love with a colleague:
Set clear boundaries with my spouse
We talk about enforcing the boundaries of our relationship as seriously as we talk about money, kids, or personal safety. Before we delineated the limits of acceptable vs. unacceptable behavior, there were huge gray areas inside which I could lie to myself. I’d cherry-pick my benign motivations (“I’m mentoring her”), downplay my selfish motivations (“She’s not really my type”), and plausibly deny that I’d crossed any boundaries. But once we set clearer boundaries, the gray areas shrank – and so did my capacity for self-deception.
Use a non-sexist version of the Mike Pence Rule
Back in 2017, former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence stirred up controversy when the Washington Post reported on his categorical refusal to dine alone with any woman other than his wife2. The “Mike Pence Rule” seemingly originated from his religious convictions, which I don’t share – but I still find the rule useful for protecting me from myself.
Important note: the Mike Pence Rule is sexist and may be illegal. To avoid unfairly penalizing women’s career advancement and to avoid allegations of sex discrimination, I have a “no dinner alone with anyone other than my spouse” rule. This blanket rule works regardless of sex, gender, orientation, or race; even Martians can use it! To avoid misogyny and misandry, one must be an equal-opportunity misanthrope.
Guard yourself on business travel
An unfamiliar environment that’s low-accountability, far removed from witnesses, where it’s common to have a drink or six before walking someone back to their hotel room late at night.
What could possibly go wrong?
Beware the feeling of curiosity
Curiosity is one form of attraction, so it can camouflage itself among other, less-innocent types of attraction. If left unchecked, curiosity can mutate into an obsession as the other forms of attraction grow stronger.
Enforce professional and personal boundaries
There are a myriad and a half methods to separate your personal life from your professional life. However, which boundaries are acceptable depends on the nature of your work, the rules of your organization, and personal taste.
For example, I no longer share personal phone numbers with colleagues. Even in emergencies, they can reach me through work-issued devices. I can do this because my organization encourages me to compartmentalize work-related communications on a spyware-laden device, but you might not be able to do this if you’re a restaurant manager who needs to coordinate staff schedules on the fly.
Write out a contingency plan
If you keep noticing how nicely Larry cleans up before presentations, how his broad shoulders taper down to his waist, how his chiseled jawline could carve a marble statue of Poseidon…those intrusive thoughts are here to stay. Remember when Lindsey’s shirt lifted up for a few seconds as she leaned over the conference table to grab something, and you glimpsed her lacy Victoria’s Secret underwear peeking out from her pencil skirt? Lindsey is a consummate professional and always dresses like one, but her tiny wardrobe malfunction forever changed how you view her.
In a 40-year career, you’ll occasionally experience moments of weakness. When the wax plugs slip out of your ears and you hear the Siren song, you can’t un-hear it. You’ve crossed the point of no return. Your judgment is now impaired – imperceptibly at first, but the impairment worsens as you become increasingly attracted to your coworker.
You can counter this degradation by writing out a contingency plan when your mind is clear and placid. A contingency plan is not a magic bullet, but it can offer you some direction when the Fog of Uncertainty rolls in; when you’re paralyzed by shame, anxiety, and conflicted emotions; when the Siren song drowns out your rational thoughts.
The following sections will help you figure out what to put into your contingency plan. Remember: it’s better to have a contingency plan and not need it than to need it and not have it. Just like a fire extinguisher. Or a seat belt. Or a condom.
Tied to the Mast (Corrective Measures 1)
In America, you can always find a party.
In Soviet Russia, the Party always finds you.
— Yakov Smirnoff
No matter what precautions you take to avoid office romances, leadership comes with the constant risk that an office romance will find you. What happens once you’ve crossed the Rubicon and you’re plagued with intrusive thoughts and naughty dreams about your newfound love interest?
One lesson from the Odyssey is that you cannot rely on willpower to resist temptation. Your willpower is an indecisive friend who sometimes “forgets” lunch appointments. In contrast, the Siren song of temptation is a relentless foe with unlimited resources. When your willpower inevitably flakes out, you’re defenseless against a sexy boss or hot subordinate. You’ll need dependable allies if you want to avoid destroying a 20-year marriage/career with a 20-minute indiscretion.
When “Ms. Right-for-me” walked into my life, she transformed from an abstract concept (a checklist with boobies) into a flesh-and-blood woman with inordinate power over my emotions. Here are some of the corrective measures I took.
Enlist my spouse as an accountability partner
When I need someone to tie me to the mast, there’s no better candidate than my spouse. This was easier said than done because my past partners were prone to jealousy-induced rage. It was difficult for me to come clean with someone who repaid my transparency with hostility. The one who didn’t shoot the messenger, and supported me in resisting the Siren song, was the one I eventually married.
