BE 387: Should You Talk About Dating at Work?
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This is the Business English Podcast, episode 387. Should you talk about dating at work?

Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.

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Hello, Lindsay. How are you? Hello, Aubrey. I'm doing great. What are we talking about on Business English today? Yeah, this is really interesting. We are talking about dating. Lindsay, would you ever ask a coworker about their dating life? I think it would really depend on my relationship with that coworker. So if they were kind of like a work friend, then I might, but I would still be a little bit careful, still always try to maintain a sense of

Don't you know don't you have TMI don't give too much information don't ask too much right absolutely We're going to talk about this today because you mentioned a good point that you do have work friends that you have the kind of Relationship where you could talk about that but even among work friends there will be different levels of comfort talking about someone's dating life real personal details So there's a lot to think about

when you decide whether to bring this up at all. Oh, for sure. There's so much here. I mean, people may want to be guarded because if they share something, maybe they're worried word would get around and then people would see them as less professional, right? We want to be careful, for sure. Yeah, definitely possible. Or maybe they're dating someone at work and they're really trying to keep it under wraps. So there are a lot of...

How do you say that? There are a lot of like things you could step in. There are a lot of potential pitfalls or traps, pitfalls, right? For sure. We want to avoid. But we did start this series. This is part two of a two-part series, right, Aubrey? Exactly. Yeah. Tell us where part one was.

Part one was over on All Ears English, 2372, ghosting and dating culture in the US. We went into some of the trendy new terms around dating culture and talked about the changes, like the dating culture, especially in the US, that's what we know about, changes,

Constantly. Oh my gosh. And we got some great terms that you definitely want to learn over there. So guys go over, open your search bar now and type in all ears English. You'll see the yellow, just like the color of this podcast. You'll see us on the cover. Go ahead and hit the follow button right there. Okay.

yeah and you can definitely listen to this one first and then go check out those terms and then yeah stay yeah yeah go check out that one after exactly keep listening today and then go and find part one because you don't need to know part one to listen to part two all right okay so let's first talk about what should you consider when you're thinking about either asking someone about their dating life or sharing details about yours at work

Well, like I said at the top of the show, when you asked me, relationship, what is my relationship with this person I'm talking with? Right? Exactly. Right. You would only bring this up with those that you are very close to, acquaintances, leadership, clients. It's

rarely appropriate. Or also relationship and also to extend on that hierarchy within the company. Yes, definitely. Right? Because, you know, if you have a team of direct reports for our professional English course coming out in a month, I interviewed Kate from London. She works for JP Morgan in the finance industry. And she talks about having a small team of direct reports that really respected her. I highly doubt that she would go and ask her direct report. I think that might be considered against the rules at work. I'm sure it is.

She would not go and ask her direct report and vice versa. Her direct report would not ask her directly about her dating life. So hierarchy, not just relationship hierarchy. This goes into something really interesting in U.S. business culture that a hierarchy often determines how close of a friend you become with someone. Because when someone is a direct report, there is hierarchy.

a level of professionalism that both sides are trying to maintain or seeking to maintain that often won't let you get to the point where you would talk about your dating life. 100%. Yeah, that's really important, especially in larger companies, but even in small ones, the hierarchy still exists. Absolutely.

Love that. Okay. So then the second thing to think about is discretion. So if you do mention your dating life or your partner, even if you are friends, you'll want to keep it brief and not share unnecessary or overly private details about your personal life. Avoid TMI, that too much information, especially at work.

Because you're often in situations where you don't know who's going to walk into the room. You could end up in a very personal conversation. And then if someone enters the room and you awkwardly stop talking, they could think you were talking about them. So it's just often not the place. Right. And in the Zoom world, in the virtual world, where we're probably having half our meetings on Zoom now as a listener base,

Also, you don't know who's going to drop into the call, right? It's even more dangerous in that case. That often happens. The conversations you're able to have with work friends are like before someone else joins the call quickly. So again, not always the right time or place. Exactly. So that's the second one is discretion. And then number three, respecting others' privacy. Privacy is a huge deal in American culture. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. So even if you choose to share details about your dating life, that doesn't necessarily mean the other person will be comfortable sharing. So usually you should refrain from asking personal questions, asking about someone's dating life. You can share about yours and then if they choose, they can offer. This is even with close work friends.

All right. So these are the things to watch out for, to be careful of, but it is sometimes okay to talk about dating at work. Aubrey, we have a couple scenarios where it might be okay. Exactly. What we're going to do is provide a little role play for three different scenarios or four different scenarios of when this might come up and how that could look.

Okay, I love it. So the first scenario is if someone brings up their own dating life, right? It's just what they've brought to the table, right? Exactly. This is assuming you're on that level with your relationship or friendship. And if someone else brings it up, as long as you're comfortable with the conversation, there would be no reason to awkwardly shut it down, right? If you're comfortable with the conversation, that's when this, you know, it could be appropriate. Right, exactly. So let's see what this looks like. All right, I'll start us out.

I've been on so many terrible dates lately. Ooh, sorry to hear it. Are you on the apps? Yeah, but it's tough out there. Whenever I meet someone in person, they're so different from how they seemed while we were texting.

