Hooking Up At The Office Party: Don't!

It's that time of year again. The time when holiday music blares in every restaurant, grocery store and e-card. The time when everyone sincerely swears they, too, saw mommy kissing Santa Claus. The time when office workers toss their inhibitions into the recycled air ventilator winds and get down and dirty at the holiday party. It's the time for tips and advice about sexing it up with coworkers. Mistletoes, dishes filled with red and green Hershey's Kisses, tinsel hanging over cubicle partitions, and cheap eggnog after the close of business act like Spanish Fly to too many members of a socially starved workforce. When it comes to hooking up at office shindigs, there is only one piece of advice worth giving or getting about this subject: Unless it's already true love (or damn close to it), don't do it.

Call me prissy (it won't hold up in court), call me a prude (uh...ok), call me a good worker (why, thank you), gettin' down with coworkers creates an environment that isn't conducive to professional ethics. And those ethics are expected to be present the very next morning, when you're still trying to remember where you left your bra.

Office party hookups make you look bad, sad, and had. Sex with coworkers blurs the line between public respectability and private desperation. Career-wise, if you keep your knickers on, you're more likely to move ahead when the time comes. That other coworker, the one who used the maintenance closet for a drunken quickie and went home with a Lysol-stained back pocket? They'll be fetching your mail down the line. For women, this is twice as true. A man who works his way around the office can tell back-patting tales at happy hour, then go home to work his way through the internet dating pool. A female coworker who gets it on with colleagues will be known as a slut. Once the holidays are over and the new year rolls in, nobody remembers how much they ate, how badly they danced, or even how much they drank. But they will -- 100 percent guaranteed -- remember that you got freaky. Rumors will circulate, eyes will follow you, whispers will linger in your wake, and you'll never live it down. Plus, few humiliations compare to HR dragging you in for "a little talk."

If you choose to disregard allll this pretty wisdom and hookup anyway... 1) Don't blame it on booze. If you drank enough to even try that excuse, you look bad anyway. 2) Don't blame it on the holidays. That's a sad excuse for getting used, then waking up alone to relive it through a hangover. Unlike sex with someone you actually like and get to date, next-day visions of a naked conference room tango with Bill from the 3rd floor do not give you the warm fuzzies. 3) Don't blame it on 'needing some.' Great sex will not come from a romp with your sauced boss on top of the Xerox machine. And if it does, your standards are really low.

So there it is, your DON'T HOOK UP AT THE OFFICE HOLIDAY PARTY excuse checklist. Granted, it's a list of excuses you shouldn't use, but smarties like you get the point.

For more holiday season tips, click here for more from Huffington Post's Living!

Comments

[semisoso]

Don't hook up at the office? Too late. Where were you three years ago, Ms. Specter? :)

[Ratso]

Sex is NOT the answer.
Sex is the question.
"Yes" is the answer

[aristippe]

"Unless it's already true love (or damn close to it), don't do it." Doesn't that apply universally (at least for grown-ups).

[goat666]

as america goes farther and farther towards religious extremism, this sort of backward, puritan reasoning takes us in only one direction: stop hooking up everywhere, altogether. lifelong abstinence for everyone. are we really as stuck in fundamentalism as the middle east? america needs to lighten up a bit about sex.

[Ratso]

Ah, the office Christmas party. Lots of Johnny Walker and good food to go with the feeling of togetherness, a comon goal, spirit and of course the good American value of sex at the office party. Hey, you were drunk remember. What happens at the office party, stays at the office party, yes? Nothing says, "we love our job" (you know what I mean) like a BJ or the reciprocal. Have fun, and don't drive UTI.

[gems]

Oh my god!!!...I thought I was the only human being in the world that felt that way. I work extremely hard and I have a professional attitude, but I'm just not at after work hours get together with employees type of person. I'm just not....In fact, I keep it to myself pretty much.
Gemma

[tdterry1999]

Love the office hookup

[LadyR]

I suspect office party hookups are more of a private sector thing than public sector. As a public sector employee, our parties tend to take place at our work site, not offsite. so hooking up would be difficult. But who knows?

[aarrgho]

damn....too late

[wrabbitt]

Wouldn't life be boring with out,a little on the side once in a while? I believe that more men are guilty than women. but, the men are not alone in the guilt. Thirty years ago sex was not as dangerous as now days, sure tiny little livestock, and that burning sensation were not the highlight of the weekend but, unlike aids it didn't kill you! and, being prolific was fun at the time,but, in hind sight i could have been more thoughtful. and without DNA testing,and giving the wrong name. living on the edge meant changing hang outs a lot.

[sqweels]

How many people are getting laid at office Christmas parties in the first place?

[Sagebush]

Why would everyone assume that a woman who had a one nighter had been used? Perhaps the woman did the using.

Please stop perpetuating this double standard.

[curiousasheck]

Appears to me that guy in the picture is probably interested in another guy rather then either of those two desperate and willing babes.

[knixphan]

The same rule applies at the office as everywhere... Don't ever get so drunk that you lose CONTROL of your choices - or your condom. The best work-hookups happen while sober, just like everywhere else.

[JacqueItch]

"Great sex will not come from a romp with your sauced boss on top of the Xerox machine"

May be true . . . but it might make for some really interesting intra-office memos.

Myself, I like the concept of sex at Christmas parties. But . . . I like the concept of sex at all parties.
Tupperware, anyone?