Wednesday 16 September 2009

Female Coworkers: Pain in the…

If you have read some of my previous and rather nonsensical blog posts, you might have discovered that I am an old fashioned heterosexual male who doesn’t need to brag about how straight he is.

I have been thinking about a certain issue lately, which I am sure has confronted many men in workforce out there. I am talking about female coworkers. I am not talking about authoritative, intimidating female bosses who look like early incarnations of anti-Christ or the old likes of mothers and grandmothers who have spent their entire life on the same desk and chair under the same roof. I am talking about smoking hot nymphets who despite being quite professional, and reasonably reserve and friendly at the same time can’t help but raise your heartbeat every time they are in closer than usual vicinity in office space.

At the beginning of your career together, you notice their alluring beauty which you find more tantalizing because of possible logistic convenience. You try to concentrate on your work and try to be more professional; partly you want to convince yourself that nothing is wrong and partly because you are afraid that you will get caught even though you did not do anything wrong.

Formal and rather limited conversation with your attractive female coworker can also be problematic on your psychological level. Since you are already charmed by her mesmerisms, you will be naturally compelled to find out if you have somehow the same alluring effect on her. After each conversation with her, you will probably spend hours scrutinizing every word of her mouth, every gesture of her limbs and every twitch of her visible skin to decode her thoughts about yourself and, unfortunately, it is very much possible that she is more indifferent about you than an ocean about the rain. Yet you will inadvertently bring about some odd statistics of her conversations with other male coworkers, her body language around your possible competitions and the number of times she smiled, said 'hello' or said 'goodmorning' to you compared to the others to prove to yourself that on some level she does find you enticing.

One day all of a sudden you’ll notice some most harmlessly common thing about her – it could be her bad mood because of an unrelated matter, her laughter with another coworker compared to her smile with you or her apparent indifference towards you (which could be the result of the change in her nature of work which involves you much less than before) – that you might start to feel rejected by her. You might even begin to blame yourself for being wrong from the very beginning, and reprimand yourself with a chronic guilt and resultant feeling of embarrassment for getting your hopes high on a semi-conscious level.

This, my reader, is unwanted sexual tension which can be very unproductive for your work and career. I have no ultimate solution for this as I have yet to find a 100% effective coping mechanism for such a lunacy which many men experience around the attractive members of fair sex.

I, however, have come to a result that may seem odd to you and can be wrong in some cases but, in my opinion, is true in most situations where romantic men find themselves stranded between love of the fair sex and the lust of the flesh.

My result is, in one way, a solution to most problems caused by sexual tension. There are some smaller points that you should think about before you get to know my final solution:

  • You should not avoid small talk.
  • Talk to her and think of your mother. This will keep you at ease, and keep your conversation normal and candid but within formal bounds.
  • Try to think of her as a brain and not the body, and a brain which might be superior to yours. This will bring you in a competitive mood which might help you focus on your work more.
  • If you are like me and believe in superiority of human race above all other creatures, then think of her as a sexless member a no-nonsense species of living organisms. I love science and philosophy but they keep me distracted from my more animalistic instincts.
  • This might offend some women and feminists, but think of her someone who needs your help and guidance and think of yourself somewhat of a mentor in a superior position. This sense of superiority might help you be more indifferent to her sex appeal and more focused on office work.
  • Let her talk when she wants to talk at length and of course time permitting. You might find out that she just finds you friendly as a human being and likes you to listen to her. Nothing less, nothing more.

And here is my final but rather crude solution. If you can tell your hot coworker a really dirty and vulgar joke and laugh with her without any fear of a formal complaint or lawsuit against you, then rest assured that, at least for you, she is a really hot man in woman’s disguise which nature gave her.