I must have heard this warning a thousand of times before disregarding it back in 2011, but disregard it I did. Recently divorced, I was intrigued by an office paralegal with a harsh exterior that I thought must conceal some pain. I had no intention of doing anything until one of the partners (a woman) confided that the paralegal was interested in me. Having a virtual green light now, I went ahead and asked the paralegal out and enjoyed getting to know her. As I suspected, she had been through the wringer and showed me another side of herself that was kind and affectionate.
It was great for a couple of months, but just when I thought I had disproved the collective wisdom of the working world, things got weird. We would have a wonderful date on Friday night, but she would storm into my office on Monday morning ranting about something I had said that irritated her. Soon she started flying off the handle during chit-chat over lunch, displaying a hair-trigger hostility approaching paranoid schizophrenia. I figured she had trust issues that she needed to work out, so I was patient and kept trying to calm her down. But the last straw came when I returned to town after a summer visit with my friends and family back home; when I texted her a message asking her out, her response was a curt "I'm busy all weekend."
In my former life this would have angered me and provoked me to respond. The new me, however, doesn't play games or tolerate shit tests (pardon the language). I deleted her number from my phone and stopped talking to her except for what was strictly necessary for office work. It was time to go back to the status quo ante, as arm's-length professionals, and I wasn't going to waste my time arguing about it. I immediately and completely cut her out of my personal life.
She went berserk, and what followed was two years of the most crude, obnoxious, petty, childish, and unprofessional conduct I have ever witnessed. Slamming her office door when I was near. Insulting emails. Running and whining to partners about me on a regular basis. Someone should have told her that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy; I had no feelings for her anymore, yet the hateful theatrics coming from her confirmed that she was still hung up, inspiring more amusement than annoyance.
Now that I work for myself I can speak about it freely (my anonymity on this site is paper-thin). The rest of you out there might not make so clean a getaway, so please don't do what I did, even if one of the higher-ups in your office assumes the role of procurer.
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