Work is one of the many ways adults can meet other people. You might be thinking this is the best place to find your soul mate – you spend most of your waking hours at work so why not? But there are some things about your social life that should remain separate from your work life, and dating is one of them.

Like seriously, if you want to date there are great dating apps like Tinder and websites like OKCupid.com that would be better than flirting with people at work. And with dating websites you could find someone that you have tested compatible with, so why risk it with a colleague who could be totally incompatible with you? And when things end, as they do with most relationships, you will never have to see that person again. So why would you chance starting a doomed relationship with someone you will see every day after it ends? Are you asking for pain and heartbreak during your working hours?

Inter-office relationships can cause a series of problems with your significant other, both at home and at work, and should be avoided at all costs! Lust and love are easy to confuse. Don’t dip your pen in the company ink!

15. Co-workers will learn about your sex life

Guys call it locker room talk and girls share everything about their partners. One way or another, word will spread and people will begin talking about office relationships. It’s basically inevitable; the whole office will know about how big you are downstairs and what position she prefers in the sack. It’s super unprofessional and embarrassing and it’s also a sure fire way to get your boss or HR to decide that you are not professional and shouldn’t work for their company. Do you really want Linda from HR to hear about this? We don’t think so. End it now before it’s too late to go back and erase these mental images from your co-workers’ minds. They don’t need to know the intimate details of your love life and you don’t need to date a colleague.

14. You might get caught getting it on in the office

If you’re dating someone, hopefully you find them physically attractive… but sometimes you might find them a little bit too attractive. When you are dating a co-worker you run the risk of being turned on during meetings or while sitting at your desk, and having the desperate urge to run to them for some mid-day hanky panky. It’s the biggest work cliché to find someone doing things in the copy room under the pretense of fixing the printer. “Yeah, the paper drawer was jammed and Jessica was just helping me fix it…” It’s too risky, so don’t bother putting yourself in that compromising position. It’s not worth spending the next few months looking for a job and explaining to employers why your old boss won’t give you a recommendation…

13. If you have a fight…

Hopefully whoever you choose to date is not vengeful, but some people are, and you might not even see it coming. Why risk dating a work colleague who can hold a grudge and potentially ruin your career? I know Susie seems like the nicest person you have ever met, but once you have your first fight she is talking with HR about how you sexually harassed her. Even though you were in a consenting relationship, people can twist reality to suit their needs, and if Susie is angry and needs you out of her immediate vicinity, she might just say something to get you fired. People hide their personalities and present their best self at the beginning of a relationship, so why not date someone who can’t get you fired after you’ve had a fight?

12. Your other partner might find out

Some people only date co-workers to make sure their immediate group of friends does not find out they are cheating on their spouse or partner. If this is the case, then your relationship is doomed from the very beginning. They aren’t actually going to leave their significant other for you and it is going to eventually end in heartbreak, probably on your end. They won’t invite you out to meet their friends and on the cheater’s end there’s a decent chance that somebody at the office knows their partner. The likelihood of word getting out is high, so these types of office flings are usually very short-term. When it ends (not if, when), you will have to work with the skeezy bastard. Just. Do. Not. Do. It.

11. Work can interfere with home life

Imagine going home or out on a date with your significant other and all you can talk about is what happened at the office and the earnings report you just finished. Or how Steve from marketing really annoyed you. You should make clear boundaries between your personal and professional life, and if you can only talk about work when you’re supposed to be spending romantic time together, then you probably shouldn’t be dating to begin with. That’s not to say you can’t mention work, but it shouldn’t be the only thing you talk about. You should be able to have hobbies outside of work that you both enjoy and if you can’t disconnect from work your relationship is DOOMED. The best part of going home to your significant other at the end of the days is getting to decompress and talk about different things. Don’t bring your work problems home with you.

10. Home life can interfere with work

Is something happening at home? Did your partner get into a fight with their parents AGAIN and is freaking out? You shouldn’t have to comfort your partner at the office when you should be working, and working in the same place makes it difficult to turn your phone off and focus on the job. That’s not to say your partner’s feelings aren’t important, but you should be professional and separate what’s going on at home from what’s happening at work. If you can’t (and we are all human so who can really 100% disconnect from everything outside of work?) then dating a co-worker may mean you both are in jeopardy of acting unprofessional and losing your jobs. Don’t take the risk and keep your home life separate from your work life, or else.

9. You could get fired

A lot of companies have rules against dating in the office. In some cases you’ll get fired if they find out you’re dating someone within the company. The employer knows it’s doomed from the beginning so why don’t you just put a little faith in your boss about how to successfully run a business. If it’s against company policy and you get caught, you might get lucky and be told to end it or you could both find yourself looking for new work – and mutual unemployment might destroy your relationship anyway. If it’s against office policy and you are convinced she is your soulmate, then look for a new job before making it serious. Either way, at some point you’ll likely need to choose between your relationship and your job because the two simply should not mix.