Yeah, and this doesn't mean that you know in this conversation that I have to reciprocate and share my own experience or my past dating experience It doesn't mean that at all a very good point, right? You wouldn't have to we can just kind of have this casual conversation about mine because I brought it up I would not then ask you what about you? How's your dating life? Even if we're close friends. I

culturally in the US I would not feel comfortable doing that it really wouldn't be appropriate that's a that's so important that's a really key difference between what we're talking about here on business English versus maybe all ears English where yeah we might actually right we might ask that question to a great if you're a friend you're outside you're meeting for coffee that's

very different situation be like what about you how's it going for you exactly exactly even though i will say privacy does matter in american culture but when you're close to a friend and you're outside of work it's not a professional scenario you probably would counter with how about you right exactly it's really interesting how that changes depending on if we're at work and with work friends or in our personal life with personal to be more buttoned up right buttoned up there we go all right number two aubry what's the second scenario

So if the relationship is friendship, we talked about this. It's really not something you would bring up with acquaintances or people you don't know well. So we just have a mini role play. Someone is a friend. Lindsay, go ahead and start us. Okay. How are things going with the guy you've been talking to? Okay. We've been texting for a few weeks. I expected him to ask me out by now.

Maybe you should ask him out. Yeah, maybe. So this is a different scenario. This is a close friend. You definitely see this person outside of work. And this conversation is taking place outside of work, maybe a happy hour, maybe at a coffee shop, like maybe in a break room if it's just you. Maybe you'd have this conversation at work. But it's definitely a friend that you're close enough that you spend time with them outside of work. Okay. So it's a friend from work, right? Do we work in the same place?

clarify that for me again? Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's flexibility here, but this definitely implies that you are close friends to the point that you spend time together outside of work, right? So it's interesting how like we have work friends, but then there are also friends that we hang out with socially where you potentially could ask this question. Got it. Okay. Excellent.

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Okay, Aubrey, let's look at scenario number three. We're celebrating a milestone, like a major anniversary, and you're sharing news with your colleagues that you know well, and you know this is appropriate, right? Yeah, exactly, right? If they ask you about your weekend and it's your anniversary, this is appropriate to bring it up, even though it is related to your dating life. Yeah.

Because again, we bring our whole selves to work, right? For the most part. So here we go. And at least in US business culture, we do share this when we're celebrating birthdays, anniversaries. We are pretty open about that. That's true. For sure. For sure. Here we go. Friday is my one year anniversary. Oh, congratulations. Are you doing anything special to celebrate? We're going to a nice restaurant downtown and a concert. So fun. What concert? Illumineers. I can't wait.

i would be really jealous i love the lumineers i've wanted to see them live we almost went and then they canceled their phoenix show yeah so we weren't able to go it was really sad yeah yeah it's a great they're they're fantastic i love lumineers too they're great yeah but this makes sense like whether you had started by saying you know what are you up to this weekend and i share i'm celebrating an anniversary or we can start the conversation with that like

Just to share, oh, it's my one year anniversary. Someone can congratulate you. It's very normal. Happens all the time at work. Very normal, for sure. And again, think about the relationship, the hierarchy and the relationship. Okay. Number four, Aubrey, another one.

Yeah. So if this is a very casual conversation where something is just mentioned in passing, you know, maybe a recent date or weekend plans with a partner, again, with someone you know well, considering the relationship and the hierarchy. Like I was mentioning, sometimes you'll just ask someone about their weekend. And if they went on a date, they don't have to avoid talking about that. If you have that relationship, they could mention it.

All right, here we go. Do anything fun this weekend? Yes, I went ice skating with a guy I've been seeing. Oh, fun. I haven't been ice skating in ages. All right. And then the conversation would probably branch like when's the last time you went ice skating? Because you're not asking me follow up questions like this is where you read the room, you know, much more detail. Maybe they don't care or they're not comfortable with it.

Yes. And just to highlight the grammar here, again, we're talking about the past tense, right? It's Monday morning and I'm saying, do anything fun this weekend? That's interesting, right? Most of our listeners would probably, yeah, past tense. Why do we do that? What we're doing is we're dropping words.

So really the sentence is, did you do anything fun this weekend? Past tense. We drop both did and you, and we only say the second chunk of the sentence. Do anything fun this weekend? To save time, to speak casually. We often drop the first part of the sentence.

and this is okay in a business context now i wouldn't be asking these questions to a client both grammatically speaking and in terms of the content right a client or someone we're trying to get as a client at a sales call or something like that but a close co-worker we're good to go right if you're going to mention dating if that's already the situation it's a close co-worker a friend a work friend and then it's an informal enough conversation you absolutely would drop words like this yeah i love it

- All right, Aubrey, what else do we need to know to finish up the episode today? - Yeah, we wanna make sure you guys don't miss part one, 2372 on the Allers English podcast, "Ghosting and Dating Culture in the US." So go check out that episode if you missed it, hit follow here on Business English and on Allers English so you don't miss any of these fun series. - Yes, and I think for the takeaway today, it's a good default mode to say you're gonna avoid talking about your dating life at first until you gather more information.

about the people, about the relationships, about the hierarchy until you get to know people. Don't you think, Aubrey? Absolutely, right? We keep it more casual. Just what did you do? You know, spending time, like keeping it away from personal details until the relationship is there and you're more clear about how personal the person you're talking to wants to get.

Yeah. So we always want to avoid TMI. That stands for too much information. I love that acronym. Always, right? We have to read the room. As soon as we see them lose eye contact, their eyes are glazing over and they don't want to know about it anymore. Change the subject. Right. Exactly. You got it. Those are some good rules to remember here. I love it. All right. All right. See you next time. Have a good one. You too. Bye. All right. Bye.

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