Newest meeting ground for singles – workplace!

Wellington, Feb 1 (ANI): A new research has found that offices are fast becoming the favourite new hotspots for singles looking for romance.

Over a third of Aussie workers have admitted to getting intimate with a co-worker and experts believe the number is the same in New Zealand.

"People are working long hours together.... They confide and go through adversity with each other and often socialise together," the NZ Herald quoted Auckland psychologist Nathan Gaunt, as saying.

He pointed out: "People are spending less and less time outside of work. Opportunities to meet people [outside work] are diminished."

A study of nearly 1000 workers by Careerone.com.au found that 35percent of those who had an office romance called it short-term and 21percent described it as long-term.

Only 5percent of workplace relationships ended in marriage. Over a third of those who had an office relationship had been "intimate" with a colleague in their workplace, with 6percent having been caught on the job.

However, relationship experts say office romances can be dangerous.

Gaunt said: "If the relationship dissolves it can cause a bit of anxiety in the office.... Some people feel pressure to leave the company."

Relationship Services clinical leader Louise Chapman said: "I've had people wanting to get out of relationships because they are seeing their boss and he is married. But there is the worry about what is going to happen to their job.

"And, on the other side, I have had bosses come in nervous because 'she' has a hold on him and is afraid she is going to tell his wife."

Chapman added: "The same sort of stuff happens to people that aren't in the same workplace but it's more magnified when it's at work."

"If it's the accidental drunken thing it's seen negatively anyway. Plus in some situations you are opening yourself up to allegations of sexual harassment," Dr Rachel Morrison, who lectures in workplace relationships at AUT, said. (ANI)