Workplace Romances: The Slippery Slope Fallacy

Micromanaging the actions of employees inside and even sometimes outside of the workplace is a common control tactic in some businesses, and it shouldn't be difficult to understand why: if a person's actions are expected to revolve around an employer's wishes, this is a thorough attempt at influence.  Inside a company, everything from informal language to flirtation might be discouraged.  Far closer to the latter than the former, dating within one's company may be looked down upon or even officially prohibited.

Workplace romances between coworkers receive irrational criticism due to a perception that they are inherently dangerous for the personal and professional lives of everyone involved.  As is true of many other things, dating at work can be conducted in destructive ways.  It has the potential to create a frustrating or bitter atmosphere if it is not successful due to genuine mistakes made by one partner or the other.  Of course, this does not reflect the nature of the thing itself, and dating in one's workplace does not set one on an inevitable path to poor performance, lack of focus, or work absenteeism.

Contrarily, romantic or sexual attraction for a coworker could easily make a person more eager to be present and engaged in the workplace, more appreciative of chances to work, and more carefully attuned to formal and informal aspects of company culture, so that their attraction is not pursued in disruptive ways.  Again, as with numerous other things, it is the people involved who decide how successfully or poorly the workspace is affected.  To blame workplace dating is to completely misunderstand the situation.

Dating a coworker does not have to end in the personal and corporate catastrophe that so many people expect when they imagine coworkers acting on mutual romantic affection.  Irresponsible people might destroy the sense of workplace normalcy by mishandling romantic relationships with fellow workers, but it is certainly not impossible to fulfill workplace duties and date a coworker without one sphere displacing the other.  The slippery slope fallacy is just that, a fallacy with nothing to offer except red herrings and gratuitous fears.