Keep It Out of the Office

You know you’ve already thought about him, though you might not have met him yet. He’s that dreamy guy in the office, the hottie who looks so incredibly good in his suit that you can’t help but fantasize about what he looks like underneath it.

Girls, take my advice. Keep the guy in his suit, and keep your professional relationship professional.

Summer internships have become a right of passage of sorts, offering invaluable experience (not to mention recommendations) that can shape your future. The easiest way to mess it up, and quite possibly ruin your summer? Hooking up with a full-time employee in your office.

Piece of cake, you say. You wouldn’t want to jeopardize your future, or a potential job offer, so you’ll find some other way to release your sexual energy. Except it’s not always so easy. For one, depending on where you decide to spend your summer, you could be more or less on your own, with not a lot of friends to fall back on.

It’s only natural that if you meet some of the recent grads that your office employs, you’ll attempt to foster friendships out of the office. Toss in a happy hour three times a week, and there’s no telling where things could lead.

Compounding the difficulty of keeping sex out of the workplace is that young male employees are often on the prowl. To them, “summer interns” is just a fancy phrase for girls with whom there’s probably no real future. Put more simply, it’s the ideal situation. So they’ll flirt with you, they’ll hang out around your desk, give you the eyes, make you laugh and do everything else in their power to make you think that they’re into you. And what girl living it up during the summer can really resist being the object of the office hottie’s affections?

What’s the big deal, you ask? Why can’t I have my cake and eat it too? The fact is, office relationships cause nothing but awkwardness. Regardless of whether you want to make a full fledged summer fling out of it or not, the guy is almost always going to feel like you’re now too close to the action. It’s just how we tend to think.

You’ll hook up with your boy, and then notice that he starts to avoid you more and more. He starts taking his lunch breaks at random times. He first avoids your gaze, and then begins to avoid your desk altogether. And unless you’re one of those rare girls that can hook up like a guy (you know, without any emotion or feelings whatsoever), you’re bound to get annoyed, and even upset. Other people around the office begin to notice the palpable tension whenever you and your (soon to be former) crush are in the same room. And it all spirals downward from there.

Bottom line? It’s just not worth it. But you guys are feisty. If you want him, you’ll find a way to get it done. So if you really, really can’t help yourself, at least wait until the end of the summer!