She wants to pursue workplace relationship

I have an idea for a new role playing game.

Let's assume for a moment that you're Party A.

Party B wants you (Party A) to engage in a confrontation with Party C.

Party A (that's you) and Party C will bear almost all the risks and costs of said confrontation.

Almost all the benefits of said confrontation will accrue to Party B, the person who wants the confrontation.

So, what would you, Party A, do if you found yourself in this situation? How would you handle it?

Now let's assume that you are Party B in the above scenario. What should you do? How long should you wait to see if Party A will engage in the confrontation that you want?

Now let's switch again. How about if you were Party C? What should you do to obtain your goals, or prevent your interests from being negatively affected?

How significant is context in determining your answer? I.e. suppose Parties A, B, and C are all in high school? Or if A, B, and C are widower, widow, and adult children of widower? Or what if A, B, C are all countries or political leaders with powerful economies or militaries?

(So whaddya all think? Is there a market for abstraction and what-if games? Should I copyright this idea and sell it to Milton-Bradley?)

Good morning Polarity, Certainly food for thought. My original reaction was party A should get out of the riky situation and require parties B/C to have their confrontation if it was important enough to B to do so him/herself. Guess I'm thinking high school. Your added scenarios really make it intriguing. Give it a shot if you can make it a fully-realized "game" format with criteria for winning, accruing points, and of course a back door or "shoot the moon" sneaky way to win without anyone knowing until the points are tallied.

LW1 Even if interoffice relationships are allowed at work, please, please, PLEASE be discreet. Having a blatant romance turning the workplace into the setting for soap-opera romance is bad for the company, bad for morale and BAD for your reputation and opportunities. No kissy noises over the tops of the cubes, no smooching at the water-cooler, no tears and hurt feelings in the ladies' room when "he didn't remember the anniversary of our first date." If you're going to do this in a way that's beneficial and not detrimental to your career, other work relationships and reputation, everyone should be WONDERING about the smile on your face after you go to lunch together, not imagining.
LW2 I would certainly feel bad that after 6 years my beloved didn't take steps to smooth the way for me to spend time with his family on special occasions. I would also be concerned that his lifelong relationships with his children had becomed distant and strained. Maybe it's just me, but if you're cooling to the relationship, maybe that's for the best for everyone. If this relationship is a good one, they should have seen an improvement in Dad's demeanor and general happiness after 9 years of widowhood, and welcome it if their relationships were really that close. He should also value you enough to have expressed that to them. It's possible he's "just not that into you" that he won't do so. It's also possible that there are specific objections to you that have not been addressed. Get it cleared up or get out.

Lastly, while I'm glad LW's daughter's wedding went so well and everyone was friendly, I find it a little odd to commend a man who has been divorced 4 times on his taste in women....maybe it's just me. Should we be sympathizing with the women on their poor taste in men or congratulating them on getting away?

LW3: Amy is off her rocker today. Great taste in women indeed. The daughter no doubt had alot of adjusting to do as a child and teenager when her father forced on her so many siblings and step-siblings because of his lack of maturity.

Polarity wrote:

I have an idea for a new role playing game.
Let's assume for a moment that you're Party A.
Party B wants you (Party A) to engage in a confrontation with Party C.
Party A (that's you) and Party C will bear almost all the risks and costs of said confrontation.
Almost all the benefits of said confrontation will accrue to Party B, the person who wants the confrontation.
So, what would you, Party A, do if you found yourself in this situation? How would you handle it?
Now let's assume that you are Party B in the above scenario. What should you do? How long should you wait to see if Party A will engage in the confrontation that you want?
Now let's switch again. How about if you were Party C? What should you do to obtain your goals, or prevent your interests from being negatively affected?
How significant is context in determining your answer? I.e. suppose Parties A, B, and C are all in high school? Or if A, B, and C are widower, widow, and adult children of widower? Or what if A, B, C are all countries or political leaders with powerful economies or militaries?
(So whaddya all think? Is there a market for abstraction and what-if games? Should I copyright this idea and sell it to Milton-Bradley?)

