I’m Tired Of Dealing With My Co-Worker’s Dating Drama!

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

What should a group of coworkers do when a workplace soap opera threatens to poison the work environment? Your first instinct is probably “nothing” but hear me out, please.

I work in a relatively small university hospital clinic. Mostly we get on really well with each other at work and sometimes off it as well. Around half of the doctors and almost all of the nurses and other staff are women, including several senior staffers.

For about three years now, one of our younger male doctors has been a real pain to the rest of us. The recurring events go like this. A young, sometimes fresh out of school nurse starts working with us. The doctor, who admittedly is very handsome with smooth manners and good clinical skills, soon starts to woo her, and they usually end up starting a relationship of sorts. Trouble is, the guy is already seeing one or two other nurses from the clinic and often some other ladies outside of work as well. Inevitably, the nurses he’s dating become aware of each other and are unhappy with the situation, which results in refusal to work with each other, talking crap behind each other’s backs and at least one skilled and well-liked nurse ultimately quitting her job because she couldn’t deal with it anymore.

The two he’s seeing now have both told me that they’re really looking for “the one”, but still, he manages to keep them in his orbit with vague promises of exclusivity and lovebombing them if it seems that they’re looking for the exit. On one occasion, this almost resulted in a fight breaking out between them.

None of the parties have committed any fireable offences and in theory these are their private matters, but the effects are spilling into the rest of the workplace and it’s really painful for many of us to see these young, slightly naive women in this misery. They certainly should know better, and God only knows what they’re actually hoping to achieve in this situation. Even the guy himself has once admitted after a few drinks that he doesn’t really know what he wants. The more senior nurses have for some time now started to warn newcomers of him, but that hasn’t prevented the latest iteration of the same old.

What are the rest of us supposed to do in this situation?

Sincerely,

Real Life Hospital Drama

This is one of those times where I wonder if I ended up getting Alison Greene’s mail instead, because this seems like it’s more of Ask A Manager’s territory than mine.

But hey, far be it from me to not have a chance to get involved in some Grey’s Anatomy-ass shit.

The big issue here is that you’re right: there’s not really much here for an outsider to do – at least, as far as getting involved in what’s ultimately other people’s business.

As frustrating as it can be, you really can’t stop other people from making poor life decisions, or force them to not end up in toxic or abusive relationships. That includes getting involved with the office fuckboy. These are grown-ass women after all, and they’re entitled to make their own mistakes, no matter how much it aggravates you and your co-workers. It sucks that this guy seems to treat incoming new hires like juice boxes to suck dry and it’s admirable that the senior nurses have a whisper network to try to warn the newcomers, but that’s ultimately the limit of what most people can do. If the new hires want to touch the stove even after they’ve been warned that it’s hot… well, that’s their call.

Now notice very carefully that I said what *most* people can do? Well, that’s because this isn’t an interpersonal issue so much as it is an *HR* issue. You can’t stop people from banging a dude who’s going to hit it and quit it and then play fuck-fuck games to keep them on the hook in case he has a slow Saturday. You can – and SHOULD – however, bring this up to your direct report, then to clinic management and then possibly to the university directly.

The fact that his behavior and the resultant drama is spills out into the workplace, causes strife amongst your coworkers, and has directly led to at least one person quitting (and there could be others who left because of it but didn’t say so) means that it’s interfering with your ability to actually carry out your duties. Seeing as you work in health care, that’s a pretty significant issue.

In fact, depending on where you are and what the employment laws are, this could actually be creating a case of legal liability on the part of the clinic or the university. This is why when you talk to your superiors and others, you may want to use the magic phrase “creating a hostile work environment”. That’s something that tends to get the bureaucrats’ attention; they may not care that much about who’s coming up with new and creative uses for tongue depressors in the supply closet, but the possibility of lawsuits and expensive settlements are the sort of things that cause the folks who watch the money to sit up and take notice.

I’d be tempted to tell you to give him a heads up and a chance to knock it the fuck off before you go to your superiors, but the part of me that yells at the TV when characters tell their opponents what they’re going to do says “never show your cards early.” It’s been going on long enough – and presumably other folks have already told him to cut it out – that if he gave a shit about more than getting his dick wet, he would’ve. His behavior is hurting people, it’s disruptive at work and there’s a non-zero chance that this is going to have consequences for the clinic and the university beyond a higher-than-average staff turnover. It’s time to escalate this to people who actually the authority to enforce a “knock it the fuck order” with things like ‘suspended from duty’ and ‘fired for cause’.

