Evolving Romantic Relationships: Really Are Fault?
...strong relationship with that person. The book, The Office Romance, explains, “The more you are around someone, the greater the chances to become friends, if not to form a deeper, lasting relationship” (Powers 21-24). All of these articles say that when two people are around each other, they get to know one another. They eventually become good friends and can eventually lead into something more than being just friends. Co-workers get a chance to talk to one another while they are at the workplace. They develop knowledge about one another creating a strong bond. Not only do they talk about what is happening at work at the time, but they also talk about their lives and get to know who they are out of work. Spending a lot of time at work leads to people talking about their daily lives and they end up finding certain similarities they each have. Having similarities between one another can help the relationship grow a lot quicker. The similarities give them something to talk to each other about. Having the same type of job is a similarity created already. Frisky Business explains that “We tend to work with people who are like us in many ways – similar social class, education and income levels, interests, attitudes, and values, with the corollary being that ‘like attracts like’” (Loftus 2). People are more attracted to people that like the same things as they do. This creates a way to bring up conversation. If someone says they like sports, they could end up talking endlessly about sports and who their favorite player is. It is a chance to find a common ground between two people. The same article states that an employee, David Kamp, who met his wife, Karen, on the job defense contractor plant said, “Not being into the bar scene, I was more comfortable meeting at work. We had common ground to begin with; We didn’t have to create it.” (Loftus 1) By having a place to start a conversation relationships can grow. They do not have to develop a question in order to get an answer. Once again, “like attracts like.” An example of a relationship that flourished because they have so much in common would be Don and Alicia: “Don and Alicia are attorneys with complementary specialties who work for the same firm and have for years criss-crossed the country taking depositions and building cases together. They share grueling work schedules, meals, hours of strapped-in airliner conversation, and even exercise regimens that overlap away from home. When they put away the briefcases, they look like a couple, and at times they act like one. As is commonly the case, neither can cite any lightning bolts that signaled the beginning of an irresistible attraction between them. Because events dictated their time together, the attraction developed slowly and naturally: they didn't deliberately cultivate it. The fact that they found each other interesting was almost incidental--at the beginning. Now, either will admit the other is good company, attractive, and worthy of a fantasy from time to time” (MedicineNet 2). They got a chance to develop a relationship by how much time they spent together. They didn’t have to force any topics into the conversation to find out who they were as a person. This case is a perfect example on how the above statements are true. Even working on the same case can bring people together. They get a chance to talk about the certain project they are working on a project or to release their frustrations about a project they are working on to their partner. The simple fact of having similarities gives them something to talk about that helped the relationship become more than just an acquaintance; unlike what a person could find at a bar or any other place that they would meet someone. Having similarities gives people a chance to talk. Developing a close relationship with a co-worker is not only caused by long hours spent together and having similarities, but being in close proximities can bring up relationships too. Co-workers that are around each other all the time in smaller proximities adds more tension in the workplace than if they didn’t work close together. By sitting next time them day in and day out, workers get to know their habits and how they deal with things. In the article, Frisky Business says, “Close conditions encourage shared confidences. When you get a call at work saying your apartment is flooded or your mother’s ill the person you tell first is often someone sitting near you” (Loftus 2). People have a tendency to release there worries on the first person they see. If they sit next to someone that they have talked to before and something like this comes up, they would end up telling that person what is happening because they person would be able to tell something was wrong or that something happened. The person could then ask them what is worrying, exciting them or whatever the case maybe. It is said that “94 percent of the office romances reported were between employees in the same building” (loftus 2). This means that people have a tendency to fall in love with someone that works in a close perimeter to them. A worker would have more of probability to falling in love with someone close to them other than someone that is in another building because they end up spending more time with the other person would than the person in the other building. Likewise, In the book, Office Romance: Love, Power, and Sex in the Workplace, says: “Working closely together makes it easy for attractions to occur”(…) “According to a major report on interpersonal attraction written in 1969 by Ellen Berscheid and Elaine Walster, professors of psychology at the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin respectively, proximity or propinquity is an important factor that explains why we become attracted to others. When other factors are equal, the closer two individuals are geographically located the more likely it is that they will be attracted to one another” (Mainiero 18). This explains that people are more attracted to a person that works closer to them instead of someone who is further away. A person who works further away from the other individual in th...