‘I Dated My Co-Worker And It Was An Epic Disaster’

I had seen D* around the office of the tech company I worked for. But we didn’t really get to know each other well until our office holiday party. 

We hit it off and made plans to go Christmas shopping together, which was our first time hanging outside of work. We started dating about a month after that.

It was great...at first

D and I worked on opposite ends of the office and in different departments (he was in engineering, I was in marketing), so we didn’t think it would be a big deal to mix business and pleasure. At first, it was exciting to get to see each other every day at work. It was this secret we were holding on to—some of our close colleagues knew, but we hadn’t told out bosses or HR, since it didn’t seem that serious yet. Whenever we’d cross paths in the halls, I’d feel a rush of adrenaline. 

But about a year later, something clicked in my head, and I wanted to end it. D had become complacent in his life and wasn’t motivated to do anything positive, professionally or personally, and his priorities weren’t where I thought they should be for a man in his thirties. It wasn’t working for me anymore, so I had to break it off.

By that point, seeing him every day at work was the worst. I'd think, “Ugh, you again?”

But the breakup was awkward AF

For D, the breakup felt totally out of the blue. He didn’t get it, and he wanted another chance. But I had been talking to him about these issues for a while, and when he didn’t change, I made up my mind. We had a very emotional conversation over the weekend, and the following Monday back at the office was incredibly awkward.

I didn’t want to run into him, so I ate my lunch at my desk and only left my area to go to the bathroom. The first time we interacted again was that Wednesday. I had a meeting, and he walked by the glass-walled conference room 8 to 10 times in that one hour. 

At first, I figured he just had business to do on my side of the office. But when it continued, I realized he was trying to see me and get my attention. There were a few people in the meeting who knew about our history, and they gave me eyes like, “You better handle this.”

I didn’t speak to D about it until it happened again at next week’s meeting. Then I decided I couldn’t avoid conflict any more. I went to his desk and told him I felt like it was getting really awkward and I hadn’t thought it was going to be like this. He didn’t want to hear it.

He asked me how I could walk away from what we had. He said he just wanted to be around me, see my face, and smell my perfume. I felt bad–I wasn’t trying to be mean or heartless, but at a certain point I just had to shut off emotionally. I couldn’t have these intense conversations at work, and for me, it had long been over.

Tensions escalated quickly

After we talked, things only got weirder. He would “randomly” pop up everywhere. He kept walking by my weekly meetings and staring at me through the glass walls–not in a menacing way, but with puppy-dog eyes, trying to make me feel something.

If I was making coffee in the break room (which was on his side of the building), he would fill his 16-ounce water bottle two to three times in the few minutes it took my K-Cup to brew, never saying anything, but just always there. People were starting to notice and talk, but it was more of a nuisance than anything, so I didn’t feel the need to go to HR. 

I did have one boss take me aside and say they were curious about what they’d heard was going on between D and me, and whether they should do something about it. It wasn’t affecting my performance, but clearly it was distracting people, which worried me.

Then things got really bad

I went to D again to ask him to stop. I told him to grow up and be a mature adult. Our talks got nasty after that. His behavior escalated over the next few months, and eventually his work started to suffer. 

His manager noticed how much time he was spending away from his desk. More and more deadlines were missed. The higher-ups began keeping track of the frequency of his breaks, and ultimately let him go. On the day they fired him, they reported that he'd taken an average of 37 restroom/smoking/walk breaks every single day over the past week.

Never again

I felt bad about the way things ended, but I was relieved I could go to work without being followed around. I have no interest in dating a co-worker again—it seemed fun in the beginning, but it’s not something I was prepared to deal with after the breakup. Non-work breakups are hard enough—just seeing your ex’s sweatshirt can make you nostalgic—so imagine having to interact with them every day.

Even without his creepy actions, it would have been a tough situation and a mind game for both of us. When you stop dating someone, I think it’s best to make it a clean break, and that’s just impossible when you share an office. 

*Name has been abbreviated for anonymity.

 By JoAnn Arcenal As Told To Kristin Canning