To think it’s a damn shame men no longer ask colleagues out

[MartyJshawnM]

In my salad days it was pretty common for colleagues to start relationships, which often ended in marriage.

Now because of men fearing sexual harassment/ wokism / wfh, this rarely happens, and I think that is a damn shame. Where else are you meant to meet someone? The workplace is the most normal place.

i think there should be safeguards to stop a senior employer asking out a junior employee as there is a clear power difference at play.

I know of 6 couples who met through work and are happily married for 20+ year

EDIT: ignore the men asking colleagues out; it should read colleagues asking each other out

Why would anyone use that phrase on a chat forum?

Forget asking out, usually they tend to be having affairs!

Well, I got asked out by a bloke older than my father at work six months ago, so sexual harassment is still alive and well at my workplace OP!

Because most people know what it means?
Just because Shakespeare came up with a phrase doesn’t mean it’s no longer used.
I refer you to Horrible Histories.

It’s pretty widely known. Also very googlable.

In a book I once read there was a line that said when a work relationship/affair ends the woman always leaves.

People may not ask colleagues out as such.

But colleagues socialise together and things progress from there!

I have had a couple of work relationships that went nowhere. I didn’t leave.

Just because you haven’t heard that phrase before doesn’t mean no one else has. I knew what it meant.

"Wokism"

So standing up for the rights of people in danger of being marginalised is a negative, in your view?

This.

"Wokeism". What a great way to invalidate your entire argument not that it was great to start with.

It's really not that obscure. Maybe a bit old fashioned.

The good old days - I remember being asked out in an office 20+years ago, he wasn’t my senior but he was older than me as I was early twenties, he even followed me to a bar that everyone went to near work and asked me again, he asked me at the Christmas office party, one day he was following me up the stairs and said he had a good view and proceeded to slap me on the backside with a file - the answer was still, “no” believe it or not! Those were the good old days but then again my colleague met someone at work and they are probably one Of the happiest couples I know, 15 years on!

Well Dh asked me out at work, we’ve been married 16 years now.

I met my now husband in work almost ten years ago. It still happens as far as I’m aware 🤷‍♀️

I suspect this a bit of nostalgic rose tinted spectacles from the op…

I was an office shit-kicker in the 80s and women were fair game for male lechery. It’s not something I’d wish upon young women now.

Colleagues can still ask each other out, it’s just that men are now expected to be appropriate - I don’t see what is wrong with that?

I find the whole social convention of asking someone out on a date really weird and awkward anyway tbh. If you like spending time with someone, and would like to spend more time with them (cinema, dinner, gig, whatever) why make it weird by demanding that you both decide in advance whether it's "a date" or "just friends"?

Ps of course I do actually know the answer to this. It's because so many men assume they're entitled to a woman's body unless the woman says very clearly, in advance, "I don't want to have sex with you". Everything would be easier, less awkward, and more fun, if we didn't have to decide in advance whether or not we might feel like having sex with this man at some point in the medium to near future.

Pps this is all a bit hypothetical, because I am in fact happily married. To a man I met at work 20 years ago 🤣🤣

People do do this. I've been out with colleagues.

Code of conduct prohibits relationships between people at different levels in the same reporting line.

Harassment training was clear it's okay to ask once, if done respectfully, but to keep asking if turned down is likely to be harassment.

I agree it's easier in big organisations where you won't know everyone in every department, but I've known it happen in small organisations too - it's just harder if they break up.

I can't think of anything worse than dating a colleague!

Having once experienced the awkwardness of being asked out by a colleague that I definitely did not want to date (and subsequently having to put up with him sulking and avoiding me), I think it's probably for the best!

They're rife in my corner of the civil service, amongst all age groups 😂

I think YABU. I don't want to be asked out by a colleague. I wouldn't want to work with my partner for one thing, and if it was someone I wasn't interested in then I'd feel quite awkward having to see them daily after rejecting them.

Nah the young’ns and some of the oldies at work are still shagging (sometimes at work!). They’re just not telling the weird ‘salad’ lady who walks around screaming ‘woke!’ like a seagull and going on about tofu eating Guardian readers. The older normal/cool people at your work will be in the know though!

I met DH through work and we’ve been invited to a BBQ of another colleague in a couple of weeks.

It definitely still happens, I know a couple of youngish ‘couples’ who met at work.

Most of the over 45s couples I know who met at work, no longer work together as have moved job roles since first getting together.