There’s a world of difference between a supportive vs. antagonistic partner:
A supportive partner can be strong and level-headed when I’m weak and deranged by the Siren song. As an accountability partner, my spouse can help enforce boundaries and implement the contingency plan.
An antagonistic partner forces me to fight a battle on two fronts. After resisting temptation for 8+ hours at the office, I must spend my remaining hours at home fending off someone who treats me with suspicion and resentment.
Odysseus trusted his crew to support him through his trials. Hopefully, you have a supportive partner or good friends to support you through yours.
Eradicate beliefs about soulmates or “this is meant to be.”
It’s a horribad idea to ink a prison tattoo on your own face using your non-dominant hand, but the notion becomes more appealing under the influence of alcohol. Likewise, all that soulmate nonsense becomes more appealing under the influence of an intoxicating crush.
Fortunately, the webcomic xkcd tied me to the mast with a wonderful analysis on the odds of meeting one’s soulmate. And by “wonderful” I mean that the analysis demolishes the delusion that any particular love interest was predestined by the gods.
Practice self-compassion
Whenever I acknowledged that my motivations were less-than-innocent, I started self-flagellating. Inside my head, it sounded like *whiplash* unfaithful partner. *whiplash* unworthy bosshole. *whiplash* libidinous lecher. Beating myself up was emotionally exhausting, thus weakening my resistance to the Siren song. Self-flagellation wasn’t merely counterproductive; it was a vicious cycle of shame → self-hatred → repair self-esteem by engaging in naughty behavior to seek validation from love interest → more shame → cycle repeats.
It took me years to break the cycle. I finally convinced myself that I’m not a bad person for feeling attracted to someone else. I eventually redefined “failure” as capitulating to temptation, not merely feeling it. Nowadays, I remind myself “I’m married, not dead” and I practice the techniques from Living With Uncertainty – How Leaders Can Manage Emotions. As my self-compassion went up ↑ my self-sabotage went down ↓ and my resistance to the Siren song improved.
Feeding the hole in my soul with healthier alternatives
My craven desire for external validation underpins my motivation to chase women. This “hole in my soul” is the emotional equivalent of hunger; it’s like a constant craving for triple chocolate cake. Stuffing myself full of salad won’t satisfy the craving for cake, but at least I won’t be hungry for a while.
I’ve never been able to eliminate the soul hole, but I’ve gotten better at filling it with constructive activities in lieu of destructive ones. For example, I once fed my insatiable hunger for external validation by creating a YouTube video that went viral. In another case, I felt an urge to visit a bar3 so that I could “accidentally on purpose” bump into a subordinate who had me in the palm of her hand. Instead of scratching that itch, I redirected the infatuation’s restless energy into a research project. I armed myself with a clipboard and scientific equipment, went to a grocery store at 9pm on a Friday evening, and collected data from the aisles. It was engaging enough to keep my mind off my love interest, at least until the store staff kicked out the clipboard-wielding weirdo.
Nailed to the Mast (Corrective Measures 2)
Odysseus ordered his sailors to tie him to the mast, not to crucify him. I’m deviating from the Odyssey’s story to emphasize that the following methods are effective at resisting the Siren song, but they’re dangerous. They can damage professional relationships. They can derail career plans. They might be illegal, depending on where you live. Therefore, a disclaimer: the following vignettes do not constitute advice, suggestions, or insinuations; they are merely autobiographical stories or hypothetical “what ifs?”
Also, if you work in Human Resources, you should probably leave before you blow an aneurysm.
Ad nauseam
When an infatuation progressed too far, I found myself idealizing my office crushes. To sully the pristine image in my head, I asked myself: if they’re so easily seduced, how many sexually transmitted diseases have they picked up from other people? Whenever I started daydreaming about naughty things, I searched for gruesome images of STD infections online. Revulsion and disgust were effective antidotes for sexual fantasies.
Donning the tinfoil hat
Mistrust and paranoia are also mood-killers. By asking myself are they using me? I could fabricate all sorts of conspiracy theories to stir up feelings of resentment. This was especially effective when there was a power differential between me and my love interest. But as you can imagine, it wasn’t healthy to encourage feelings of resentment against a colleague.
Social distancing
Once my attraction to a coworker grew until it interfered with our work, that’s the point where the two of us made better strangers than coworkers. There are four main ways to create distance:
Apply to other jobs: A straightforward method to create distance from the source of the Siren song.
