With This Stapler I Thee Wed

How many of you have a work spouse? You know, a member of the opposite sex that you work with, lunch with, and generally spend most of your day with until you go home to your real spouse? They're someone you like and have common interests with and you become dependent on them. And it can get emotional because sometimes you  need someone to save your bacon when you're on a deadline and you know you can always count on that person.

My friend Sam has one of these. I think his voice sounds like Michael Jackson, but I think she's attracted to the way he talks about his family. And let's face it, ladies, family men who are truly dedicated to their wife and kids are some of the hottest guys around. So I can't blame her. And they do work together a lot. Very closely. As in he purposely presses a knee against her leg sometimes. He knows that she knows that he's doing it on purpose but they both pretend that neither one of them knows and will never admit that they know. Because if they knew for real, out loud, it would all have to stop since it would then be something less than innocent.

And work spouses can cause a bit of damage for those who don't treat it as what it is. It's a working relationship. It's not a replacement for the relationship you have in your "real" life and it can't come before your "real" relationship. It happens between work hours and then it stops.

The closest thing I have to a work husband is JZ and we're more like an old married couple than newlyweds.  In fact we bypassed the whole courting stage and went straight to comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that he complains about the way my coffee smells and has no problem throwing an occasional "bitch" my way. But that's probably because I nag him about picking up cupcakes and force him to be a part of projects he really has no interest in. We came dangerously close to a divorce when we went on the same diet. If we were really married, we would have been sleeping in separate rooms and beginning to divide our assets. As it is, we take separate vacations.

If you don't have a work spouse, I highly recommend getting one. At the very least they're entertaining.  You always have someone to sit next to in meetings, they can buy you coffee or lunch, and they can write complicated SQL statements when you need them. If you're lucky they can provide you some innocent flirting. And if you're really lucky, and also not already married or otherwise committed for real, then you don't have to follow any rules at all.