8. Serial office dating

We all get it, you spend almost 40 hours a week at the office and finding the time and energy to go out to meet new people is hard. But do not rely on the pool of people you work with as your only potential partners. If you have dated multiple co-workers, be aware that they have all talked about you and your habits (good and more likely bad) to other people in and around the office. If you are known as the person who’s into short office flings, that might be all your partner expects from you and the relationship will be over before it even had a chance to start. If you want a fling, or a lasting relationship, look outside of work first.

7. Special privileges

One of the real issues with office dating is that you might bestow special privileges upon your partner that they otherwise wouldn’t deserve. You are responsible for the bonus scheme? Awesome, your partner gets an extra $3000 more than what she would have normally gotten as her bonus. She doesn’t like contacting clients but loves writing reports? No problem! Colleagues will see how you treat your partner better than them and they will be pretty pissed off at you about it. This could cause serious workplace drama and could just be avoided if you didn’t date a co-worker in the first place. Also, how will you ever know if she genuinely likes you or if she is just in it for the perks? You might be getting played by a colleague and not even know it.

6. Jealousy

Most likely, your workplace employs tons of people of varying genders, orientations and backgrounds. It’s easy to get your signals crossed if you see your partner talking with someone you think she might leave you for. Jealousy is the green monster, after all. We are all human and you need to have super high levels of trust in your partner to not get jealous if they interact with other attractive people. In fact, just take yourself out of the picture and don’t date a colleague to avoid these horrible feelings happening every day at your place of work. Can you imagine what would happen if you didn’t take this advice and acted on your jealousy? This is a recipe for workplace disaster that can be avoided by simply staying away from office romance.

5. Power relationships

Are you the boss? Then don’t date someone who is below you, whether it’s your secretary or a team member. Oh, and here’s another tip: definitely don’t just hire someone just because you want to date them. It doesn’t matter how attractive you think they are, hold yourself to a higher standard and make the right decisions. You hold this weird power-dating relationship at work, which might be a turn on, but at the end of the day it could communicate into a weird power relationship at home. This could create tons of tension, ultimately resulting in relationship failure. Relationships should be between two people who are equal, and if your partner leaves you, could you resist the urge to fire them?

4. Co-Workers gossiping about your relationship

Every relationship has its ups and downs. You’re going to have those days where you need your space and can’t be around your significant other. Do you really want the office to overhear you fighting or gossip about a fight that you had? Do you want your colleagues to perceive you as the demon monster who would not do the dishes? The whole office will be buzzing about how awful you are and how you need to treat your partner better. And who doesn’t like entertaining stories about their co-workers? You will be perpetually labeled as the bad guy even if you do the dishes when you get home. Want to avoid this? Then just don’t date a colleague. It’s really as simple as that.

3. It’ll alter your co-workers’ perceptions of you

You will no longer be known as Phil from management who is an amazing boss. You will now be known as Phil, the guy who is dating a co-worker because he can’t get a date in real life. It will literally change your label and reputation with you work colleagues, and potentially in a pretty negative way. Who do you want to be known as? The amazing boss or the guy who literally can’t find anyone to date in the real world so they are resorting to office relationships? Unless your are 150% certain she is your soulmate, then you should probably end things before they naturally fail on their own. Take it from us, chances are you will begin to lose the respect of those around you if you start hooking up with someone in the office.

2. You’ll spend more time with them than on work

When dating a co-worker, you run the risk of spending more time catering to the needs of your significant other than on the job you are actually getting paid to do. This will make your boss super unhappy and your co-workers upset that they have to pick up the slack because you can’t meet a deadline. And you don’t even have a good excuse for not meeting your deadlines. Save HR the hassle of firing you and replacing you with someone more efficient by dating someone you DO NOT work with. Your co-workers will thank you for actually doing your job and not saddling them with more work than they already have. Is it really THAT hard to find someone out there in the wild? There are 7 billion people in the world.

1. When it inevitably ends, you have to work with your Ex

So far we’ve been through why it’s an atrocious idea to date a co-worker, but this one takes the cake. When you inevitably end things because of all the horrible things that are bound to happen when you date co-workers, then you STILL have to go to work with your ex. Hopefully things ended amicably, but how many people can honestly say their relationships had a happy ending? Can you imagine having to show up and work on projects with someone who is super hostile towards you? Is it really worth it? And if it’s that bad think about all the time you’ll be spending looking for a job to escape the hell hole of your last relationship. All of this could have been avoided with a little commons sense. Next time you feel like asking our Mary from accounting, think twice.