Help the love interest apply elsewhere, preferably to a job that’s better aligned to their interests: Done smoothly, this appears like altruism and mentorship. Done clumsily, it could lead to accusations of favoritism, sex discrimination, or quid pro quo.
Ask a higher power to reassign one or both of us. The higher-up serves as a shield against allegations of funny business because it looks like their decision. However, it’s awkward to lie about the reasons for requesting reassignment in the first place.
Do nothing and let staff turnover solve the problem. This was my default choice when I was young, stupid, more reactive than proactive, and had no formal authority. Sometimes I’d procrastinate until a love interest left, allowing my passion to slowly cool on its own.
The nuclear option: quitting
I’ve never quit a job to avoid an office romance, and I hope that I never have to. However, there is a point where both preventative and corrective measures become ineffective. If I reach that point, I’d seriously consider quitting cold turkey to save my marriage.
It’s also conceivable that quitting is the lesser of two evils. If the alternative involves blackmail and a trip to the Career Swamp anyway, cutting my losses early doesn’t seem quite so bad.
The thermonuclear option: firing the love interest
I’ve never fired a subordinate for being too attractive, but an Iowa dentist did just that in 2010. In the (in)famous case Nelson v. Knight, the dentist’s wife discovered risqué text messages between him and his female assistant. After the dentist’s wife confronted him, he fired his assistant for being irresistibly attractive and a threat to his marriage. Instead of tying himself to the mast, this dentist nuked the island of the Sirens from orbit!
The dental assistant sued her former boss for sex discrimination, but the trial court ruled in the dentist’s favor. The dental assistant appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the lower court’s ruling by siding with the dentist. The Iowa Supreme Court decision made national news, inspiring both tabloid headlines and scholarly debate about the case’s broader implications4.
Bittersweet Homecoming
Odysseus resisted the Siren song and overcame many ordeals. Ten years after he brought the Trojan War to an end, he finally completed his journey home and reunited with his wife. They lived happily ever after.
Just kidding. Odysseus came home to find a bunch of rowdy men living in his house, eating his food, and trying to seduce his wife. He had to shoot an arrow through a dozen axe heads, murder the intruders, and executed their accomplices in a massive bloodbath. He also had to convince his wife of his identity, since she no longer recognized him.
I feel like the end of the Odyssey is an imperfect analogy for how I felt in the aftermath of an office romance. Hearing the Siren song forever changed the nature of my relationships – my partner never saw me in the same light again, and my professional reputation took a hit (I became “that guy”). Withstanding temptation was difficult enough; rebuilding trust with the people who matter was a completely different beast.
This essay listed out preventative/corrective measures that helped me when “Ms. Right-for-me” walked into my life. They may or may not help you when Prince Charming or Ms. Right-for-you walks into your life.
Pretend like you’re at an all-you-can-eat buffet – you can load up your plate with a helping of everything, or you can partake only in the items that you find palatable. Hopefully, this buffet of ideas helps you resist the Siren song of office romance, steer clear of the Career Swamp, insure domestic tranquility, and avoid the mistakes I made.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the oldest works of literature still read by modern audiences. The Iliad recounts Achilles’ exploits during the Trojan War, and the Odyssey tells of Odysseus’ eventful homecoming after he fought in the war. While the themes of heroism and glory are central to the Iliad, the Odyssey revolves around themes of temptation and cunning. Odysseus devised the idea of the Trojan Horse; it was his brilliant subterfuge, not brute force, that allowed the Greeks to finally win the Trojan War.
The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in the Iliad, which ends before the conclusion of the Trojan War. The main account of the wooden horse comes from the Aeneid, which the Roman poet Virgil wrote almost 700 years after Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Mike Pence apparently told this to journalists all the way back in 2002. It’s unclear if he still followed that rule in 2017 when the Washington Post reported on it, and it’s unclear if he follows it today.
To give you a sense of how out-of-character it is for me to visit a bar: I’ve been inside more courtrooms (from which we get “the bar,” as in the legal profession) than inside bars where they serve alcohol. And no, I’m not a lawyer. If I passed the bar exam, I’d probably spend more time drinking in bars.
Even though Nelson v. Knight appears to be a textbook case of sex discrimination, the Iowa Supreme Court decided that the termination was due to lookism (discrimination based on attractiveness/ugliness), not the mere fact that the dental assistant is a woman (discrimination based on sex/gender). A law professor wrote Madonnas and Whores in the Workplace, a thought-provoking analysis of Nelson v. Knight that lacks the dryness of a courtroom docket. You can also read an earlier Leadership Land article about lookism and how it’s still legal.
What a mess. I’ll be at the bar. The one that serves alcohol.