Good luck.

Dear Dr. NerdLove,

I’ve been reading your paging for a while now and it has helped me a lot (thank you very much!). However, having read many of your posts, I could find only a few ones that were somewhat related to my current situation. I would like to ask for practical advice before it might get too late. Here’s my story:

Back in my school time, I was very reserved and not talkative, having a tiny social circle and low social skills. And then there was a girl (A) whom I developed a big crush on. She was in a different group of students and popular among other boys; however, I’ve never seen her in a relationship. I knew I wouldn’t have had any chance with her if I had stayed the way I was. This became my motivation to develop social skills. I started talking to those I’d never talked to, leaving my comfort zone, and I tried to become a member of the group she was in, though the latter didn’t work out. I had zero romantic experience, and I was too afraid of starting to talk to her one-on-one and to show my interest, so our interaction was just about helping each other several times.

Meanwhile I attended college in a big city and tried to initiate some romance with several women. However, the lack of experience, extreme nervousness, and wrong advice (especially about “doing approaches”) have led to some horrible unintentional creep out experiences I’m still ashamed of. I abandoned approaching women for the time being and shifted my focus to building a new, bigger social circle in the new city. And I think I’ve actually become good at it.

On one day, I unexpectedly encountered my former schoolmates, who turned out to be studying in the same city. In that conversation I learned a thing that was a real jaw-dropping surprise to me: by pure coincidence, A had moved to the same city, studies at the same college, and lives in my dormitory. I texted A afterwards to find out that this is actually the case, and we randomly encountered each other several days later.

Recently A and I took a train ride from our families back to the city. We had a decent conversation, and then she started to study, and I didn’t want to disturb her. After some time, I began to notice intensifying attraction signs. First, she was fixing her hair every now and then, then she started to throw brief glances at me; later she let her long hair down, brushing through it and scratching herself. I decided to signal my interest by looking at her frequently, especially when she glanced at me or did the preening. My looks were met with additional preening, smiles, and quiet laughter. Around the end of the ride, A was talking with me with a smile on her face, and I was considering asking her out when we would reach our dormitory by foot.

However, it didn’t happen. Minutes before the arrival at the station, she told me a (male) friend of hers was going to pick her up. Exiting the train, she quickly said bye to me and looked away. I did the same and went home.

Now I am somewhat confused how to interpret this and what to do. Her “friend” might be someone romantic, but he could be a platonic one as well.

If she’s already in a relationship, does her interest mean she sees me as an “option” or “backup”? Should I keep talking to her more often or the same way I did before? Should I not try to meet up with her more frequently? Or should I even restrain myself from showing any interest and accept becoming just friends with her? (this is absolutely ok for me)

Our schedules are so different that we basically never run into each other. Right now, the only way for me to see her regularly is the train ride; however, this will be happening once every two weeks at best. I’m able to text her, but so far, she just responded to my messages and never tried to keep the conversation going. It may be just her trait, but I still feel like I’m making her uncomfortable by keeping conversations alive on my own.

On the other hand, if her friend is just platonic and she is available, being too slow will be the problem. In this case I’m afraid of losing emotional momentum by keeping the current slow pace.

So, what should I do?

(A Crush On) The Girl On The Train

Alright my guy, I hate to be the one to do this but… I think you’ve really let some dickful thinking get in the way of things. This really is more about what’s going on with you and rounding up what you were seeing as “interest” when I don’t think that was the case. Everything you’ve described doesn’t sound like someone who was showing interest, it sounds like someone who was just getting some studying done on the train. Or possibly just trying to politely get out of a conversation.

But hey, at least this is an opportunity to explain about what’s a sign of interest and what’s just someone futzing with their hair.

Here’s the thing: part of the issue with interpreting cues and body language signals and separating the signal from the noise is that first you need to know what’s signal and what’s noise. That is: you need to have some context for their little quirks and behaviors, so you can tell the difference between someone who’s preening because they’re attracted and someone who plays with their hair because it gives their hands something to do.

Any of the most common non-verbal signs of interest are also behaviors that people often do when they aren’t interested in people. Someone adjusting their clothes might be indulging in preening behavior… or they might be self-conscious about how their shirt is riding up or creating a fold that’s chafing their skin. Someone who’s rubbing their arms might be interested, or they might be chilly or they might be stimming if they’re on the neurodivergent spectrum. Without that context, it can be easy to mistake normal gestures and behaviors for indicators of interest.

