Office relationships...

I'm definitely not some kind of love guru. Just so happened that ppl around me like to flood me with their love problems and qns, hoping to hear some advice from me. No, I'm not complaining. I love to hear stories! Feel free to come pour your feelings to me, I'll be glad to be of some help!

All these years, I've seen ppl ard me getting involved with their colleagues in an intimate way though they're very much attached or married themselves. Many a times the people they were involved with are pretty much not very single either.

Just yesterday, my gf asked, "Why don't you socialize at work? Are you really that loner/anti-social?"

I replied, "Do you really want to know? It's because of you."

Of course she was puzzled.

So, I went on to explain by first asking her a qns, "How did we first get to know each other?"

Without answering my qns, she started to debate, "Not that, it's different things."

I stopped her from continuing and said, "There's no difference. If I know there's a hole right in front of me, why wouldn't I avoid the hole & choose to step right in?"

What does that mean? I told her, as a matter of fact, me as a Virgo guy can be v.devoted on one extreme, yet flirtatious/fickle-minded on another extreme. If I know there's a risk that sth I do will make or break the r/s we have, y shld I choose to do what it takes to break it?

For this job, I'm only going to be in it for a year contract. Eating alone is never a problem for me since primary school. Being alone doesn't makes me feel lonely at all. I love these times. If not for these times, how wld I be able to write my story, poems & lyrics? I believe everyone needs some time to themselves everyday. To do whatever you want. You may want to think about life, your goals or simply daydream. It's up to you, as long as it's time spent alone with no disruption. Which also explains why I leave the office to sit at the staircase landing as a lot of low EQ people loves to interrupt other ppl's lunch by calling during lunch hours.

Anyway, after seeing so much office relationships forming between two persons who were not supposed to be tgt, I started to ponder over this rising problem. Just like Buddha sat under the bodhi tree, I came to my own enlightenment on this issue.

I concluded why would ppl be involved in an undesired r/s with their colleagues.

Let's look at our lives. Taking me as an example, in a 24-hour normal weekday, I left the house at 7am and reached home at 7pm. That is 12 hours gone with another 12 hours left. Out of this 12 hours, I sleep from 12am to 6.30am. And that would amount to another 6.5 hours gone with only 5.5 waking hours. Spending 2 hours on the internet is like a routine exercise to me. In the remaining 3 hrs, I need to do my regular workout, eat & bath. At times, I watched TV with my family. SO, it would mean if I have a wife, I would probably only be spending the most 2 hours talking to her on a normal weekday.

Ok, now how about on weekends? After the consistent nagging of how oversleeping makes u stupid, lazy & such stuff. I tried to force myself to wake up from 11am - 1pm on weekends. Taking it as I wake up at 12pm, I've wasted 1/2 a day on sleeping. With the 12 hours left, I need at the very least an hour to eat & bath. Now assumed that I spend this remaining 11hours with my wife/girlfriend.

Let's do some simple calculations now:-

11 hrs/day for a weekend + 2 hrs/day on a week day(Assumed either I have a wife or I meet my gf e'day) = 11*2 + 5*2 = 32 hours spent with her.
However, I am not the type to meet my gf everyday. Or even if I have a wife, she would have her own social circle and activities. Do we really spend that much time tgt?

Now, for my current job, I work 9.5 hours including lunch hrs. If there's a colleague who I have a little liking on and coincidentally, she's in the same dept in me who eat lunch with me every work day.
9.5*5= A whopping 47.5 hours spent with that colleague!
Even if I take that only 80% of that time => 47.5 * 80% = 38hours!

Some ppl might want to debate that the quantity of total time spent tgt do not matter more than quality of time spent tgt.

Think about this, if that colleague of yours and you started getting closer, won't you be using OT as a reason to stay back in the office with her? Or start going out with her on weekends rather than be with your wife/gf?
That would then result in increasing the amount of time spent with the colleague while decreasing the time spent with your wife/gf.
With the reduced quantity, tell me how much do quality stand?
See the effects?

Well, that is just my own analysis and conclusion. You may want to deem it as bullshit or use them as reference.