to wonder why a lot of MN'ers find being friends with your colleagues a strange concept?

[likeifyouhate]

So ... not really a thread about a thread but having read one this seemed to have that theme running through it.

Do people really find it baffling that colleagues are more than just colleagues and are actually friends?

Two of my best friends with people I worked with (6 years ago), I saw one of them on Sunday and I'm meeting the other for dinner tomorrow.

My last job I left I still keep in contact with my friend. We are meeting up for drinks next month.

Where I work now I'm friends with a guy and we hang out a lot outside of work too (nothing romantic).

Do people really find the concept of colleagues being friends that odd?

1 of my best friends is someone I worked with 15 years ago. We worked together for about 3 years and stayed in touch. She is basically part of the family now. Also my boss is one of my most trustworthy friends even though he is a lot older than me. Him and his wife have babysat for us in the past. I have one friend who I keep in touch with intermittently but we know that if anything happened, we would be there for each other. But in my 21 years of working in various jobs, these are the only 3 good friends I have made from work.

My DH was a work colleague, DS's godmother was a work colleague and DD's godmother was also a work colleague. I have great work colleagues!

Work in a very vocational field. I left the area five years ago.
One of my colleagues is my best friend - I'm godmother to her daughter, she's godmother to my youngest. She left three years ago and we live on different continents but she is still a very dear friend.
My deputy is one of my closest friends. He was best man for DH at our wedding and is godfather to my eldest. He left six years ago.
DH and I were colleagues first.
Just got back from a summer holiday with five other families, all of whom worked at this place and all of whom, bar one, married colleagues. All of us have since left but all of us are still close friends and now all our kids are becoming friends.
But I think the situation we have is incestuously abnormal!!!

I find the expectation that you should be friends with colleagues weirder really. I have friends who were colleagues but we aren't friends becuse we worked together, it's because we have a lot in common.

I find the expectation that you should be friends with colleagues weirder really. I have friends who were colleagues but we aren't friends becuse we worked together, it's because we have a lot in common.

Isn't that the same for everyone?

You keep in touch and continue to be friends because you like each other?

I've worked with hundreds of people, I don't keep in touch with them all.

I get on with people I work with, I chat to them and so on, but I dont consider them, nor would want them to be, friends.

Is that really such a bad thing?!

A bit sad I guess as it seems you decide outright you don't want them as friends.

You could be missing out on great friendships.

One of my best friends was a work colleague - we job shared when both of us first returned to work after maternity leave so we had lots in common and still do.
I don't think it's at all weird to be friends with work colleagues but only if you have more in common with them than just the fact you work together.
I can't see myself keeping in touch with any of my current colleagues when I leave although we get on well enough. We just don't have outside interests in common.

It isn't that I don't get along with people at work, but it's impossible to be able to fit a friendship in around work. By the time I've finished work, it's time to go home for the evening, I just don't get time to socialise and quite frankly I'm a bit knackered!

It's just another complication to deal with.

Mind you, I have a lovely colleague who's one in a million, who I count as a person I can confide in and treasure his friendship. I'm moving jobs (same company different dept) in 2 weeks and starting to feel a bit sad if we lose touch. Not sure how to mention it without him thinking I'm going soft on him!

When I started my first job after uni I was adamant I was going to keep work and friends separate. After about 6 months I had made two amazing friends at work who I'm still friends with now 7 years later and a whole new job and different city later.

My current colleagues I like well enough but there aren't any I consider actual friends. I wouldn't text any of them at the weekend or anything like that.

I have work friends. Most of us no longer work in the same place but we meet up. Not often as we all work shifts but twice a year or so. In fact we are off on our annual trip away in a couple of weeks. There are 6 of us who are the core group and a few others who occasionally join us. I am the only female. This isn't a surprise as its a male dominated environment I work in. I'd find it weird to not make at least one friend when you spend most of your day with your work colleagues.

I wouldn't necessarily expect to be friends with my work colleagues (although my closest friend is an ex-colleague), but I find the 'they're only colleagues, why would I want to be friends with them?' attitude completely baffling.

Do you say that about people you went to school with? People you meet at university? People you meet through your DCs? Friends of friends? Where on earth do you meet your friends?!

daisy, does that mean you don't have any friends at all?

I get on well with most of my colleagues and we have a bit of banter at work but I wouldn't call any of them friends. Work friends in the loosest of terms but not people I ever feel entirely comfortable socialising with.

I'm friends with some on facebook but they only see one or two updates as I tend to share most things with a specified "family" list which consists of family and close personal friends. In fact I deleted two ex colleagues yesterday as I didn't see the point.

Mind you I work in a small office as practice manager so i expect most of them don't like me anyway ??.

All my friends are friends from work, as is my DH! Both DD's godmothers are women I met at work. But work is a very big part of my life and who I am, even though I'm not working at the mo.

When I was single, it was easier to be friends with colleagues. Now I am busy with a family, I simply don't have time to do the lunches or drinks after works. Hence, my work life and home life are reasonably compartmentalised.

One of the people who report to me made a comment about how all her colleagues are her friends. I did not say anything. I am her boss, not her friend.

I thought I was friends with colleagues - some I had been working with for 15 years. but in a time of need, they turned their backs on me; pretended that what was happening in the workplace wasn't; didn't have the courage to stand up to a bullying boss or stand with me; came out of what was a very bad time for me, smelling of roses and reaping the benefits of my hard work.

I deleted them and blocked them from FB. I realised they were just colleagues and mislead me into thinking they were my friends. Friends don't ignore; friends don't turn their back and they certainly do not pretend they have no ides what is going on.

I leave my professional life at work and my personal life at home. Never shall the two intertwine again.

I made good friends at work when I was young free and single in my late 20s that are still friends now. Now I'm older with dc and commuting further I don't feel the urge for work to cross my personal life. I have a few but it's not the same.

Those that find it strange to mix work and friendship, what about your children at school- surely you expect them to make friends with the children they just happen to be at school with?

Huh? school and work = apples and oranges. Don't be daft!

I also have to go to the doctors every now and then, should I invite the receptionists to my wedding? Practice Nurses to my birthday party. Or get upset because they forgot to invite me to their daughters baby shower?

Sorry but I'm in the "I am at work to work not to make friends" camp. I wouldn't want to be friends with them if we didn't meet at work.

And, you can have school friends and home friends.... same thing, really!

It feels odd to me to rule out a while group of people as potential friends simply because of the context in which you know them.

I'm not friends with everyone I work with by a long shot, but I've met some brilliant people through my work now and in the past, and I'd have missed out on some brilliant friendships if I'd ruled out the idea of being friends from the get-go.

I have plenty of friends and dont feel I am missing out. I had my eldest quite young so was never able to do the out-of-work socialising, so that may have affected my view, but I dont feel that I have missed anything.

I make my friends through my husband, my family, friends of friends, the normal way! I just dont like mixing home with work, I dont feel comfortable sharing personal parts of my life with people I have a professional relationship with. Its not appropriate in my view as it can, and does, get messy when the lines get blurred either in one world or the other.

I am not saying no one should do it, but that I dont and that I am happy with that.

Special, but what if you met someone through work you really liked or thought was interesting and that you might get on really well with? That is, someone you would want to be friends with if you'd met somewhere else?