married female colleagues have lunches, dinners with single male colleauge

[mysteryscape]

I work in a department with a male buddy. Women like him a lot, he is very charming, witty, good looking, single, good company. Including a couple of female colleagues in our department.

 

One is married to yet another man in the department. She has lunch or coffee with my buddy two or three times a week. Her husband knows about this, I'm not sure he's thrilled, but all three of them are friends as well as colleagues.

 

In the other case, the woman is married to a man who lives a day or so away, she sees him every month or so. My pal has dinner and/or drinks with her maybe twice a month. She calls these get togethers their "dinner dates."

 

He says it's all on the up and up, no sex and no physical contact beyond an occasional friendly hug in the second case.

 

I say they're asking for trouble, from the spouses, from gossipers, or themselves if any of this turns into more hanky-panky. My pal says they are all just friends, mature older middle aged people who are living their lives in a way that makes sense for them, including these little office friendships.

 

Any thoughts?

[Chemist]

 

Any thoughts?

 

That you have an odd interest in what they do in their personal lives. If your buddy says friends, it's friends. I have several female friends in my life that I meet with.

[elaine567]

These upfront dinner dates are not the "dates" that you need to be worried about, it is the sneaking around "dates" that few or no-one knows about that are much more serious.

[d0nnivain]

I think your attitude is narrow minded, suspicious & old fashioned.

 

 

I work in a very male dominated field. If I didn't eat meals with male colleagues I would eat alone every day. In that context we're all colleagues; gender is a secondary consideration.

 

 

My husband calls one of my best work friends my work husband. Both of them joke that my friend & I go on dates to work dinners. My husband is actually thrilled that he does not have to go to my boring work events.

 

 

It's all very innocent. Get your mind out of the gutter.

[ExpatInItaly]

Are you actually the husband of the second woman?

[anne1707]

 

I say they're asking for trouble, from the spouses, from gossipers, or themselves

 

This does certainly seem to be the case

[mysteryscape]

Are you actually the husband of the second woman?

 

no. But I think it might be telling that you thought I might be.

[Eternal Sunshine]

I often have lunches and dinners with my married male colleagues (I am a single female). There is zero flirting, let alone anything else. I view them the same as I would doing these things with female colleagues.

[mysteryscape]

I often have lunches and dinners with my married male colleagues (I am a single female). There is zero flirting, let alone anything else. I view them the same as I would doing these things with female colleagues.

 

So you go to dinner with your married male colleague(s) while the colleague leaves his wife at home? Or are you talking about business meals? That's not what I'm talking about. They are definitely personal friends.

[dental]

You sound like you want to go on 'diner dates' with all these women. Are you perhaps a bit jealous?

[mysteryscape]

You sound like you want to go on 'diner dates' with all these women. Are you perhaps a bit jealous?

 

There are two, one goes on lunch and coffee "dates" and the other goes on dinner dates.

 

A bit jealous -- of whom, my pal or the women? Or envious -- of my pal? Maybe! His charm, 150% platonic or not, certainly makes women naturally like him.

[hidingsecret]

obvious answer is that, aside from 'jealousy' that people seem to love bringing up on their high horse, no - its not normal and is a form of emotional cheating. this has nothing to do with work colleagues or not, it is 1on1 dinners with a male under the guise of a 'work meeting'. these females find that guy attractive, which is why they like him and. the fact they work together is a moot point. having lunch with colleagues on work break is understandable, 1 on1 dinners are not. nothing good can come of it and there is always something going on behind the scenes.

 

i really doubt any of the husbands approve of it, and even the ones that 'joke' about it are not thrilled and agreeing just for the sake of avoiding conflict, or they have no balls.

 

u will also notice a lot of hypocrisy - these same women would be stressing out, or at least unhappy and not 'thrilled' if their husband were to go on dinner dates 1on1 with their attractive female colleagues outside of work, as well as multiple lunch and drink dates.

 

u will probably get a lot of females bashing me for this but if they really cared about their partners feelings and there really was nothing going on, these dinner dates would be completely unneccesary. there will probably be alot of shaming tactics as well like 'you are so insecure and possessive'.

 

theres a diff between group work dinner as well for events like christmas etc. '1on1 work dinner' = COMPLTEE bullSH*T!!!

Edited December 4, 2014 by hidingsecret

[d0nnivain]

It really depends on the context hidingsecret.

 

If it looks more like a date, yes it's a problem, or at least a slippery slope.

 

However, when I would go out after work & have a drink with a male colleague it was because I wanted a drink after work. Dinners -- except for big events -- were more about getting food / nourishment & getting back to work late on a project.

 

To me lunch is just lunch & eating with colleagues is more pleasant than eating alone. It's not emotional cheating. In my industry it's also customary that the senior person pick up the check. In my early years, that was most often my male bosses. Now that I'm middle aged, if I'm out with a younger male colleague, I'll grab the check because I make more money.

 

Tomorrow, I will probably end up grabbing a drink with a male colleague I haven't seen in years. Our paths will cross again tomorrow. His wife works in his office but she won't join us. She never did. It's about catching up with an old friend not cheating. It also wouldn't shock me if after tomorrow I went another 10 years without seeing this guy but I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to see pictures of his grandkids, even though I'm now married & the last time I saw him I think his daughter was in high school.

[Clockwork]

When I was in my early 20s and single there was a girl I worked with who was married with a kid. She had another job at an office part-time and I went out to lunch with her a few times. I remember sitting at the office waiting for her to come out and getting a look or two from her co-workers as if I were the "other" man.

 

 

Alright, I liked her. I did. But it was innocent at first. She complained a lot about the rotten marriage she was in and more and more she was getting close to me.

 

 

One night a bunch of us went out and afterwards she dropped me off at my car. She was literally waiting for me to make the first move, telling me that she wishes I had met her 5 years ago and how she found me attractive. I have no idea how I fought the urge to just rip her clothes off because believe me the urge was there, but there was a voice in my head that kept saying "This is another man's wife". So I backed off and I never pursued anything.

 

 

I guess the bottom line is, "lunches" are always innocent until it leads to something more. So you always have to be careful. But "dinner".............well, that's putting it up a notch.

[mysteryscape]

A wide variety of opinions in the responses!

[Man Mountain Makino]

Gossipers will gossip. I will say that every time I have seen a close work related male-female relationship, and I got the vibe that they were more than friends, I have been right.