Honestly, Polarity, I haven't had enough coffee yet and half-way through your post I started thinking about the pythagorean theorem.

Mmmmm.... right triangles....

Amy is getting pretty tolerant of odd behavior.

LW1: Workplace relationships are complicated, because you're together so much of the time. If it's not total anger with a bad boss or annoying co-worker, it can feel like luh-uh-uhv for an attractive person who dresses nicely and acts courteously. The downside risks are considerable.

LW2: Why have you stayed with this man? It's not going to get any better. Is it just stubborn pride, so you "won't let those kids chase you off"? If they valued their parents marriage so much, perhaps they scorn your willingness to be with their dad for so long without a marriage.

LW3: Just one big, happy family ... I wonder why any of them bothered to get legally married in the first place.

Why is LW1 so complex, Polarity?

Isn't this just a "wake up and smell the coffee" moment?

The widower will not confront his children over his current lover. He's had his chance, he knows that his lover wants the confrontation, and he's refusing (albeit very nicely, as he would appear not to want to burn his bridges).

I think she already has her answer, but she just needed someone else to say it.

Your game would go over well in a Philosophy 101 class -- its a good exercise to remember that, existentially at least, we all have our differing points of view.

LW1: In addition to the risks outlined by kbaann and Wyndie above, it's also possible that the guy is NOT as into you as you think he is. After all, he's training you, and a good trainer will be upbeat and do his best to make the session fun. It could be just part of the job for him, and here you are imagining this great romance!

LW2: The other posters have said it all. I have nothing to add.

LW3: I'm with Jennifer on this one. I take a dim view of serial marriages. I'm glad for the daughter's sake that everyone was able to put their best foot forward for the wedding. However, I doubt that Dad's current wife appreciated the "not an ex...yet" crack!

LW1 I have a different viewpoint on workplace relationships and I even work in Human Resources. First checking the company policy is a good idea. If the company allows for dating amongst peers (very few companies would allow a supervisor-subordinate dating relationship because of the potential legal ramifications) and we are talking about two professional, mature adults, I say go for it. I work for a very large retail company and we have many, many employees who have met their spouses during the employment with the company. Most of them were able to keep their dating quiet and at work you would not have known there was anything more than a friendly working relationship. At the point they decided to get married, if they worked in the same department, one of them would move to another department. I have seen this happen successfully many times. However, I do work for a large company, with 3,000+ employees at our corporate offices alone so that allows for the flexibility to change jobs if a relationship gets very serious.

We have had some issues in our facility locations in small towns where everyone knows everyone and very likely you could be dating your co-worker's ex-husband. That is where we tend to see more problems, not amongst professionals dating other professionals in the workplace.

Polarity wrote:

How significant is context in determining your answer? I.e. suppose Parties A, B, and C are all in high school? Or if A, B, and C are widower, widow, and adult children of widower? Or what if A, B, C are all countries or political leaders with powerful economies or militaries?

I'm confused.
D. All of the above.

jennifer wrote:

LW3: Amy is off her rocker today. Great taste in women indeed. The daughter no doubt had alot of adjusting to do as a child and teenager when her father forced on her so many siblings and step-siblings because of his lack of maturity.

Agreed. I found Amy's reply to LW3 odd and kinda corny but then again, that is one strange family tree the daughter is dealing with. It makes me think of those darn mulberry trees that you can't kill and they continue to grow in your cyclone fence. You saw it off and hammer nails in it and next spring three different branches resprout.

Garth Algar wrote:

<quoted text>
I'm confused.
D. All of the above.

Ha-ha! Me too. I havent had my coffee yet.

EEE wrote:

<quoted text>
Honestly, Polarity, I haven't had enough coffee yet and half-way through your post I started thinking about the pythagorean theorem.
Mmmmm.... right triangles....

.
Thank you :)..I'm going to be chuckling about this all day. I had to go back and read Polarity's post later in the morning so I could understand it which oftentimes I have to do anyway since he gets kind-of complicated for me.

