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Dani Coco would never, ever date a coworker. Not again.<\/p>\n
In her second post-college job as a talent manager in 2019, Coco began dating a coworker in the same position as her. The company had a relatively lax policy regarding office romances, but her coworker was adamant that no one else could know. Six months later, he ghosted her.<\/p>\n
He stopped responding to her texts and blocked her phone number without any explanation\u2014and started ignoring her in the office. He even got a taller computer monitor for his desk and angled it in front of his face, blocking himself from Coco\u2019s eyeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, message received,\u201d Coco, now 25, told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n They ignored each other, \u201cas much as you can pretend someone doesn\u2019t exist while you work in the same office,\u201d said Coco, who lives in San Diego, Calif. A few months after the breakup, Coco found out that her coworker had another long-term, long-distance girlfriend the entire time she was seeing him.<\/p>\n \u201cJust because you feel like [you know] a coworker really well doesn\u2019t mean that you know them really well,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd in fact, I think sometimes people are so good at hiding their personal life at work that that\u2019s actually scarier.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Adages like \u201cdon\u2019t dip your pen in the company ink\u201d failed to stop one in five Americans<\/a> from meeting their significant other at work in the 1990s. (A Reddit thread<\/a> on the different phrases for this across the world surfaces one from Japan: \u201cIf you want to play, go outside.\u201d) And though the #MeToo movement and the pandemic drove Americans to hit pause on workplace romances, a February survey<\/a> from the Society of Human Resources shows that some things are eternal\u2014and young people are down to date their coworkers once again after a hiatus of what seems like years.<\/p>\n According to SHRM research released Feb. 14, 33% of younger millennial and Gen Z workers said they would be open to being in a workplace romance, compared to older millennials (15%), Gen X<\/a> (27%), and boomers and traditionalists (23%). The survey also found that 17% of U.S. workers are currently in a relationship with a coworker, and 49% have had a crush on a coworker.<\/p>\n The return to office romance coincides with a period of slow growth for the dating apps once popular with young people. In the past year, Bumble\u2019s stock price declined 40.32%, while Match Group\u2019s declined by roughly 5%\u2014not too bad, relatively, but it has lost 66% of its value since going public. As app fatigue creeps in and real-life meet-cutes become fashionable again, Gen Z and millennials are acting on their office crushes\u2014and some are learning tough lessons along the way.<\/p>\n People have always dated their coworkers\u2014but it\u2019s only in recent years that it\u2019s become \u201cfully normalized,\u201d SHRM president and CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. told Fortune<\/em>.<\/p>\n In the \u201890s, when Taylor worked as an employment lawyer and as the vice president of HR at Blockbuster, \u201cwe strongly discouraged such dating,\u201d he said. Many companies would terminate an employee for dating a coworker\u2014but that was also the decade where the most couples met in the workplace, according to a 2017 Stanford University study<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSo much for our policies, right?\u201d Taylor said. \u201cNo one was following them. And we knew it, with the number of CEOs\u2019 wives who used to be their secretaries, we knew this was occurring.\u201d<\/p>\n From the employers\u2019 standpoint, some companies are growing more lax with office romance rules amid the \u201cwar for talent\u201d where workers have the upper hand, Taylor said. Policies banning workplace romances can make potential employers unattractive to candidates, he said, and softening such rules can help companies reach a wider talent pool.<\/p>\n \u201cThese decisions are largely being driven by our consumer,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd our consumer is an applicant from an HR perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n Dating a coworker could be a high-risk, high-reward romance. Katrina Gao, 28, met her fianc\u00e9 in 2019 while they both worked at the fashion brand Aritzia\u2019s corporate offices in Vancouver. A slow-burn romance commenced through workday lunches and after-work happy hours, and Gao and her now-fianc\u00e9 became an official couple when the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n Gao thinks meeting a love interest through work is \u201c100%\u201d better than on a dating app.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWth dating apps \u2026 you have to go through a lot of bad dates before you find a good one,\u201d she told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cWith work, at least you can inspect and see the person from afar, and get to know them a little bit, before going on a date.\u201d<\/p>\n If using dating apps feels like kissing countless frogs to find the one, developing a workplace romance can be like assessing one\u2019s princely qualities from afar before taking the leap. But for the less lucky, an office sweetheart could turn out to be just another frog\u2014one whose ribbits haunt them amid the drone of office chatter.<\/p>\n Michelle, a 23-year-old associate at a Fortune 500 company who requested to use a pseudonym, grew close to a coworker after they both participated in a young talent program last summer.<\/p>\n They began going on dates, and got to the point where they were together \u201cin everything but the title,\u201d Michelle told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cHe would get me flowers, he would get me Squishmallows,\u201d she said\u2014but her coworker later told her he wasn\u2019t ready for a serious relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, things are very, very awkward at work,\u201d she said. \u201cHe won\u2019t look me in the eye sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n Michelle was hurt by the experience\u2014so much so that she considered quitting her job. But she\u2019s since settled for ignoring him as much as possible. \u201cI\u2019ll purposefully go to a different floor that\u2019s not my assigned floor, just so I can avoid him,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n And though Michelle says she would never date a coworker again, when compared to meeting someone on a dating app, \u201cI will unfortunately say [meeting at work is] a lot better,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re meeting someone online, there is truly no shared experience that connects you two,\u201d she said. \u201cWith me and this coworker, we both happened to be in the same place, same environment, spending a lot of time together.\u201d<\/p>\n The rise of workplace romances is coinciding with Gen Z and millennials\u2019 dating app fatigue\u2014and growing desire to meet love interests in person.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you look at the metrics across the entire online dating app ecosystem, it\u2019s been in decline since 2021,\u201d Ygal Arounian, director of internet equity research at Citibank, told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cThere\u2019s been almost no growth since 2019, so we\u2019re looking at a five-year period where collectively, users and time spent on dating apps hasn\u2019t seen any real level of growth.\u201d<\/p>\n In addition to a decline in stock price, Match Group<\/a>, the conglomerate that owns Tinder, Hinge<\/a>, The League<\/a>, and more, reported<\/a> in Q4 of 2023 that paying users declined by 5% year-over-year. The decline was steepest for Tinder in particular, with paying subscribers dropping by 8%.<\/p>\n \u201cIt all goes back to this point about being self expressive,\u201d Arounian said. \u201cThe whole, quick connection, swiping on a profile picture just based on what someone looks like\u2014that doesn\u2019t resonate with younger audiences anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Dating apps like Hinge and Tinder are adding new features to user profiles\u2019 that highlight not only their appearance, but their interests as well. But with paid users making up almost all of these apps\u2019 revenue, \u201cit\u2019s going to be hard to offset that with other revenue streams right now,\u201d Arounian said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pendulum is swinging back in the other direction a little bit,\u201d Arounian said, but dating apps \u201caren\u2019t going anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like we\u2019re going to move back into a world that\u2019s completely offline. People are going to meet digitally,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe you\u2019re not gonna get to a place where literally everyone is dating online, but it\u2019s going to be an integral part of how people meet going forward.\u201d<\/p>\nNo longer taboo?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Risky business<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Is Slack the new Tinder?<\/strong><\/h2>\n