All of the time on askTRP, I see questions related to sleeping with coworkers. Often times, people will ask the question knowing that other users will bring up the “don’t shit where you eat rule” and have a counter at the ready. A lot of the time it gets ignored, because they think their case is “special”.

Before discovering TRP, I used to be in that situation where I thought I was a special exception. I thought this because I was used to watching way too much over the top TV where office flings were the norm. I have come a long way since then.

But to those people out there still on the fence about this rule, my message is this:

YOU ARE NOT AN EXCEPTION. THIS WILL BLOW UP IN YOUR FACE AT SOME POINT AND YOU WILL REGRET IT. STOP.

Here is my story of how I went full blown billy beta and how it all blew up in my face:

Roughly 8 months ago at my current job, I worked next to an attractive colleague of mine. We were hanging out with all of the coworkers one time and she mentioned she smoked weed. My buddy and I were new to the area and didn’t have a weed hook up yet, so I decided to set up plans for the three of us to chill.

Well that night, my buddy bailed because of a falling out with his girl, so the two of us met up with my friends at the bar. We all got super drunk and one of my friends convinced me that we were really vibin’ and that I should shoot my shot.

I stupidly took his advice and ended up drunkenly shooting my shot.

At first, it was good. We were hooking up and spending a lot of time together and it was great. I genuinely believed I was an exception. But after a few months, it all went south:

I ended up getting a major case of oneitis for her. I was spending way more than half my day with them. I was fawning all over her, buying her gifts, showering her with compliments, you name it.

We agreed with each other that if one of us ever got a new job, we would start dating. Then out of nowhere, she landed a new job in the area. She insisted that we set up a date, so I did. Everything was going just fine, until the day of, she decided to bail. She said that “it was not for a lack of feelings” and that she “just wanted to be single”.

In retrospect, I should’ve just been like “ok, I understand” then withdrew attention. But when you have oneitis, you don’t think logically. So I went full blown protagonist at the end of a romcom on her and tried to convince her to go forth with it. She didn’t obviously.

I talked to one of my coworkers who was friends with both of us and told her about this stuff (BIG MISTAKE NEVER EVER EVER DO THIS PEOPLE). She seemed sympathetic to me and said that if anything ended up going south, she would try to help us make peace so we could all still get along.

We still were spending time together, but she had completely withdrawn her attention to me and cut off the sex. Eventually, she dropped the “let’s just be friends” card. I took it in stride this time, and started treating her like any other friend. The problem is she was used to me pedastalizing her and treating her like a princess. She wasn’t getting that from me anymore. One night when I randomly ran into her at the bars when she was with two other dudes, she freaked out when I wasn’t giving her the allotted attention she used to get from me.

She then proceeded to bad mouth me to all of my coworkers, and a good 80% of them sided with her. That coworker “friend” who promised to try and mediate the conflict proceeded to completely ignore that thing she said and unabashedly sided with her without even making an attempt to ask for my side of things in light of new developments.

The reality is folks that in any spat between a guy and a girl, the girl could have sent the guy a video of her taking triple penetration, and every girl will STILL automatically side with the girl. 60% of guys will side with the girl too because they low key want to bang them. A lot of white knights out there too.

I stopped getting invited to networking events (an integral part of my job), had awkward tension at the ones where we were both forced to be there (we both work in politics) and I was shunned by 80% of coworkers. To this day 6 months later she still actively avoids me and spreads nasty rumors about me to everyone.

This whole story is a total cringefest, but here’s the thing to add on to it all: I got lucky. Some guys pulling this crap will get reported to HR, some fired and some will get accused of sexual harassment/assault. None of that happened to me, but the fling STILL comes back to bite me in the ass at times.

As for the people who will say “oh well yours was an office job, I’m talking about minimum wage stuff, that’s an exception”. Do you want to risk getting accused of sexual harassment and creating unnecessary awkward tension? I doubt it, so STOP.

Remember everyone: DO NOT SHIT WHERE YOU EAT. It NEVER works out and your reputation WILL take a hit you may never recover from.