This is why a lot of body language experts talk about the rule of four: rather than taking any one gesture or action as a definitive sign of how they feel, you want to look for clusters of four overlapping or simultaneous gestures – so rather than just someone playing with their hair, you’d want to see someone playing with their hair while also mirroring your general posture or hand gestures, moving into your personal space when they don’t need to and doing some preening behavior. This gives you a better grip on whether what the person is doing is a habit or personal quirk or a reaction to their burgeoning attraction to you.

But because nothing exists in a vacuum, you also need to take it in context with the location and their other behavior and – if possible – how they behave at other times.

Now in the case of The A Train, if I’m understanding things correctly, the behavior she was showing – playing with her hair, looking over at you, etc. – were all things that she did while studying. That’s some pretty important context; when we talk about those indicators of interest, we’re talking about behaviors that come up when a person is talking to you or otherwise interacting with you. Considering that A was focused on her books or laptop, it seems far more likely to me that the fiddling with her hair and the rest was just that: her fiddling with her hair. Her looking up over at you was, I suspect, far more about the fact that you were apparently always looking over at her and noticing that you were still staring. The behavior you describe is far more congruent with someone who’s just trying to work in a crowded and somewhat confined space.

Then there’s how she’s behaved since then: she said goodbye and immediately bounced, she returns texts but doesn’t otherwise engage or text first and hasn’t attempted to make plans or see you since. That, I think, is pretty conclusive: she’s just not that into you and you were reading a whole lot of meaning that wasn’t there because you really wanted it to be there.

This, unfortunately, is pretty common, especially for people who don’t have a lot of social experience. We’re all prone to wishful thinking, but having a little more experience under our belts tends to make it easier to filter out genuine interest vs. emotional apophenia.

If you hadn’t had an ongoing crush on A, I don’t think you would be nearly as convinced that there was something here. As it is, I think the best thing you can do is assume that your relationship with A is exactly the same as it was before: you’re classmates. That’s it. Sorry.

As a side note: part of the problem you’re consistently running into is that you’re afraid to actually make a move and risk rejection. That’s one of the most commonly shared characteristics of guys who get “friend zoned” (there is no Friend Zone, just people who don’t want to date or fuck you) or who insist on reading the tea leaves to figure out how someone feels; they don’t want to make a move unless they’re guaranteed success, but they also don’t want to accept that the other person is not interested. As a result, they end up holding themselves in limbo by choosing to see juuuuust enough to justify them holding onto hope instead of moving on.

Your behavior on the train, for example, was not going to read as interest to someone, especially someone who also wasn’t interested; it was going to come off as “dude is always looking at me when I look up”, and that is going to put people off. I understand that you were trying to send some non-verbals back, but again: this was more about you trying to avoid direct rejection than anything else.

I hate to tell you this but there is no method of reading a person’s intent so perfectly that you can avoid rejection, nor is there a way to show interest without also allowing yourself to be vulnerable. If you want to date someone or want them to know you like them, you have to face the possibility that they aren’t going to want to date you. If the risk is too much for you to bear… well, unfortunately, that means you’re not going to go on a lot of dates. Trying to dodge around that risk is, at best, going to lead to a lot of heartache. At worst… well, you run the risk of coming off like a creeper from the way you’re acting. Rejection is part of the process, and either you learn to get comfortable with it, or you spend a lot of time pining from the sidelines.

Similarly, if you want someone to know you’d like to go on a date with them, the best way to signal that would be… to ask them on a date. The same goes with trying to make sure they like you: using your words is going to be far more effective than giving them the hairy eyeball and hoping they divine intent from it. Especially when you don’t have much social experience in the first place. That lack of experience isn’t inherently a bad thing, mind you; it just means that you don’t have a lot of experience. The reason why it’s a poor decision to try to read the tea leaves instead of using your words when you don’t have that experience is the same reason why you don’t try out for the varsity basketball team when you haven’t so much as played some pick-up three on three: you don’t have the basics down and you’ve never put them into practice. You’re too busy trying to figure out how to do 2-3 flares when you haven’t even mastered a give-and-go.

Leaving the situation with A entirely aside: if you want to do better with women, you’re going to have to start just asking people out and learning how to roll with things when or if they say “thanks but no thanks”. It’s not fun – getting turned down never is – but trying to avoid that discomfort is only going to keep hindering you and leading to more fruitless situations like this.

Good luck.