Office romance is not going away and science explains why

When offices emptied in 2020, many assumed the conditions that make workplace romance so common would disappear along with the coffee machines and conference rooms. They did not.

Data from the Society for Human Resource Management, published in February 2022, found that a third of 550 Americans surveyed said they had started or maintained a romantic relationship with a colleague during the pandemic. That represented a 6% increase compared to figures from 2019, before the disruption began. Colleagues were finding each other across Zoom screens and Slack threads at a higher rate than they had been in offices before any of it started.

The finding points to something researchers who study workplace romance have long argued: office romance is less about the physical office and more about the psychological conditions that shared work creates.

Two forces in particular drive attraction between people who work together, according to researchers who study the psychology of relationships. The first is familiarity. A well-documented psychological bias called the mere-exposure effect describes the tendency to prefer things, and people, encountered repeatedly. Seeing the same person regularly, whether in a hallway or on a video call, builds a disposition toward liking them that operates largely below conscious awareness of romance.

The second force is similarity. People who work in the same field chose the same path, were trained in comparable ways, and often approach problems through a shared frame of reference. That common ground accelerates the sense of understanding between two people in a way that casual social encounters rarely replicate.

Both forces function regardless of physical location. Emotional and intellectual proximity can build through email and messaging platforms just as effectively as through desk-side conversations, which explains why the shift to remote work did not disrupt the pattern the way many expected.

A third factor involves shared stress. Research has consistently shown that navigating difficulty alongside another person builds social bonds quickly. The workplace generates those conditions regularly through demanding deadlines, difficult clients, and high-stakes moments that require collaboration to survive. Getting through something hard together creates a sense of shared identity that can easily tip into something more personal.

One in 10 heterosexual couples in the United States reported meeting at work in 2017 data, and researchers describe workplace romance as a statistical constant even as other methods of meeting partners have shifted significantly over the same period.

Part of the reason is simple math. Americans between the ages of 20 and 50 spend nearly four times as much time with colleagues as they do with friends, according to available data. Spending that volume of time with any group of people while navigating shared goals, shared frustrations, and shared victories creates conditions that are structurally similar to the environments where romantic attachment has always developed most naturally.

Office romance does not come without complications. Relationships between colleagues can generate sexual harassment claims, create conflicts of interest, and make other team members uncomfortable in ways that affect performance and cohesion. When one person on a team develops a dual relationship with another, the norms that govern acceptable behavior in that group shift in ways that are difficult to navigate for everyone involved.

Researchers and HR professionals broadly agree that prohibition is not an effective response. A more practical approach involves disclosure requirements, typically to HR and a direct manager, with reassignment of supervisory responsibility when a relationship involves people at different levels of authority.

For employees, the guidance from researchers is consistent: disclose sooner rather than later. The longer a relationship remains undisclosed, the more likely colleagues are to retrospectively reexamine past interactions and conclude something was being hidden from them. That perception tends to generate more professional damage than the relationship itself would have produced if disclosed early.

The psychological forces that draw colleagues together have outlasted open floor plans, remote work mandates, and global health crises. The evidence suggests they will continue to do so.