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I accidentally hooked up a couple at work

I have some friends at work, we’ll call them N and C. They sit across the aisle from each other. They’re now a couple and nobody believes that I didn’t do it intentionally.

N is an Indian woman, two engineering degrees. Really smart lady. We like to talk about all kinds of things, some which I guess you’re not supposed to talk about. We met my first week on this job when we had to go to the other building where there are 2000-3000 test systems. Big room, lots of racks, pretty noisy. She didn’t have a car, so I offereed to drive us.

Of course, we started talking while we were driving. I have little sense of cultural boundaries. I don’t remember what we talked about, but it was enough that when we returned to the safety of the cube farm, we continued to chat on Teams and in person. She ended up requesting a guest chair in her cubicle so I would have a place to sit, once we had the facilities people remove a file drawer that she didn’t want anyway. So sometimes I go over there and we talk about whatever is going on, and sometimes we talk about other things. I am curious about many things, including other religions. I don’t follow any particular religion, but i have some spiritual practices and beliefs, cobbled together by learning about them over the years. I recently decided I’m whatever the opposite of an agnostic is.

“Agnostic” is a funny word. In American English, we generally pronounce it like “agg-nostic”, which is basically how it’s spelled, but this hides the meaning of the word. The word derives from the Greek word “gnosis” which describes having a direct experience of the divine, and someone who does things that might occasion that “gnostics”, in which he letter g is silent. In Greek, the letter a is prepended to signify “not”. An example of this is in the word “apnea” as in “sleep apnea”, a disorder in which people stop breathing while they sleep. It’s a fairly serious condition because if it’s left untreated, the consequences can be affect cardiovascular health, insufficient sleep which leads to all kinds of badness in a person’s life. But I digress.

N has been in the USA for about 3 years, having lived in Florida and Texas before landing a job in Colorado. When I met her, she was sharing an apartment with her boyfriend, who we’ll call MJ, because that’s the name he goes by. It’s short for something else that has a M and a J in it, but it’s easier for us Americans to pronounce. I don’t know if he goes by that name at home. They were friends back in India. She came here first, got a job and he followed later. I met him a couple times: nice guy, made some lovely dinner that I got to share in once when I got in a jam and locked myself out of the office, leaving my access badge on my desk. They helped me out because I had her number in my phone, she lived not to far away from the office, and I knew where she lived because I’d given her a ride home a few times.

One Monday, N told me that she had broken up with her boyfriend and kicked him out of the apartment. We chatted about it a little bit more over Teams and I suggested we should continue the conversation over some beers at a local microbrewery. We did that, and ended up having some pizza at a local place that has become associated, at least in my mind, as the place when emotional stuff needs to get processed. This happened because another friend (L) and i ended up there as she was going through a breakup of her own. Over pizza, our conversation covered a lot of ground, including some practical advice for a young woman who might be navigating the dating scene in the USA. It was basically the conversation I would have if I had a daughter who was facing that. Advice like don’t hesitate to require a STI test before things go past a certain point, be careful about where you leave your drink if you are in a bar. That kind of stuff.

C and I have had various interactions, usually when I needed some bit of hardware like cables, adaptors, replacement drives and we’d become friends. We went out for beers one night when I needed to go to another brewery (we have a lot of them in Colorado) that had a brewing supply store attached to it. C is not atypical white American guy, likes fishing and stuff like that.

I was surprised to learn that these two, who would see each other any time they turned their chairs, had never introduced themselves. Maybe I’m just weird, but I don’t think I would go very long before introducing myself.

A little while later, N asks if i’m busy after work, want to go get some beers. I like a good beer, as long as it’s not an IPA, so I agreed. As we were leaving, I turned to Chris and asked if he was busy, so the three of us went out to the microbrewery and shared conversation and such. It was a nice time.

I think we did this one other time. One day, N asks me in a phone call if I thought that C was a good guy. I said well, he’s the kind of person I’d go have some beers with, I thought he was nice enough. I pointed out a couple of others in the office that I might not extend this level of social interaction to make my point.

Fast forward some time. Weeks, I don’t rmeember how many. N and C said that they wanted to take me out for a beer. Sure, we’ve done this before, why not? As it turned out, we went to the brewery next to our office. (I fear I am giving the impression that I spend a lot of time at breweries and/or the notion that I go to them a lot, and that there must be a lot of them. There kind of are.)

We got there and there were several of our workmates. Not unusual: it is next door. It was a little while before our other workmates went home, leaving N, C and me. They’re acting all nervous and tell me that they had started dating. It seemed like they were looking for my … opinion? approval? I don’t know. I said that’s great, but that relationships in the office can be a little tricky. At least they don’t report to one another, they’re are in different groups so, congratulations, I guess. I said that there might be some cultural differences as well, but I wish them the best.

When I told various friends about this (and in including N & C) I said that it was not my intention to introduce them with the intention of, you know, introducing them, almost no one would believe me. Keep in mind, there was a period of time between between when we first went out and when they told me that they had made some decisions to be together. I was telling the story to another friend about how I wasn’t trying to make something happen. She said she believed me. Why? Because if I’d been trying to do that, I would have announced this. Fair point.

It’s been a little while now. A few weeks ago, I helped them move into a new apartment together, one that has two bedrooms. Nice place. There have been some wrinkles in the fabric of the office.

I’m not sure how I would handle having a relationship with someone I w rked with. For one thing, I’ve never done this, and I don’t think it is necessarily a good idea. For one thing, the office is less likely to stay in the office because conversations at home would inevitably gravitate to what was happening a the office. I would like to think that i might make it that we wouldn’t show any outward signs, but I suppose that would be difficult. Not having lunch together? always arriving and leaving in separate cars, separate times would be difficult to maintain over the long haul. Anyone who is observant can see that there’s something because of taking walks together fairly regularly, meeting in the break room, things like that.

There has been some chatter that’s been shared with me. When you’re in an office with people from different countries, cliques are nearly inevitable. There’s a group folks from China eat lunch together and speak Chinese, there is a clutch of people from India who take lunch together outside the break room speaking something I don’t understand. For all I know they’re talking about me in fromt of my back.

Apparently there is (at least) one person in the office who has a derogatory opinion about this situation, using some terms that aren’t necessarily flattering or office-appropriate.