I knew I should have been at home hours earlier, but I just didn't care.'Īnd after that point the slide down the slippery slope had begun. We ordered another bottle of wine and then staggered out into the street and he started kissing me. 'The others went home early and he and I stayed on.
Tracy describes how one night she had gone out for a drink with a few colleagues. Power can be an aphrodisiac: As Maggie Gyllenhaal's character found in the film The Secretary Yet such relationships can become dangerous - there is a tipping point (usually involving alcohol) and beyond that it is hard to go back.
They are harmless though, just naughty enough to be fun. I have had minor flirtations myself in a 30-year career I find they lift the spirits and make the day go faster. 'At the back of my mind, there was this voice wondering if he was just trying to sleep his way to the top,' Tracy told me. The difference was that neither of them was interested by the power gap in reverse. Two of the women who I interviewed had had affairs with men who reported directly to them. Yet crossing power lines no longer automatically means a senior man with a junior woman. Here I was with this man, who I usually saw chairing a meeting, and he was kissing me. Rachel once told me how she felt the first time she kissed her boss. Most men seem more alluring in the office, because they are doing something they are good at, and because they look more appealing in a suit than slouching around at the weekend in sagging jeans.Īn even more combustible part of the mix is power, one of the greatest aphrodisiacs there is. Women often find themselves falling for men at work to whom they otherwise wouldn't give a second glance. 'I saw him much more than I saw my husband and felt I had much more in common with him.' 'We worked on deals late into the night,' said Stephanie, a corporate lawyer in her mid-30s who was recently married yet was embarking on an affair with a married colleague. It crept up on them as they were cooped up together day in, day out. But there are many reasons for it, such as proximity.įor none of these women was it love at first sight. It can seem odd that sterile offices should be perfect breeding grounds for passion. I knew what I was doing was unprofessional, but never thought about the risks.' Tracy, an unhappily married advertising executive in her mid-30s with three young children, had a brief but intense affair with a junior colleague. She wasn't alone in being taken by stealth like this. 'It happened without me noticing - we spent so much time together and I was impressed by how good he was at his job.'Īccording to one recent survey, one in four office workers gets romantically involved with a colleague at some point in their lives 'He might have been an idiot,' she said, 'but I fell in love with him. To have an affair at work is to risk damaging your reputation, and losing your job and marriage. And, though an outdated idea, a woman who has had an affair with a colleague is often regarded with more prejudice than the man she has been sleeping with. Perhaps it's that for men sex really can be just sex, whereas women become more emotionally involved. The men were, on the whole, better at keeping their jobs, compartmentalising their lives between a spouse and a lover, and managing the strain of doing something so compromising.
In particular, it was a world in which men and women were not equals.Įveryone comes out badly from office affairs, but women often emerge even more battered than men. Proximity passion: Many women found feelings for colleagues developed from spending time together day in, day out (posed by models)