More Than Just Friends

Learn how to harness your workplace attractionsproductively--outside the bedroom.

By D.R. Eyler, A.P. Baridon, published on May 01, 1992 - last reviewed on August 30, 2004

Whatever else, of this we are sure: The new nonsexual love lacks a place among people's traditional expectations. We find that women seem to intuitively understand this new relationship when they learn of it. They are often the ones who move to forge it, often out of the wreckage of a colleague's awkward attempts at something sexual. But men often have a hard time with the idea...at first. The conventional models for sexual behavior prescribe a course of sexual conquest for men (seduction for women) and, moreover, they have a large ego-investment in it. Men find it harder to give up the deeply ingrained macho model. They deny that they can be anything other than a successful lover. Nevertheless, we have often observed two people approach this new relationship with unmatched expectations and move to mutually acceptable middle ground--and both benefit. To men we say: Count to 10 and hear us through.

We believe that sexual attraction among certain coworkers is inevitable. The laws of probability alone guarantee that the new gender parity will create a lot of sexual attraction at work that will need an outlet. The new commonplace of shared assignments provides natural opportunities for intimate communication between men and women and nurtures attractions that might have languished for lack of proximity or initiative. As always, some people will pursue sexual attraction to love and/or marriage. Others will become involved in affairs that have potential costs to careers and to other, established relationships outside. But the vast majority wild not want or need a romantic relationship at work. We think it is time to bring sexual attraction out of the office closet and let it find its motivational and creative application in people's professional lives.

Left with the old thinking alone. however, in which the only outlet for sexual attraction is physical sex. frustrated attraction has an unwelcome way of turning up as sexual harassment. We all need a way of thinking about sexual attraction that offers us more of a choice than consummation or harassment.

There is another incentive for welcoming this new, intimate relationship. Traditional thinking assumes there is only one appropriate place for sexual attraction--between lovers or spouses. But that leads to an untenable burden on our primary relationships--the spouses or lovers with whom we share it all romantically and sexually. As seasoned observers, we believe that it is naive to assume that a single intimate relationship will fulfill us in every way. As busy people leading complex lives outside the home, we cannot expect our primary relationships to also bear the burden of providing total personal and professional satisfaction. We need to grow comfortable loving one person romantically and deeply valuing another intellectually, artistically. or in any of a variety of ways that do not diminish our commitment to a primary partner.

The term "consenting adults" needs broadening to include not just those who willingly share physical sex, but those who are open to the possibility of acknowledging their sexual attraction, communicating openly about their feelings, and enjoying their sexuality within mutually agreed-upon boundaries. Above all, the new relationship is a limited relationship. You may share moments of great personal revelation and intimacy, but you do not expect to share your bodies and souls. That leaves only one question: How do you get there?

Don and Alicia are attorneys with complementary specialties who work for the same firm and have for years criss-crossed the country taking depositions and building cases together. They share grueling work schedules, meals, hours of strapped-in airliner conversation, and even exercise regimens that overlap away from home. When they put away the briefcases, they look like a couple, and at times they act like one.

As is commonly the case, neither can cite any lightning bolts that signalled the beginning of an irresistible attraction between them. Because events dictated their time together, the attraction developed slowly and naturally: they didn't deliberately cultivate it. The fact that they found each other interesting was almost incidental--at the beginning. Now, either will admit the other is good company, attractive, and worthy of a fantasy from time to time. An affair is the last thing they need as partnership looms for each, Don awaits the birth of a child in a happy marriage, and Alicia knows in her heart that he isn't the right guy for her.

In the course of their relationship they talked about affairs, but consciously decided not to have one. At the same time, neither of them wanted a relationship that had been neutered, and both acknowledged a desire to enjoy the sexual spark between them, keep it within their chosen boundaries, and continue working together without falling in love or having sex. Instead, they deliberately cultivated an intimacy that everyone came to recognize as special but not romantic.

Neither partner had to overcome the clumsy advances of the other, yet this successful resolution of a modern-workplace attraction came about as the result of an emerging sexual etiquette. It says we can talk about sex without inviting advances or harassing one another. It offers mutual respect and open communication as alternatives to playing out the old stereotypes of seduction and conquest. It offers the interpersonal sophistication to deal with sexual feelings in other than a romance-novel mode.