I did however like geometry in high school, and when I saw the A, B, C< it reminded me of Algebra.

Dear L W2, you must me strong to tolerate th is situation!! It is mind boggling to me how adult kids (way past their 20's no less) think they have right to dictate who their widowed parent spends time with. what a bunch of selfish cry baby brats. I almost cant wait until they r much older and maybe lose a spouse and their kids say h ey you need to be alone because WE cant cope with you being with anyone else but mom, and mom is dead. selfish . Im 39 btw!

kbaann wrote:

LW1 Even if interoffice relationships are allowed at work, please, please, PLEASE be discreet. Having a blatant romance turning the workplace into the setting for soap-opera romance is bad for the company, bad for morale and BAD for your reputation and opportunities. No kissy noises over the tops of the cubes, no smooching at the water-cooler, no tears and hurt feelings in the ladies' room when "he didn't remember the anniversary of our first date." If you're going to do this in a way that's beneficial and not detrimental to your career, other work relationships and reputation, everyone should be WONDERING about the smile on your face after you go to lunch together, not imagining.
LW2 I would certainly feel bad that after 6 years my beloved didn't take steps to smooth the way for me to spend time with his family on special occasions. I would also be concerned that his lifelong relationships with his children had becomed distant and strained. Maybe it's just me, but if you're cooling to the relationship, maybe that's for the best for everyone. If this relationship is a good one, they should have seen an improvement in Dad's demeanor and general happiness after 9 years of widowhood, and welcome it if their relationships were really that close. He should also value you enough to have expressed that to them. It's possible he's "just not that into you" that he won't do so. It's also possible that there are specific objections to you that have not been addressed. Get it cleared up or get out.
Lastly, while I'm glad LW's daughter's wedding went so well and everyone was friendly, I find it a little odd to commend a man who has been divorced 4 times on his taste in women....maybe it's just me. Should we be sympathizing with the women on their poor taste in men or congratulating them on getting away?

Eh I disagree with your response to LW1. I say go for it and one day in the middle of work on a slow day when she's feeling kind of frisky go and grab him up and find a closed in office and have him throw her over the desk or maybe a storage room, throwing her up against everything, don't forget to lock the door and be discreet about it.

Flawless wrote:

<quoted text>
Eh I disagree with your response to LW1. I say go for it and one day in the middle of work on a slow day when she's feeling kind of frisky go and grab him up and find a closed in office and have him throw her over the desk or maybe a storage room, throwing her up against everything, don't forget to lock the door and be discreet about it.

*Gasp* Why Flawless. How inappropriate! Miss Manners would not approve!(well actually maybe she would. Am I the only one who looks at that picture of her and thinks "man she has a devilish look about her like she just shagged the pool boy or something!")

Ex-wives club comment - truly tacky, especially at your daughter's wedding who just committed to lifelong vows.

Rational wrote:

<quoted text>
*Gasp* Why Flawless. How inappropriate! Miss Manners would not approve!(well actually maybe she would. Am I the only one who looks at that picture of her and thinks "man she has a devilish look about her like she just shagged the pool boy or something!")

She does sorda have a smile on her face that says: Hey I just got some.

Either way life is too short.

There are so many different ways you could explore work place sex, which seems inappropriate, but makes it all that more exciting. ;)

Dear God,

When one of my parents loses the other to you, please give me the strength not to be evil like LW2's children. Far be it from me to tell you what to do, but I suggest that any attempt at limiting my surviving parent's happiness in finding another life companion should be shot down karmaticly in some fashion.

Thank you kindly!

Stone Thrower

Flawless wrote:

<quoted text>
Eh I disagree with your response to LW1. I say go for it and one day in the middle of work on a slow day when she's feeling kind of frisky go and grab him up and find a closed in office and have him throw her over the desk or maybe a storage room, throwing her up against everything, don't forget to lock the door and be discreet about it.

Hehe. The stories I could tell...